This is a bit long (2 hours, 20 minutes) but it had a a lot of the famous Pearl Buck novel in it. In other words, a lot of ground to cover.

It was soap-operish at times but had some visually dramatic moments, too, capped off by a locust attack at the end of the film. That was astounding to view. Considering this film is about 70 years old, the special-effects crew on this film did a spectacular job.

Paul Muni and Luise Rainer were award-winning actors in their day and they don't disappoint here, both giving powerful performances. The only problem is credibility as all the Asians are played by Caucasions and some of them, like Walter Connolly, just don't look real. I'd like to see a re-make of this movie with all-Asian actors, not for PC reasons but to simply make the story look and sound more credible.