Review of High Road to China (1983) by Bill S — 10 Mar 2015

This film had two strikes going against it when it came out, which squashed it's overall star rating, and buried it's legacy at the box offices. You'll notice these strikes mentioned in a lot of these old reviews.

Strike One: It came out a year after Indiana Jones. Not uncommon for Hollywood to come out with a bunch of copycat films all at once, some of which can be better than the original films they're copying. It's just that Raider's was too epic to have a follow-up that wouldn't pale in comparison. Also, because of this, the copycat films didn't really come out in full force until the mid 80's. As a result this film stood there all alone with no hope of comparing to Raiders.

Strike Two: Tom Selleck was offered the role of Indy and turned it down. Can you come up with a juicier bit of fodder for critics? They went to town on that one, as you can read in these old reviews.

What about the film though? It's not bad. They nailed the period setting of exotic locales as far as I'm concerned. The action is good, the performances are good. It captures pretty well The Indiana Jones style of adventure. So, it's not Indiana Jones. Who cares? What's wrong with a good adventure flick that follows the style of a film.

Raiders created a whole genre of adventure films, and yet when you look at the serial adventures it was based on you realize it didn't create them either. This film is the first attempt at continuing with that genre, only when it came out people couldn't see it was following a genre, and treated it like a knock off.

This is a solid 75% adventure film, and should be given another shot by modern viewers who aren't conflicted with the bias this film encountered. Enjoy!