Lippert Pictures
Directed by Samuel Fuller
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Criterion Eclipse Series)
Gene Evans is Sgt. Zack, a seemingly indestructible infantry man in the early days of Korea. The opening scene has him playing dead with his hands tied behind his back, the bodies of his fellow soldiers around him. A little boy walks up to him with a gun, then pulls out a knife to free his hands, luckily South Korean. Sgt. Zack and the boy happen upon a platoon of misfits and proceed to a Buddhist temple to set up an observation post. Most of the film takes place here, rather confined and frequently adrift without plot. Fuller constantly throws religious symbols at us, most prominently the large, stoic Buddha statue in the shrine, but really doesn't know what to do with them. In this respect, he is no Ingmar Bergman. He is also interested in racism, a black medic and a Japanese soldier are in the mix, but again does little with them. It's a modest film with ambitions beyond the capabilities of its young director.
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