1966 · drama · war · epic
The Sand Pebbles
Directed by Robert Wise3h 16m1966
Engineer Jake Holman arrives aboard the gunboat USS San Pablo, assigned to patrol a tributary of the Yangtze in the middle of exploited and revolution-torn 1926 China. His iconoclasm and cynical nature soon clash with the 'rice-bowl' system which runs the ship and the uneasy symbiosis between Chinese and foreigner on the river. Hostility towards the gunboat's presence reaches a climax when the boat must crash through a river-boom and rescue missionaries upriver at China Light Mission.
Our read: The Sand Pebbles (1966) reads as a sombre, steady, grounded drama · war · epic entry — measured in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook.
Sombre, steady, measured drama / war, grounded in texture. Ambivalent, mid-stakes, measured.
- sombre
- intense
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“You want a sweeping 1926 China gunboat epic with Steve McQueen's lonely integrity.”
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