Tag Archives: James Clavell

Walk Like a Dragon (1960)

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I don’t know how many of those reading this post know about the actor James Shigeta. Shigeta, a third-generation Japanese American, was one of the first Asian-Americans to really make a mark in Hollywood, playing roles that were different from the (till then) standard supporting characters. I first saw Shigeta in the excellent noir The Crimson Kimono, and then in the delightful (and unusual) Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Flower Drum Song, but this is one film I’ve been wanting to watch for a while. I finally discovered it on YouTube, and so here’s a review.

Walk Like a Dragon is set in the 1870s, in California. Linc Bartlett (Jack Lord) owns a freight line and is headed home to the town of Jericho when he stops en route at San Francisco, to collect a consignment. The old Chinese man from whom he takes the goods asks him for a favour: with him is a young Chinese fellow, newly arrived from China, who needs to go to Jericho. Will Linc take him along? 

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To Sir, With Love (1967)

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RIP, Sidney Poitier.

When I heard the news of Sidney Poitier’s death (on January 6th, 2022), one of the first thoughts that came to me was: what a sad coincidence, that the last English-language film I’d reviewed on this blog was one of his (The Bedford Incident). Then, the realization that, in so many years of blogging, while I’ve watched and/or reviewed several films of Poitier’s (including the wonderful Lilies of the Field, for which he won an Academy Award; The Long Ships; The Defiant Ones), I’ve never seen a few of his most iconic films, such as In The Heat of the Night, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and A Raisin in The Sun.

I will watch those sometime, sooner or later; but for now, to commemorate the life and career of one of my favourite actors, I decided to rewatch a film I haven’t seen in several decades. The film that’s probably the one with which most Indians (at least) associate Poitier, about a school teacher who manages to change the lives of the disturbed and insecure students he has to teach.

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