Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Jemima It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

delriosong This review contains spoilersThis film is a propaganda piece to highlight China's efforts to fight the Japanese. It focuses on a small group of strange companions traveling by bus to Chung King (Chongqing) in Southwest China. Anna May Wong stars as Lin Ying, an agent for the Chinese government travel under the guise of a school inspector. The group arrive at a monastery that serves as a bed a breakfast. While there the driver discovers that someone has stole the distributor from the bus. When a shady passenger who witnessed the act ends up with a knife in his back while no one sees anything is a convenient plot hole.Now it's up to Lin Ying and the Head Monk with assistance from the bus driver to foil the Japanese spy among them save an important convoy coming into the interior of China from Burma.Let's just break this film down by the numbers and let the chips fall where they may: A) Plot -- At least one plot hole too large to ignore -- 3 B) Characters -- Stereotypical portrayals of Chinese and an Arab character, additionally the good guys are brave and bold while the bad guys prove craven in the end -- 3 C) Acting -- Anna May Wong is charming and Nedrick Young as Slim Jenkins, the bus driver seems like a character one might know -- 6 D) Script -- The dialog is just a little too pumped-up with propaganda 1942 style -- 4 E) Direction -- A conventional job -- 5 F) Cinematography -- Many of the faces seem over lit in a number of scenes (My copy is not restored) -- 3 G) Editing -- Conventional but interesting when the agent was revealed to be a coward, used footage from actual combat which is near Ed Wood like in its continuity failure -- 4 H) Production Design -- B reel quality and quantity -- 4 I) Costume Design -- a pretty good effort, convincing -- 6 J) Stunts -- N/A K) Special & Visual Effects -- N/A L) Music -- a good score which helped set and sustain mood very well -- 7 M) Sound -- The sound on my copy was fairly bad with a lot of obvious damage, seems like it would be fine in 1942 or restored -- 5 N) Entertainment Value -- 4 Average 4.500. Call it 5. Pop some corn and enjoy what it offers.This film features combat violence and three total killings and is not rated by the MPPA

bkoganbing Poverty Row PRC produced this film that stars Anna May Wong as a lovely and dedicated Chinese school teacher who joins the Chinese cause to defend her country from Japan's attacks. It's a cheap film, typical PRC, but one of the better products from that studio.Bombs Over Burma has school teacher Wong first witnessing an attack on her village from the air where one of her little pupils is killed. After that she joins the cause and because she's a school teacher and presumably can read and write she gets into intelligence work.Sometime later she's on a bus with a mixed group of international travelers that is forced to spend a night at a monastery. It's there she will ferret out the spy.Don't look down the cast list to spot who might be the slim traitor. If you pick who I think you'll pick you'll be wrong.For a PRC film it's not half bad.

tavm After several years of somewhat reading about this Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong, I finally got to see her in a movie. In this one, she plays a school teacher in the Asian country who becomes a liaison to some supply trucks meant to aid in the battle against the enemy Japanese during World War II. Since this picture is from the poverty row PRC, it's length is a little more than an hour which is just as well since part of the time it seems padded with some scenes of trucks just moving without any dialogue or music to ease the monotony. Still, there is some dramatically compelling moments at the beginning with one of her students having some fun in hearing planes flying-not knowing what their target is-before his tragic ending and near the end when one of the bus passengers is discovered to be a spy who gets his comeuppance. The print I watched was quite fuzzy with a soundtrack that had some surface noise that made it hard to understand some of the dialogue though whoever ran the film at least silenced it when no sounds were supposed to come out on audio. In summary, Bombs Over Burma isn't quite good as a drama but isn't too bad as a mystery, either.

dbborroughs Teacher in a Chinese school goes on the road to uncover axis spies in China. Ending up in a monastery she and her fellow travelers witness the bombing of a convoy of trucks and it becomes clear that someone among them is a spy. Good wartime spy drama suffers from some padding in the driving scenes and an opening sequence of teacher Anna Mae Wong and her students that ends on a bathic note with an air raid with a conclusion that was probably over done when the film was made. Early flaws aside once the film gets on the road and gets to the monastery this is a good little thriller. To be certain its formulaic at times but there are a couple of twists ( for example how the spy gets the messages out for example and the fate of the foul villain) that make this worth your time (especially on a double bill with something else).