Philip Ahn
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Philip Ahn (born Pil Lip Ahn (안필립), March 29, 1905 – February 28, 1978) was a Korean American actor. He was the first Korean American film actor to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Ahn's first film was A Scream in the Night in 1935. He appeared in the Bing Crosby film Anything Goes, though director Lewis Milestone had initially rejected him because his English was too good for the part. His first credited roles came in 1936 in The General Died at Dawn and Stowaway, opposite Shirley Temple. He starred opposite Anna May Wong in Daughter of Shanghai (1937) and King of Chinatown (1937).
During World War II, Ahn often played Japanese villains in war films. Mistakenly thought to be Japanese, he received several death threats. He enlisted in the United States Army, having served in the Special Services as an entertainer. He was discharged early because of an injured ankle and returned to making films.
Ahn appeared in Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, Around the World in Eighty Days, Thoroughly Modern Millie and Paradise, Hawaiian Style, with Elvis Presley. He got to play Korean characters in Korean War movies such as Battle Circus (1953) and Battle Hymn (1956). In 1952, Ahn made his television debut on the Schlitz Playhouse, a series he would make three additional appearances on. Ahn would also be cast in four episodes of ABC's Adventures in Paradise, four episodes of the ABC/Warner Brothers crime drama Hawaiian Eye, and the CBS crime drama Hawaii Five-O. He made three appearances each on Crossroads, Bonanza, and M*A*S*H. He would also appear in two television movies.
Ahn's most notable television role was as "Master Kan" on the television series Kung Fu. A Presbyterian, Ahn felt that the Taoist homilies his character quoted did not contradict his own religious faith.
| Known For | Acting |
|---|---|
| Most Rating | 0.118 |
| Birthday | 1905-03-29 |
| Place of Birth | Highland Park, Los Angeles, California, USA |
| Also Known As | Phillip Ahn, Phil Ahn, Philip Ann, Pil Lip Ahn, Pillip Ahn, |
1963
Shock Corridor
7/260
With the help of his girlfriend Cathy and Dr. Fong, a psychiatrist, ambitious journalist Johnny Barrett poses as a madman in order to be admitted to a...
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Shock Corridor
1967
The Karate Killers
4.9/13
International spies Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) and Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) travel around the globe in an effort to track down a secret form...
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The Karate Killers
1948
Women in the Night
3.9/7
During WW2 six allied nations women at Shanghai University are arrested by the Germans accused of killing a German officer and forced to entertain the...
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Women in the Night
1949
Impact
6.1/55
After surviving a murder attempt, an auto magnate goes into hiding so his wife can pay for the crime.
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Impact
1952
Macao
6.2/37
Nick Cochran, an American in exile in Macao, has a chance to restore his name by helping capture an international crime lord. Undercover, can he misle...
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Macao
1939
North of Shanghai
0/0
In this newspaper drama, a female reporter and a newsreel cameraman are both assigned to cover the Sino-Japanese war. They meet on the boat ride over...
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North of Shanghai
1938
Charlie Chan in Honolulu
6.4/21
While Charlie is distracted with the birth of his first grandchild, son Jimmy impersonates his father in order to investigate a murder aboard a freigh...
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Charlie Chan in Honolulu
1936
Stowaway
6.7/24
Chin-Ching gets lost in Shanghai and is befriended by American playboy Tommy Randall. She falls asleep in his car which winds up on a ship headed for...
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Stowaway
1954
Hell's Half Acre
5.4/17
A woman travels to Hawaii to find out if a man in prison there is actually her missing husband.
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Hell's Half Acre
1942
Across the Pacific
6.571/78
Rick Leland makes no secret of the fact he has no loyalty to his home country after he is court-martialed out of the army and boards a Japanese ship f...
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Across the Pacific
1945
Betrayal from the East
5.8/4
A carnival showman tries to keep Japanese spies from sabotaging the Panama Canal.
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Betrayal from the East
1952
Battle Zone
5/3
Two Marine Corps combat photographers compete for the love of a Red Cross nurse during the Korean War. During a secret mission behind the North Korean...
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Battle Zone
1955
The Left Hand of God
6.3/38
A man in priestly robes, seemingly the long-awaited Father O'Shea, arrives at a little-frequented Catholic mission in 1947 China. Though the man seems...
