When the story begins, China has just fallen to the Communists in 1949. Oddly, although you would THINK all foreign nationals in China would be scared and on their best behaviors so as to not upset the new regime, the westerners in this film are all angry and stupid. After being moved by the new regime to wait at a hotel, they scream at their captors, make threats and pretty much seem like obnoxious idiots. This is odd since it's supposed to be a propagnda picture that is anti-communist. I found myself wanting to see a few of these idiots get shot...and so the film really did not do its intended job! Fortunately, the obnoxious behaviors diminished as the film progressed.
The Chinese communists in this film are almost uniformly stupid, paranoid and evil. One is even apparently not above using extortion to try force one of the prisoners to put out for him. And, though the course of the film, these Chinese become more violent and nasty.
The odd person out in all this is Rita King (Ruth Roman). Unlike the other westerners, she is free to come and go from the hotel...presumably because she's putting out for one of the higher Chinese officials. Because of this, the other internees avoid and dislike her. But through the course of the story, she turns out to have a heart of gold and tries her best to help these prisoners.
If you are looking for realism, this isn't a great film for you. Although the Chinese communists were a bloodthirsty lot, the western folks in the film are almost like cartoon characters and often lack realism. Making threats against your captors...that certainly seems odd and stupidly out of place, for example.
Overall, a rather obvious propaganda film which could have been better had the writing been better. I think the Chinese were portrayed reasonably well...but the rest seemed like caricatures instead of real people.
