...screams a headline at the beginning of the film. Quick! Somebody notify agents Scully and Mulder. No, not THOSE kinds of aliens!
A human-trafficking ring makes an offer a Chinese American San Francisco/Chinatown businessman cannot refuse, except that he does. For that, and for taking the evidence that he already has against the human trafficking ring to the feds, said trafficking ring kills him. His daughter (Anna May Wong), rather bitter about her father's murder not ardently being investigated by the feds he was trying to help, decides to go under cover in the tropics, using the only contact name she has - Hartmann - and ferret out the killers and traffickers herself. She runs into G-man Kim Lee (Philip Ahn) while doing this, and they team up to bring the criminals to justice. Along the way they encounter a very unlikely Mr. Big and an even more unlikely hero who steps in to help them save the day.
This may be one of my favorite B movies of the decade. Wong and Ahn are certainly unusual leads in an American film of the day, and they're both great in their roles. There's a surprising amount of violence, including people being dropped to their death out of a plane, shootings, and brutal beatings. J. Carroll Naish and Anthony Quinn are typecast as two of the bad guys, but I was surprised to see Buster Crabbe, with black hair and a mustache, as a particularly sadistic cohort.
Rather unintentionally funny moment - In the opening scene the two guys piloting a plane full of aliens headed for the United States have been spotted by a government plane, which is after them. The two tough guys are inexplicably wearing matching checkered ascots. Recommended - the movie, not the ascots.
A human-trafficking ring makes an offer a Chinese American San Francisco/Chinatown businessman cannot refuse, except that he does. For that, and for taking the evidence that he already has against the human trafficking ring to the feds, said trafficking ring kills him. His daughter (Anna May Wong), rather bitter about her father's murder not ardently being investigated by the feds he was trying to help, decides to go under cover in the tropics, using the only contact name she has - Hartmann - and ferret out the killers and traffickers herself. She runs into G-man Kim Lee (Philip Ahn) while doing this, and they team up to bring the criminals to justice. Along the way they encounter a very unlikely Mr. Big and an even more unlikely hero who steps in to help them save the day.
This may be one of my favorite B movies of the decade. Wong and Ahn are certainly unusual leads in an American film of the day, and they're both great in their roles. There's a surprising amount of violence, including people being dropped to their death out of a plane, shootings, and brutal beatings. J. Carroll Naish and Anthony Quinn are typecast as two of the bad guys, but I was surprised to see Buster Crabbe, with black hair and a mustache, as a particularly sadistic cohort.
Rather unintentionally funny moment - In the opening scene the two guys piloting a plane full of aliens headed for the United States have been spotted by a government plane, which is after them. The two tough guys are inexplicably wearing matching checkered ascots. Recommended - the movie, not the ascots.