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The Left Hand of God
1951
Halls of Montezuma
5.9/37
Richard Widmark leads an all star cast of marine leathernecks including Jack Palance, Robert Wagner, Karl Malden, Richard Boone and Jack Webb into bat...
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Halls of Montezuma
1955
Jump Into Hell
4/4
Arriving in IndoChina by parachute, Captain Guy Bertrand and his comrades make a courageous stand against the Communist forces. Jump into Hell is one...
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Jump Into Hell
1947
Intrigue
5/3
Dishonorably discharged from the Army Air Corps, Brad Dunham (George Raft) disconsolately decides to try his luck with Shanghai's postwar black market...
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Intrigue
1944
The Keys of the Kingdom
7/48
A young priest, Father Chisholm is sent to China to establish a Catholic parish among the non-Christian Chinese. While his boyhood friend, also a prie...
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The Keys of the Kingdom
1937
Tex Rides with the Boy Scouts
0/0
Tex is after the gang that robbed a train of a gold shipment. He suspects Dorman is the culprit and is hiding their gold at his mine. When Stubby sees...
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Tex Rides with the Boy Scouts
1952
Japanese War Bride
5.5/2
A Korean war vet and his bride face subtle and sometimes extreme racism when they return to his home in rural California.
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Japanese War Bride
1943
The Amazing Mrs. Holliday
6.4/7
A missionary tries to outwit the U.S. government and smuggle Chinese orphans into the country.
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The Amazing Mrs. Holliday
1945
Back to Bataan
6.1/62
An Army colonel leads a guerrilla campaign against the Japanese in the Philippines.
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Back to Bataan
1942
China Girl
5.4/13
Two-fisted newsreel photographer Johnny Williams is stationed in Burma and China in the early stage of WW II. Captured by the Japanese, he escapes fro...
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China Girl
1947
The Chinese Ring
4.9/15
Soon after a Chinese princess comes to the US to buy planes for her people, she is murdered by a poison dart fired by an air rifle.
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The Chinese Ring
1976
The Killer Who Wouldn't Die
0/0
After his wife is killed in a mysterious bomb explosion, a cop leaves the department and starts a charter boat service. When an undercover agent who i...
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The Killer Who Wouldn't Die
1953
Target Hong Kong
5/2
Yankee soldiers-of-fortune smash a spy plot aimed at seizing Hong Kong.
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Target Hong Kong
1937
Thank You, Mr. Moto
6.105/19
Mr. Moto Heads to China on a quest for seven ancient scrolls that reveal the location of Genghis Khan's tomb—a crypt filled with fabulous treasure! Bu...
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Thank You, Mr. Moto
1962
Confessions of an Opium Eater
5.6/19
Vincent Price stars in this early '60s adaptation of Thomas De Quincey's thriller about an opium addict trying to solve a mystery in San Francisco's C...
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Confessions of an Opium Eater
1937
Daughter of Shanghai
5.4/13
A Chinese-American woman tries to expose an illegal alien smuggling ring.
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Daughter of Shanghai
1942
A Yank on the Burma Road
4/1
A celebrated New York cabbie is pressed into service for a perilous journey through World War II China.
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A Yank on the Burma Road
1944
Dragon Seed
6.4/14
The lives of a small Chinese village are turned Upside down when the Japanese invade it. An heroic young Chinese woman leads her fellow villagers in a...
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Dragon Seed
1945
God Is My Co-Pilot
7/7
Robert L. Scott has dreamed his whole life of being a fighter pilot, but when war comes he finds himself flying transport planes over The Hump into Ch...
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God Is My Co-Pilot
1958
Hong Kong Confidential
5.1/4
An undercover U.S. agent searches for an Arab ruler's son kidnapped by communists in Hong Kong.
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Hong Kong Confidential
1943
China
6.8/13
Shortly before Pearl Harbor, American opportunist Jones and partner Johnny are in China to sell oil to the invading Japanese army. Cynical about the s...
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China
1937
China Passage
5.5/3
Americans Tommy Baldwin and Joe Dugan are hired to transport a fabulous diamond from Shanghai to San Francisco. They will be paid handsomely on succes...
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China Passage
1962
A Girl Named Tamiko
5/2
A photographer based in Tokyo, who's in love with local beauty Tamiko, begins to court an embassy official so she can help him gain entry into the Uni...
