A three-hour action epic, set in China 50 years ago, that Robert Wise made hard on the heels of the two musicals for which he won Academy Awards, West Side Story and The Sound of Music. As usual with Wise's films, there's no lack of star appeal in the cast. Steve McQueen gives one of his best performances as Jake, a seaman who is a newcomer to the crew of an old gunboat now doing duty on the Yangtze River; and, between the action sequences, the film is unusually plain-spoken on the subject of American imperialism.