Chino

Chino is the story of the typical loner who doesn't fit into society. Typical Bronson film with an un-typical Bronson ending. Bronson plays Chino who breaks and sells wild horses. After taking a young boy in as a ranch hand things start to get better for Chino. He falls in love with a rancher's sister and things deteriorate from that point. Can recommend this film for Bronson fans.

...with some touching moments. From the title you wouldn't expect much, but I liked this film a lot and wonder why it is almost never aired on TV. Bronson and Van Patten have a great chemistry and their on-screen relationship is very believable. The story is simple, with an interesting beginning and a good, plausible ending. The soundtrack is nice, too.

The only thing I would change in this film is to make it longer, add more scenes so we can get to know the characters in various settings, and delve into the background to the conflict between Chino and his neighbors.

I recommend this film, especially to fans of Charles Bronson. I will definitely watch this film again (finally saw it for the first time, after all these years!).

Some of the best films in which Charles Bronson stared in can said to have been the very best. However, there are a couple which are never off the mark. This is one of them. The movie is called " Chino " and in this reviewer's opinion is like a item of wet clothing, hung out to dry. Charles Bronson plays Chino Valdez a native America who has am isolated ranch in the New Mexico plains. One day a teen age lad named Jamie Wagner (Vincent Van Patten) arrives on his ranch looking for work. Reluctantly, Valdez hires him and set about to teach him the horse trade. At nearly the same time Valdex is smitten by an English woman called Catherine (Jill Ireland) who falls for him. Despite the rest of the town clamoring for Chin to stay away, thing on his ranch never do get off the ground as the Catherine's brother is someone who decides Chino is not the right man for his sister. Despite the Bronson presence and the fact that this is a John Sturges film, it lacks the magic of their combined efforts in other movies. Still, much can be garnered from this offering. In this case, Van Patton does add his youthful presence and conspires to ask the question, why does it end the way it does. This is very unlike Bronson. ***

I watched this movie a few days ago and at the time wasn't overly impressed. However, I find myself still thinking about it and therefore I can't deny it made a lasting impression. This is certainly one of the more unusual westerns you will ever watch and I would add this is definitely one of Bronson's better films. I watched a really bad print of this on VHS and wish I had something better to view this film again. I'm sure I would like it even better second time around.

I think that maybe the real genius in this movie is the way it accurately captured the isolation early pioneers actually encountered in the vastness of the old west. Bronson is a man living alone on a horse ranch and "living" is about it. Unexpectedly he befriends a young drifter and then even more unexpectedly falls in love with a very beautiful woman. Then his life really become complicated. However, all the while, you sort of sense that he expects things to work out wrong because that is just the way life goes for a man like him; someone who learns to mostly just depend on himself and just accept whatever comes as whatever comes. In a way its a sad film...but you have to realize that life out there on the frontier battling the elements, ruthless land barons, and loneliness wasn't exactly a bowl of cherries. The landscape, overcast skies, and the sets do a fabulous job helping create the somber atmosphere that is, in my opinion, the real star of this film. This is a spaghetti western but this time around the various elements of Italian films are brought out in their better light. This is a serious piece of film and worth watching for a number of reasons. It is not an action filled shoot em' up but rather a character study and realistic portrayal of how hard times and hard living were in the tough old west. Nicely photographed too. This movie reminds me of stuff like Will Penny, Tender Mercies, or even Monte Walsh. Not as good as those but pretty close. Yes, there are flaws but its still interesting and unique...and fun to look at I might add.

"Chino" had such potential. It was directed (partially) by the great John Sturges and its star, Charles Bronson, gives a wonderful performance, exuding the kind of quiet masculine strength that no one in Hollywood has these days. Most of the complaints about the film have to do with its atypically downbeat ending. I won't spoil it for you, but I will say that I thought the ending, though viscerally unsatisfying, was intellectually and emotionally appropriate, more along the lines of something you'd read in a novel than see in a pop movie.

But what really goofs the film up is the see-saw realism brought about by being directed by two different men, the ailing Hollywood icon Sturges, and Duilio Coletti, unknown in the states, who may have been even further down the slope of his career in Europe. Formalist Sturges strove for at least the inner-logic of "movie reality." Coletti's work had devolved into the worst of sloppy Eurowesterns.

Parts of the film seem to strive for realism, using natural lighting effects, etc. But as the film progresses, more and more glaring anachronisms pop up, such as perfectly square hay bales, only possible with baling machines. This break with even a third-grader's knowledge of the old west reaches its zenith when a character burns down a house, using a PLASTIC JUG of kerosene. A PLASTIC JUG in the old west! Hard to believe that even a European wouldn't know that there was no plastic in those days. I don't know what the circumstances were behind Sturges either quitting or being fired from the director's chair part-way through the filming of "Chino," but it certainly seems as though the scenes he left missing were shot by Coletti as quickly and with as little thought as possible.

The film is also hobbled a bit by it's international origins. The villian is obviously French while his sister, played by Jill Ireland, is obviously British. Ireland has a brief bit of dialoge explaining this, but it only leaves you scratching your head all the more. Otherwise, "Chino" has many wonderful segments, thoughtful and well-acted.

As a postscript: I wish someone would restore this and other of Bronson's more unusual Euro flicks and make them available on high quality widescreen dvd. The currently available vhs and dvd versions of Chino, Red Sun, Honor Among Theives, Cold Sweat, You Can't Win 'Em All, and etc, all suck bigtime. MGM? Anchor Bay? HELLO?