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A Girl Named Tamiko
1957
The Way to the Gold
0/0
Following his release from prison, an ex-con heads straight for a cache of gold buried somewhere in a small village.
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The Way to the Gold
1966
Paradise, Hawaiian Style
5.1/46
Blacklisted by the major airlines for endlessly chasing female staff, pilot Rick Richards returns to Hawaii to set up a helicopter charter company wit...
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Paradise, Hawaiian Style
1970
The Sex Serum of Dr. Blake
3.7/6
Previously lost exploitation film about a youth serum and the crooks who try to steal it.
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The Sex Serum of Dr. Blake
1954
The Shanghai Story
4.8/9
Shanghai, China. The last expatriate Westerners still living in the city are imprisoned in a hotel by the communist authorities in order to find the s...
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The Shanghai Story
1947
Singapore
5.868/19
After the war, Matt Gordon returns to Singapore to retrieve a fortune in smuggled pearls. Arrived, he reminisces in flashback about his prewar fiancée...
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Singapore
1950
The Big Hangover
6.083/6
A young law school graduate is hired by a prestigious firm, but he neglects to inform them he is allergic to even a single whiff of alcohol.
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The Big Hangover
1938
Red Barry
0/0
A police detective is caught up in a plot to steal two million dollars in bonds.
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Red Barry
1945
Forever Yours
0/0
A young woman who has been stricken with infantile paralysis gives up hope and is trying to "will herself" to die. A doctor who has been conducting ex...
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Forever Yours
1939
Barricade
5/2
In China, a singer and a journalist meet while traveling on a train attacked by bandits.
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Barricade
1939
Panama Patrol
5/1
A U.S. agent attempts to track down a spy ring working to destroy the Panama Canal.
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Panama Patrol
1948
The Creeper
4.5/10
Dr. Morgan and Dr. Cavigny star as a brace of scientists who return from the West Indies with a potent, phosphorescent serum that allegedly changes hu...
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The Creeper
1938
Hawaii Calls
5.4/5
After being nabbed while trying to stow away on board an ocean liner en route to Hawaii, young Bobby Breen sings for his travel fare and, along with s...
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Hawaii Calls
1939
Disputed Passage
5.5/2
A doctor's medical studies are threatened by his infatuation with a Chinese girl. The girl returns to China, but complications ensue when she runs int...
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Disputed Passage
1944
The Purple Heart
6/13
This is the story of the crew of a downed bomber, captured after a run over Tokyo, early in the war. Relates the hardships the men endure while in cap...
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The Purple Heart
1939
King of Chinatown
5.8/6
A Chinese-American surgeon faces a moral dilemma after operating on the mob boss in charge of vice and protection rackets in her city's Chinatown.
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King of Chinatown
1949
The Sickle or the Cross
6/1
Reverend John Burnside, American missionary in the Far East, prepares to return home after twenty years to take up the fight against Communism. The Re...
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The Sickle or the Cross
1972
Kung Fu: The Way of the Tiger, the Sign of the Dragon
7/25
After avenging the death of his teacher, a Shaolin monk flees China to the American West and helps people while being pursued by bounty hunters.
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Kung Fu: The Way of the Tiger, the Sign of the Dragon
1968
Cocoon
0/0
In this pilot film to the "Hawaii Five-0" television series, special law officer Steve McGarrett tracks down Red Chinese operatives and their spy ring...
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Cocoon
1953
Fair Wind to Java
4.9/7
The Dutch East Indies, at the end of the nineteenth century. An adventurous captain of an American merchant vessel is looking for a sunken Dutch vesse...
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Fair Wind to Java
1960
The Great Impostor
6.9/22
Fictionalized account of Ferdinand Waldo Demara Jr., who stole or created fictional identities and worked in a variety of occupations, most quite succ...
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The Great Impostor
1959
Never So Few
5.4/62
A U.S. military troop takes command of a band of Burmese guerillas during World War II.
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Never So Few
1935
Shanghai
7/1
A New York socialite travels to Shanghai to visit her ailing aunt and falls in love with a Russian banker, who harbors a family secret.
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Shanghai
1934
Desirable
7.3/3
A man meets the daughter of his lover and they begin to fall in love.
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Desirable
1941
They Met in Bombay
7.3/17
A jewel thief and a con artist are rivals in the theft of a valuable diamond and gem necklace in Bombay and as the Japanese Army invades China.
