Choice 评论

Locke (Union Institute and University) grabs the reader with an intensity that is personal. His mission, which he tackles in six 20-page essays, is to evaluate "orientalist buddy films" in their historical context. First, he takes on Bataan and other WW II movies to show that military buddies cross (black and white) racial lines. Second, and here his intensity increases, he looks at films in which black soldiers and white soldiers unite against a common oriental enemy--for example, China Gate, Pork Chop Hill, All the Young Men (all done between 1957 and 1960). Third, he considers blaxploitation buddy films in which "black and yellow buddies bond in the face of a racist white villain." Will the common Asian threat in such films as Flash Gordon, Lethal Weapon, and Rising Sun overcome distrust between blacks and whites? The last two chapters (on Blade Runner and The Matrix) are subtle and powerful--as is the brilliant introduction, in which Locke discusses Crash. This book will be easier for less experienced readers to digest than broader historical treatments, for example, Lisa Lowe's Immigrant Acts (1996) and Robert Lee's Orientals (CH, Oct'99, 37-1121). It is 100 percent solid, 0 percent sermonistic. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; general readers. P. H. Stacy emeritus, University of Hartford