A waste of 90 minutes of my life

A different way of telling a story

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Blistering performances.

China Girl presents a theme prevalent in cheap 80s action movies -- the Chinatown gangs, often with showdowns between the Chinese and the Italians via gang wars. You'll see a lot of this with 80s American martial arts movies, in particular.China Girl also seems to prevent a tone from director Abel Ferrer which becomes much more evident and much more forceful in his 1996 film, The Funeral, which is a sadly underrated movie about the perpetration of gang life through three mafioso brothers. The dismaying realities of gang life are expressed here, though less sophisticatedly through a Romeo and Juliet gangland story. Though entertaining (for the most part, aside from much of the repetition throughout the movie), you cannot help but remain unconvinced about the tale as one viewer has already commented, because of the extreme lack of chemistry between the two main characters. Yes, the sex scene does seem ridiculous.Nonetheless, the story is about a teenage Italian-American boy who refuses to participate in the turf wars with his relatives against the Chinese-Americans in Chinatown. Like Vincent Gallo's character realizes in 'The Funeral,' the young man, Tony, likewise cannot see the logic in the continuous fighting, especially once he has fallen in love with the Chinese gang's sister. Things do tend to get sappy in this movie, and aside from the point about senseless gang violence, there is not much else going on. The writers go slightly overboard in bogging down the audience with this point, that they forgot to put in some filler (unless you're one hundred percent entertained by the fight sequences). It is not a bad movie, and certainly one of the better movies I have seen by Abel Ferrer ('Fear City' in my opinion was his worst, 'The Funeral' was his best). If you're in the mood for 80s action nostalgia, it's a good vice.

ROMEO AND JULIET begat WEST SIDE STORY which begat CHINA GIRL. To say the plot of CHINA GIRL is good is stating the obvious: how are you going to improve on Shakespear? Story old as time there are two young lovers who meet at a party and fall in love while dancing together. They come from feauding families. The boy is Italian and the girl is Chinese in this case. They both have friends and family who are hoodlums. They are continually told to stay in thier own neighborhoods, but of course this leads to them sneaking around to meet. Both leads are attractive but not great actors. The thing that annoyed me about this film was the lack of chemistry. Watch the sex scene. Look at the girls face. She does not even seem to be enjoying herself, let alone in passionate rapture. This is the sort of sex scene usually seen in movies about sad, poor, or even drug hazed people. The storyline needs to capitalize on these two being so in love they cant bare to be apart, and thier lack of chemistry muddles this.

Chinese gangs vs. Italian gangs in NYC in 1987. Tony (Richard Panebianco) and Tye (Sari Chang) meet and fall in love. Meanwhile Tye's brother hates all Italians and Tony's friends hate Chinese. If you've seen "West Side Story" you know how this ends--but a bit more tragically in this movie. Plotwise it's very obvious but it's beautifully done. Filmed with energy, beautifully atmospheric (the sets and lighting are incredible), and full of bursts of ultraviolence. Most of the roles are well acted, especially by James Russo, David Caruso (chewing the scenery) and Russell Wong. As the young lovers Panebianco and Chang are, unfortunately, not that good. In a way it's understandable--he was only 16 when this was made and it's the first role for both. They're both very attractive (Panebianco is pretty buff with a baby face; Chang is delicate and beautiful) but have little to do other than kiss and act like they love each other. That isn't believable either since they have zero sexual chemistry. Still, they are sympathetic characters. Also, in a nice touch, Panebianco shows more skin than Chang in their sex scene.This is really obscure and it doesn't deserve it. It had almost no release in 1987 (there were no stars to sell it) and was never a big hit on cable or video. Also Chang never made another movie and Panebianco disappeared after making a few more films (Whatever happened to him? He showed a lot of promise.). That's too bad--this deserves a bigger audience. Worth watching on cable or renting.

This movie is like a West Side Story without all of the singing and dancing but,with plenty of blood and gore. The best thing about this movie is the fight scenes but some of the excessive violence can be a little off putting. Watchable but nothing special.