Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The Chairman is a film of its time, it was made when the Sino-Soviet split was just coming to the fore, when even the Russians were getting worried about their ally south of their Asian border. It's not hard to figure out, China is big, but very full, Siberia is big and very empty. Geography even trumps politics and ideology.Back in those days we still were not giving diplomatic recognition to the People's Republic of China. In fact you search the stories about China back in those days and it will inevitably be called Red China. You haven't heard that expression in a couple of decades now. So getting an American scientist for whatever reason in the country, was difficult if not impossible. Remember this was also the days when the godhead figure of their revolution Mao Tse-Tung was doing a little ideological house cleaning with those fired up young people, his Red Guards who were scaring the world back then and with good reason. A Chinese scientist colleague of Gregory Peck's back in the day played by Keye Luke sends a letter to Peck most cryptic as it would have to have passed through censors. That triggers a little sky espionage where it is discovered that the Chinese are growing agricultural produce in places it shouldn't happen. Luke has discovered an enzyme to make it possible and with it the Chinese can get starving third world nations to its side by the droves. It's got the US and the USSR worried.Peck's mission should he accept it is to get the formula for that enzyme out of China, not so easy for an Occidental, but he's the only guy with scientific qualifications for the job. The plot is somewhat similar in this respect to Alfred Hitchcock's Torn Curtain.Oh, and they've got a real joker in the deck. Cold War Air Force general Arthur Hill who is running the show has implanted a listening device in Peck's skull so he can just talk and a spy satellite above China will pick it up and transmit. But they also have it rigged with an explosive device so Peck won't fall in enemy hands. And they don't tell him about that, cute.The Chairman is a good spy thriller with the action going along at a good clip. His race for the Soviet border will keep your adrenalin pumping the way Peck's character had to have been in the film. Best scene in the film is Peck's audience with Chairman Mao played by Conrad Yama. That was considerable license because Mao spoke no English.What I always found fascinating is that when Mao died in 1977 the revolution as he conceived it stopped with him. Today China, no longer called Red China, is your very typical oligarchic country that has restricted freedoms to be sure as the kids who were at Tiannamen Square will testify, but a country playing very typical power politics in the old fashioned way. My God they even have a stock exchange for capitalists. What would those idealistic young Red Guards think along with the man who inspired them?

Location footage in late-1960s Hong Kong highlights this espionage yarn with sci-fi overtones in which scientist Gregory Peck is persuaded to go to China in search of a revolutionary crop additive that can prevent famine. The technological gimmick has Peck outfitted with a tiny radio that allows him to be a mobile human bug and transmit everything he hears to an intelligence arm of the CIA and MI6 based in London. The movie feels like a big-budget version of a "Time Tunnel" episode -- minus the time travel.I've always thought that this film inspired the short-lived NBC series "Search."

When I first saw this movie in 1969 I was very intrigued by it. sending an American Scientist into Communist China to attempt the theft of a valuable enzyme that could help produce enough food to feed the whole world. Of course with the star power of the handsome Gergory Peck that also did not hurt the film. Arthur Hill was his usual efficient low keyed supporting performance, but the love interest was just not there and could have easily been left out of the plot altogether (an unthinkable idea by Hollywood standards.)Seeing the film now it seems as though there is simply not enough plot and it is all too ho-hum. He is always under the scrutiny of a transmitter implanted under the skin in his head, not knowing that there is also an explosive device included. Conrad Yama is a very believable Chairman Mao, but his appearance in the film is limited to one short scene, which does not serve the title. The best part of the movie is another memorable sound score from Jerry Goldsmith, who next to John Williams is one of the most prolific film composers there is.

I am interested in Hollywood movies about China all the time. 55 Days in Beijing, Seven Years in Tibet, Red Corner... I happened to see the Chairman and bought it without any hesitation. But, it turned out to be a complete disappointment not because performance and scenery but true China. In fact, I hate Mao's dictatorship in Red China, however, apparently, American people didn't and could't know much about Red China in 1969. In this movie, the starting music made me believe it was about Japan, what's worse, the Japanese-style-music was all through the movie. And, in 1969, Americans could not find anyone who can speak Mandarine well. What they could find was some Hong Kong-accent guys whose Mandarine made me confused and giggle. When I saw the Chairman, I realized the worst part began. Mao Zedong became much shorter and less-arrogant. He spoke English! Others Mandarine. From the very beginning, I could not find any clues about China Mainland. Everything was falsed too bad. I wondered if you shot the movie without getting a Chinese as a history adviser.