High Road to China

High Road to China (1983)

Runtime: 101 minutes

Directed by: Brian G. Hutton, although he wasn’t the first choice

Starring: Tom Selleck, Bess Armstrong, Jack Weston, Wilford Brimley, Brian Blessed

From: Several production companies, including Golden Harvest

Son: Mom, I want you to rent or purchase Raiders of the Lost Ark!

Mom: But son, we have it at home!

(They have High Road to China at home)

It is not a perfect comparison but this is what Tom Selleck had to do when he wasn’t allowed to be Indiana Jones. By now, many probably know the tale of how Selleck was asked to star in Raiders of the Lost Ark, but wasn’t allowed to because it was such a long production and he had Magnum P.I. Well, later he did have time to star in what was obviously inspired by Raiders, even if I understand this was loosely based on a novel & was in gestation since the late 70’s. In fact, John Huston then Sidney J. Furie were originally to be the director, before leaving and Brian G. Hutton was the man in the chair for this film.

This could have been a real blast, a lot of fun as an adventure. In the 1920’s, rich flapper Bess Armstrong is forced to hire alcoholic ex-World War I ace fighter pilot Tom to find her missing father, else she lose the family fortune. They and Selleck’s pal Jack Weston travel in a pair of biplanes (Bess is a Girl Boss so she can fly like an expert herself) at first to Afghanistan, then several other locations before the final destination of China… note that most of High Road to China was filmed in what is now Croatia. Those two bicker—sadly, too often for my merriment. Their blathering dialogue was irritating instead of charming.

Regrettably, the picture has little in the way of momentum; that’s an issue when there is a time limit for daddy to be found. China just felt so flat and listless despite the expected hate then love of the two leads and the exotic places they visit on this quest. It was nice seeing Wilford Brimley in the final act as the father and Brian Blessed-him as a performer, not necessarily him portraying an Afghan warrior-and the aerial footage was well-realized.

Overall, the movie is “meh” even if not compared to Raiders of the Lost Ark. It was also one of the times that Golden Harvest (one of the producers) tried but failed to break into the United States market. It’s just lame (or even infuriating) too often and only the action beats, the charm of the leads-even if their chemistry isn’t sizzling-and the airplane stuff that earns this even an average rating. Too often it seemed like this was on… autopilot.

What I’ll remember the most: how I tracked down an HD copy of the movie. Sometimes I refer to visiting “the bowels of the Internet” to find a stream via less than ethical means. Via a search for another film, a new site was discovered; yeah, it’s one of those where you better have a good anti-virus program on your computer, but it has at least one obscurity that can’t be found anywhere else. That is where I saw this disappointment.