"Sao Paulo Gunboat" is a war movie directed by Robert Wise, starring Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough, Sammo Hung, Han Yingjie, Wang Jingchun, Paul Chun, and others. It was released in the United States on December 20, 1966.
The war movie mainly tells the story of an American gunboat sailing to China in 1925.
The protagonist Herman is a seaman on the boat. He likes to work in the engine room on the ground floor. Unexpectedly, after the gunboat was stationed in China, he was forced to jump on the deck to deal with political and cultural pressures from various quarters. The development of the complex situation changed his independent personality. The whole film has the style of an epic movie, a melee of a Chinese galleon is unique and impressive, McQueen also performed his role in the moral dilemma.
In the war movie "The Sand Pebbles", the coolies working on gunboats on the Yangtze River are portrayed from a sympathetic perspective. However, this film still seriously distorted historical facts, wrongly portraying China's social environment as "full of hostility towards Westerners."
In the war movie, while rescuing a Western missionary kidnapped by the local Chinese, the gunboat was also attacked by the Chinese. However, during the 1930s, it was the Japanese — not the Chinese — that attacked Western ships docked on the Yangtze River. Except for the brief Boxer Movement, Westerners were basically not threatened by local Chinese in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China.
"The Sand Pebbles" had a greater impact on the film industry in the 1960s. The whole war movie was shot in the style of an epic movie, and a melee of a Chinese galleon was unique and impressive.
The actor Steve McQueen in the war movie is a retired Navy, he is also a weapon fan, so operating the M1903 Springfield rifle and BAR in the play seems to be easy, showing good professionalism. Other weapons that appeared in the film, such as the Colt M1911, Louis machine gun, coastal defense gun, and Mauser rifle, all promoted the development of the plot at the right time.