Kanonenboot am Yangtse-Kiang

I first saw this (the 182 mins version) in the early 90s.

Revisited it few days back but again the 182 mins version.

Tried very hard to get the 196 roadshow version but to no avail but was lucky to come across all the deleted/roadshow version scenes on YouTube uploaded by BossHossGT500.

McQueen deserved an Oscar for this movie and his anti hero/rebel character is an epitome of a cool rebel.

The movie has some amazing picturesque images.

For a war film, The Sand Pebbles features very little war/action scenes but that shouldn't deter u from watching this classic movie.

The last scene with the dialogue: I was home. What happened? What the hell happened?

The last scene is very poignant, surrealistic n far ahead of its time in terms of the horrors of war.

"The Sand Pebbles" was a throughly enjoyable movie. The setting was exotic and the story engaging. Though it starred Steve McQueen, who did an excellent job, its strength was the ensemble acting with a very talented cast including Richard Crenna, Richard Attenborough, Mako and Candice Bergen. The story was nicely involved and, though it portrayed the sailor's prejudices, did not feel condescending toward the Chinese as many war-type movies do. The men were caught up in the turbulent times and many of the conflicts portrayed seem to come more from troubled psyches. It is not Ramboish macho crap. I found the portrayals of the people and times entertaining. I had read the book so maybe I read more into the movie than others seeing it cold. It was a very good movie and well worth a watch.

Steve McQueen felt an affinity for this role like few others in his career.

In this compelling war drama set in China in 1926, he plays American sailor Jake Holman, a man who's bonded to machinery more than people yet is imbued with a powerful sense of right and wrong. It's a part that plays perfectly to McQueen's strengths as an actor and his lifelong quest to hone performance into character, while jettisoning all but essential dialogue. All his emoting comes subtly: slight shifts of gaze; the way he cocks his head to listen; his complete stillness before action. In 1966 it also brought him his only Academy Award nomination, for Best Actor (but won that year by Paul Scofield for "A Man For All Seasons").

Scripter Robert Anderson had a tough job distilling Richard McKenna's sprawling novel of U.S. Navy gunboat 'San Pablo' (hence her sailors called themselves 'Sand Pebbles') at the start of the revolution that would tear China asunder and ultimately transform it into the post-WWII behemoth we know today. Luckily he and director Robert Wise knew to keep the plot's underpinnings solidly on the central irony of McKenna's story: that it is Jake's very alienation from his fellows that leads him inevitably to sacrifice and redemption. The ending is shocking and powerful; a reminder of better, more mature days in American film.

Wise directed on locations in Hong Kong and Taiwan with his customary mastery of both intense personal confrontation and epic sweep. In excellent support are Richard Attenborough, Richard Crenna and Mako. The film also features one of Jerry Goldsmith's most memorable scores.

I must again mention McKenna's novel. It is superb; sadly, the only full-length work he finished before his untimely death. It may be out of print but is well worth an online used book search.

"The Sand Pebbles" is an epic war movie set during the 1920s in China.

Steve McQueen delivers one of his strongest performances as Jake Holman, the sailor responsible for the engine room of the U.S.S. San Pablo gunboat.

There are uncomfortable scenes in the film. The 1920s were not a time of political correctness and the treatment of the Chinese "coolies" on board the ship, and the bargirls on shore, is shocking.

Richard Attenborough plays the romantic Frenchy Burgoyne, who falls in love with the local bar's new hostess, Maily (Marayat Andriane).

The beautiful soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith is memorable.

8 out of 10.

A long, spectacular, long, good-looking, long, and well-written and long and well-acted production that puts Steve McQueen's usual insubordinate malcontent in the unusual setting of Shanghai in 1926 (and more than twenty years after 'The Purple Heart' provides a nostalgic return to the big screen by Richard Loo as a vengeful oriental).

Based on Richard McKenna's 1962 novel and reminiscent of '55 Days at Peking'. At least director Robert Wise didn't have to leave the production in a wheelchair as Nicholas Ray had on the earlier film. But after such an arduous shoot he was reluctant to be ruthless in the editing room and at over three hours the end result is almost as exhausting to watch as it was to make.

Wise later said the subplot involving Richard Attenborough and Maryat Andriane (recalling that with Red Buttons & Myoshi Umeki in 'Sayonara') was the most expendable component in the film. But it also gives the film it's heart, so fortunately it stayed.