Every movie is a product of its time, of course, but usually at least the basic premise is timeless. Romeo and Juliet, for example, can work among the gangs of New York instead of the nobility of Verona, or Macbeth could be set in a pride of cartoon lions instead of Scottish warlords. But there is no earthly way you could make China doll work in the year 2026. The plot is that an American soldier, stationed in China, gets absolutely plastered and unwittingly buys himself the services of a young, Chinese lady for three months. 1 Obviously, he falls in love with her.
One of the obstacles in their relation is the fact that she doesn’t speak English and he doesn’t speak Chinese. Luckily, they have a local missionary2 at hand who speaks both language. And who plays chess. So when our protagonist, captain Brandon, comes to visit him to talk about his wooing woes, he finds him at a desk with a chessboard.
The black pieces are a very hard to make out, but at least the white ones should be as follows:3
Mind you, the positions of the black pieces, ridiculous as they are, are pretty certain. In the olden days, people from well-off families were often sent abroad when their social life became impossible after they got embroiled in some unpardonable scandal, and I can only assume something like that must have happened to this priest. He doesn’t even seem to be repentant.
The priest is highly regarded in his community and is more or less the moral compass of the local military. But now captain Brandon has seen proof positive of his perversions! His good name is on the line! And somehow the captain ends up being exploded in an air raid. Coincidence? I think not!
Realism: 2/5 This makes very little sense. What happened to the pawns? Why did white’s king’s knight make way for the rook and then step back?
Probable winner: White has so much more material he could single-handedly ended the war years earlier.
1. [That’s a duration, to be clear, not a price.] ↩
2. [Every missionary is local, of course, since they have just one maximal ideal.] ↩
3. [You can add your own dolls here.] ↩