Boris Karloff appeared in a fair bit of yellow face during his career - Fu Manchu, the Mr Wong series, this... He plays a Chinese general who encounters some American oil people in China. This was directed by John Farrow, early in his directorial career and he does a good job - it's full of energy, and solid acting, and nice touches.
It starts off well, with a bunch of potentially interesting characters on a train - an oil dealer (Richard Cortez), a nubile woman, a warlord (Karloff), a general (Validimir Sokoloff),a businessman (Douglas Wood). Sokoliff is assassinated, and everyone hops off at a war torn province.
Then things slow down, with Gordon Oliver as this dull decent oil engineer, and Karloff's assistant hot for white women, a dull missionary, and far too many scenes of people sitting around talking. The one surprise was that you think Oliver is going to get with Sheila Bromley but he falls for a married woman (Cortez's wife) - because Cortez is killed they can go away together. And Bromley doesn't really have much of a purpose in the film.
Karloff's character is very unbelievably attached to Oliver. Okay so Oliver helped save his life ages ago but to then arrange to kill Cortez, kill his lieutenant and go to his death...? It's like, alright, already. Disappointing.
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