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List Price: $14.98Amazon.com's Price: $12.99 You Save: $1.99 (13%)Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
EAN: 0027616073822
Format: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: MGM (Video & DVD)
Region Code: 1
Release Date: April 24, 2007
Running Time: 99 minutes
Sales Rank: 43275
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Theatrical Release Date: December 03, 1958
Editorial Review:
Product Description:
No one could ladle out sentimental schmaltz more effectively-or successfully-than director Frank Borzage. China Doll was the blacklisted Borzage's first film effort in ten years. Victor Mature plays American air force officer Cliff Brandon who while stationed in the orient in WW2 marries his Chinese housekeeper Shu-Jen (Lili Hua). She is subsequently killed in the war whereupon Brandon leaves their baby with strangers before he goes off on a bombing mission. Fifteen years later Brandon returns to China hoping against hope to be reunited with his now-grown-up daughter. Ward Bond costars as cagey missionary Father Cairns while other supporting roles are filled by singer Johnny Desmond Olympic athlete Bob Mathias and up-and-coming leading man Stuart Whitman. After China Doll Frank Borzage directed one more film--The Big Fisherman--before bringing his 45-year movie career to a close.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE UPC: 027616073822 Manufacturer No: M107382
Amazon.com:
Victor Mature's long-suffering, bloodhound visage is the central image in Frank Borzage's wartime romance drama China Doll, a perfect example of what critic Andrew Sarris once referred to as Borzage's films about war as an intrusion on the emotional privacy of lovers. Mature plays Air Force Captain Cliff Brandon, stationed in China and training elite pilots by day during World War II. At night, Brandon becomes a drunken loner shunning the company of his men, Red Cross nurses, and local women who try to sell him comfort. Things change when Brandon, stumbling home from a bar, agrees to buy an old Chinese man's daughter, Shu-Jen (Li Hua Li), for three months, a decision the officer instantly regrets in the cold light of day. Convinced by his sole confidante--a priest (Ward Bond) running an orphanage--that the only honorable way out is to let Shu-Jen fulfill her three-month obligation, Brandon soon finds himself falling for her and re-embracing life. With the world on a collision course with itself, however, Brandon and Shu-Jen's shared destiny departs from the life of mutual salvation and closeness they've earned. Borzage's delicacy with the love story finds echoes in parallel relationships between other characters. In fact, struggling for a clear path to intimacy in the midst of battle seems very much on the minds of everyone in this movie. Action sequences are reasonably crisp, though they’re not designed to thrill so much as devastate viewers. A climactic scene set at an Air Force base under attack by Japanese pilots is one of the most powerful and poignant wartime visions in American cinema. --Tom Keogh
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Very Entertaining Movie
I watched the China Doll movie DVD that I received from Amazon.com and thought it was very entertaining movie. The movie builds up the relationship between Capt. Brandon (Victor Mature) and Shu Jin (Li Li Hua) which leads to their marriage and having a little baby. It is sad at the end as both Shu Jin and Capt. Brandon are both killed, but it was nice to see the daughter 14 years later being met at Los Angeles Airport by Capt. Brandon's old crew. I would recommend this movie to anybody who likes ... Read More
Rating: - as good as it gets
Old school romance. Probably enjoyed more by the over 30 group or pure romantic. Picture quality is A-1. A movie with a romance and war theme.
Rating:  - ........The China-Burma Campaign [ 1941-1945]
This movie [now a DVD] was made in 1958 and it covers the pilots who flew over the Himalayan mountains from Burma-Tibet-China...this movie lacks genuine art/direction for the various tableaus look so flimsy throughout the entire film...every GI was spit-shined and plenty of booze for all hands [is there a war going on??]...Victor Mature is almost in every scene as a hard-bitten Commanding Officer but shows hardly any emotion even when annoyed...the cast around him is second string all the way except ... Read More
Rating: - wartime romance with Victor Mature and Li Li Hua
CHINA DOLL is a finely-pitched wartime drama. Victor Mature plays Capt. Cliff Brandon, a disillusioned airman fighting against the Japanese. One morning he wakes up to discover he has purchased the services of a beautiful Chinese housekeeper, Shu-Jen (played by the celebrated Asian actress Li Li Hua in one of her rare American film appearances).
This is one of the better films produced by Frank Borzage around this period. Just like the similarly-themed "Sayonara" and "The World of Suzie ... Read More
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