
The Bitter Tea of General Yen(1932)
An American missionary is gradually seduced by a courtly warlord holding her in Shanghai.


“This is the heroic story of the men on the U.S.S. San Pablo who disturbed the sleeping dragon of savage China as the threatened world watched in breathless terror.”
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.

Steve McQueen
Jake Holman

Richard Attenborough
Frenchy Burgoyne

Richard Crenna
Captain Collins

Candice Bergen
Shirley Eckert

Mako
Po-han

Larry Gates
Jameson

Charles Robinson
Ensign Bordelles

Simon Oakland
Stawski

Ford Rainey
Harris

Joe Turkel
Bronson
The Sand Pebbles is a drama, war film released in 1966 exploring themes of china, missionary, u.s. navy, chinese, battle, gunboat. Directed by Robert Wise, it stars Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough, Richard Crenna. 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.
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