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They Met in Bombay
1967
Thoroughly Modern Millie
6.9/89
Millie Dillmount, a fearless young lady fresh from Salina, Kansas, determined to experience Life, sets out to see the world in the rip-roaring Twentie...
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Thoroughly Modern Millie
1962
Diamond Head
5.4/10
Rich Hawaiian pineapple grower and US Senatorial candidate Richard Howland tries to control everything and everyone around him, including his headstro...
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Diamond Head
1940
Drums of Fu Manchu
6.1/5
The nefarious Dr. Fu Manchu searches for the keys to the tomb of Genghis Khan, in order to fulfill a prophecy that will enable him to conquer the worl...
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Drums of Fu Manchu
1936
Klondike Annie
6.4/14
A San Francisco singer flees Chinatown on murder charges and poses as a missionary in Alaska.
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Klondike Annie
1942
The Tuttles of Tahiti
5.5/6
After a long absense from the island, Chester Tuttle returns to Tahiti to find that little has changed. His large family, particularly his scheming Un...
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The Tuttles of Tahiti
1948
The Miracle of the Bells
6.3/13
The body of a young actress is brought to her home town by the man who loved her. He knows that she wanted all the church bells to ring for three days...
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The Miracle of the Bells
1940
The Shadow
6.5/6
The Shadow battles a villain known as The Black Tiger, who has the power to make himself invisible and is trying to take over the world with his death...
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The Shadow
1937
Something to Sing About
6.2/15
James Cagney has a rare chance to show his song-and-dance-man roots in this low-budget tale of a New York bandleader struggling with a Hollywood studi...
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Something to Sing About
1948
Rogues' Regiment
6.5/5
A post World War 2, US Army agent is assigned to join the Foreign Legion in search of high ranking Nazi war criminal who may have also enlisted.
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Rogues' Regiment
1973
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
6.1/48
Jonathan is sick and tired of the boring life in his seagull clan. He rather experiments with new, always more daring flying techniques. Since he does...
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Jonathan Livingston Seagull
1951
Secrets of Monte Carlo
0/0
A U.S. businessman abroad is the patsy for the theft of a rajah's jewels.
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Secrets of Monte Carlo
1944
The Story of Dr. Wassell
6.3/20
As the Japanese sweep through the East Indies during World War II, Dr. Wassell is determined to escape from Java with some crewmen of the cruiser Marb...
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The Story of Dr. Wassell
1973
The World's Greatest Athlete
5.3/28
Stuck with a feeble sports department, college coach Sam Archer (John Amos) faces the ax unless he can reverse the school's athletic fortunes. An Afri...
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The World's Greatest Athlete
1957
Battle Hymn
6.5/20
Dean Hess, who entered the ministry to atone for bombing a German orphanage, decides he’s a failure at preaching. Rejoined to train pilots early in th...
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Battle Hymn
1945
China Sky
5.5/4
During World War II, an American mission hospital is headed up by Dr. Gray Thompson and Dr. Sara Durand. Sara is secretly in love with Gray but hides...
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China Sky
1956
Around the World in Eighty Days
6.649/522
Based on the famous book by Jules Verne the movie follows Phileas Fogg on his journey around the world. Which has to be completed within 80 days, a ve...
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Around the World in Eighty Days
1952
Red Snow
3/1
Lieutenant Johnson, a U. S. Air Force pilot, on the tip of Alaska, a few miles from the Bering Straits from Siberia, helps foil a Soviet plot to test...
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Red Snow
1955
Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing
6/83
A widowed doctor of both Chinese and European descent falls in love with a married American correspondent in Hong Kong during China's Communist revolu...
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Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing
1943
The Adventures of Smilin' Jack
5/2
A movie serial in 12 chapters: The famous comic strip character is on a mission to protect a secret tunnel passage between China and India.
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The Adventures of Smilin' Jack
1942
Submarine Raider
5/6
On December 6, 1941, Captain Yamanada of the Japanese aircraft carrier "Hiranamu", orders full steam ahead for Pearl Harbor. His ship encounters and s...
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Submarine Raider
1949
Boston Blackie's Chinese Venture
5.6/5
Blackie is seen leaving a Chinese laundry where the proprietor has been murdered, and must track down the real killer in Chinatown.
