West of Shanghai

With me it has become a bit of a cliché to say that Boris Karloff is reason enough to see anything, even if the film is not that good(ie. The Invisible Menace). But I do genuinely mean that, he is a very magnetic actor who has the ability to show more than one side to his character in any film and do it well. He is great here as Fang, his accent is not the best but you forgive that immediately when he does sympathetic, humour and threatening with such aplomb with no overdoing or underplaying. His make-up and use of broken English is also very effective and just adds to the performance and character. Ricardo Cortez is appealing and works very well with him, but the rest of the cast do the job solidly enough but with not the command that Karloff shows and with not the perfectly pitched chemistry he and Cortez share(that with Richard Loo's Cheng is good too). It is a good-looking film, and has some funny dialogue exchanges, for example "What are they going to do with him"/"they're going to bury him", that make up for the moments where it does get a little too talky. The story moves crisply and maintains interest with a somewhat movingly dignified ending. I did wish that the length was longer though, 64 minutes does seem too short to me, but the film doesn't rush through or feel like the story is too thin to sustain the duration(the latter being a major problem with The Invisible Menace). To conclude, an enjoyable film and Karloff is great, a longer length, a stronger supporting cast and a little less talk(sometimes that is) would've made it even better perhaps though. 7/10 Bethany Cox