Phantom Soldier

In this movie like many other Vietnam war films, Vietnam army is shown as weaker that US army. But everybody know that US lost this war. Vietnam officer tells this to Thi "We fought them and won". But in movie, Vietnamese soldiers can't shoot an American standing exposing his body in a short distance. Entire Vietnamese squad could not kill one American. Can any special force commando expose his body and destroy an entire army camp? This is an insult to Vietnam army who crashed the US forces very cleverly in Vietnam war. An army as shown in this film can be defeated by any person who can operate a gun. No special force training is needed. Apart from this weaknesses, it gives good hand to hand fight scenes. What is the purpose of Lt Steve's stay in the jungle? Was he on an undercover mission and later the connection with US army or CIA was lost? Major Cross states something about such operation and Steve says to a mercenary about his commanding officer is holding a woman and child. What is Thi? Is she working for US? Or did Steve stay in Vietnam to live with Thi? Walker and his bald sidekick are the most villains who kills the members of their platoon too. Movie would be more realistic if the war scenes were presented not making Steve a bulletproof superman. The love of Thi to Steve is very emotionally presented. Rosalind's acting as a woman bearing any pain to protect her man is appreciable.

Oh yeah that's the good stuff 100% pure 80's action movie. It had everything the one man army, a huge body count, Explosions, buckets of blood, slow mo bad guy rag doll death and the Reb Brown yell what more could you want.

This is a true 80's actioner and sadly under appreciated perhaps because this was such a departure for Katt a man best know for the goofy and light hearted Greatest American Hero but he does a great job stepping into the action hero mould. I you love 80's action then you'll love this.

When you think about an ex-American soldier from the Vietnam war raging havoc in that country in the 1980s a la "Rambo", it is very unlikely that the first actor someone would picture in the role would be William Katt. Yet here he is in one of the biggest miscasting decisions I've seen in a movie for a long time. Seeing him act like Rambo does occasionally bring in some amusement, but that's about all the entertainment value "White Ghost" has. Although shot in Zimbabwe(!), the jungle locations are badly chosen, making the movie look like it was shot in the wilds of Florida. These locations and the actors are almost entirely shot with the cheap technique of having everything close to the camera. The action sequences are routine at best, and the story and characters we have seen in dozens of other movies before. If you come across a dusty copy in a thrift store, it's best to leave it alone and move to something else.

Although I haven't seen every Vietnam war-movie in the world yet, this does rank a bit above average, based on pure entertainment-value alone.

I was fortunate enough to find this non-classic movie on a fairly cheap Scandinavian DVD-release, and immediately had to buy it (based on other good experiences with movies starring William Katt, Wayne Crawford and Reb Brown), and when I finally decided to see it - after three years of sitting on the shelf - I wasn't disappointed one bit.

The story is somewhat as follows: When the American soldiers went home from Viet Nam (that's how they spell it) in 1969, not everyone got out in time. The highly skilled soldier Steve Shepard aka "White Ghost" (William Katt) has lived out in the jungle for 15 years, and has even made a nice tree-house for himself and his Asian girlfriend Thi (Rosalind Chao), who is pregnant with his child. After all this time, the Americans discover that he's still out there, and decide to send out a team of mercenaries to finally rescue him and learn what he knows from his stay in the jungle for all those years - he had gathered a large amount of dead American soldier's dog-tags, and now their families will finally know what happened to their missing relatives.

But something goes wrong, and the commanding officer Major Cross (Reb Brown) unfortunately sends off a team led by a grudge-holding scumbag, Captain Walker (Wayne Crawford), who doesn't intend to get Shepard back alive. Now it is up to Cross to get him out of there himself, and up to Shepard to both keep himself and his girlfriend alive, not only from the evil gang of mercenaries, but also from the equally evil Vietnamese soldiers who are right on their tails.

Now, this movie is really fantastic, it keeps your interest from the very first frame, and has enough interesting ideas and scenes to never let up. The violence isn't as extreme like the other reviewers suggested, but sufficient to keep both action- and gore-hounds satisfied. Lots of shooting, explosions, and even a car-chase in the jungle is always nice!

Bonus: One of the bad guys look eerily like Jesse Ventura (as he did in "Predator"), pretty sure his name's Karl Johnson, but not 100% certain. Also, there were many cool boobie-traps in the jungle, just like in "First Blood".

Recommended only for those who either enjoy all sorts of Vietnam war-movies, or just for those who like extreme action-scenes.. which, actually becomes quite humorous, especially when watching it with friends.

My review was written in December 1988 after watching the movie on TWE video cassette.

"White Ghost" is a competently made war film looking at the legacy of the Vietnam War from a fable-like viewpoint of the legendary titular U. S. soldier still over there avenging his comrades 15 years later.

William Katt assumes the Tarzan-type central role, sending a signal back to Washington (in vintage code) while fighting on solo (with spooky white kabuki makeup) in what is now a Vietnam/Cambodia border war. Major Cross (burly Reb Brown) sends in Wayne Crawford and a band of mercenaries to find Katt; wrinkle is that Crawford and Katt previously were at odds when serving together as Green Berets.

Film succeeds in capturing the morbid spirit attending the unresolved conflict, culminating in a Pyrrhic victory here as Katt hands over scores of collected dog tags to Brown in the finale.

Pic was lensed on Zimbabwe locations, ably doubling for Southeast Asia, and has good action footage directed by B. J. Davis, a graduate from the stunt director ranks. Film originally was planned for release by American Distribution Group, but that firm merged with Spectrafilm and pic ended up direct-to-video via TWE.