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Boston Blackie's Chinese Venture
1959
Yesterday's Enemy
7.243/37
Set during the Burma Campaign of World War 2, this is the story of courage and endurance of the soldiers struggling at close quarters against the enem...
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Yesterday's Enemy
1937
Roaring Timber
5/1
Jim Sherwood , toughest logging boss in the timber country, takes on his toughest assignment when he agrees to cut an enormous volume of timber for An...
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Roaring Timber
1951
I Was an American Spy
6.2/7
An American nightclub singer in 1940's Singapore becomes a spy for America in an effort to get back at the invading Japanese army. Based on a true sto...
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I Was an American Spy
1948
The Cobra Strikes
5/1
A newspaper reporter investigates the near-fatal shooting of a medical scientist.
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The Cobra Strikes
1936
The General Died at Dawn
6.2/19
China, 1930s, during the ravaging civil war. General Pen entrusts O'Hara, an intrepid American adventurer, with the mission of providing a large sum o...
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The General Died at Dawn
1942
Let's Get Tough
6/4
Rejected by the Army, Marines, and Navy for being too young, the punks help the war effort by throwing fruit at a shop they believe is owned by a Japa...
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Let's Get Tough
1943
Don Winslow of the Coast Guard
0/0
Don Winslow (titular hero of the serial "Don Winslow of the Navy") is reassigned to the United States Coast Guard, to guard the coast against saboteur...
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Don Winslow of the Coast Guard
1943
Around the World
5/2
Bandleader Kay Kyser takes his troupe of nutty musicians, goofball comics and pretty girl singers on a tour around the world to entertain the troops d...
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Around the World
1943
Behind the Rising Sun
5.7/6
A Japanese publisher urges his American-educated son to side with the Axis.
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Behind the Rising Sun
1943
December 7th
5.7/23
"Docudrama" about the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941 and its results, the recovering of the ships, the improving of defense in Hawaii a...
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December 7th
1949
State Department: File 649
5/5
Kenneth Seeley, member of the U. S. State Department's Foreign Service Bureau, and Marge Weldon, a morale worker with the bureau, are assigned to an a...
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State Department: File 649
1945
China's Little Devils
4/1
In this propaganda film, a courageous group of Chinese children risk their lives to assist downed American pilots escape the ruthless Japanese oppress...
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China's Little Devils
1937
The Good Earth
6.3/70
China, during the rule of the Qing Dynasty. The arranged marriage between Wang Lung, a humble farmer, and O-Lan, a domestic slave, will endure the man...
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The Good Earth
1951
China Corsair
5.5/1
A stranded U.S. ship's engineer (Jon Hall) helps a Eurasian beauty (Lisa Ferraday) with coveted antique jade.
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China Corsair
1954
His Majesty O'Keefe
6.1/14
Men steal for it. Nations go to war for it. The it is oil - and it grows on trees. Coconut oil is the precious lifeblood of 1870s South Seas traders....
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His Majesty O'Keefe
1942
Ship Ahoy
5.9/9
Miss Winters is a dancer with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and is asked to secretly transport a prototype magnetic mine to Puerto Rico. She thinks that...
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Ship Ahoy
1961
One-Eyed Jacks
6.7/219
Running from the law after a bank robbery in Mexico, Dad Longworth finds an opportunity to take the stolen gold and leave his partner Rio to be captur...
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One-Eyed Jacks
1935
A Scream in the Night
4.7/7
A colonial police detective in an Eastern seaport seeks a stolen gem, and infiltrates the underworld by posing as a look-alike wharfside bar owner.
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A Scream in the Night
1945
They Were Expendable
6.557/115
After a demonstration of new PT boats, navy brass are still unconvinced of their viability in combat, leaving Lt. "Rusty" Ryan frustrated. After the a...
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They Were Expendable
1953
China Venture
7.5/2
American soldiers undertake a mission to capture a Japanese admiral who has survived an air crash in China during WWII.
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China Venture
1974
Judgment: The Court Martial of the Tiger of Malaya — General Yamashita
0/0
Dramatization of the trial of General Yamashita.
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Judgment: The Court Martial of the Tiger of Malaya — General Yamashita
1939
Island of Lost Men
5.7/7
A Chinese general's daughter tracks her father to a slave-labor tyrant's jungle empire.
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