The excellent American Movie Classics miniseries gallops onto Blu-ray.
The time is 1898 and five Chinese girls are sold to the smarmy Captain Billy Fender (James Russo) for transport to a brothel. Meanwhile, Tom (Thomas Haden Church) is working as a hand on a ranch when his Uncle Prentice “Print” Ritter (Robert Duvall) rides into the ranch. He’s come to tell Tom that his mother has died and even worse has left the family farm to Print and not Tom.
However, Print has an idea and wants his nephew to be his partner in it. He wants to buy some horses by mortgaging the farm and herd them to Sheridan, Wyoming where Moncrieffe (Duncan Fraser) will pay top dollar for quality horses for the British war efforts. Tom decides to go along with his uncle’s plan and they buy the horses and set out on the trail to Wyoming.
Along the way they stop for a respite and Tom goes into town, but returns with another man names Gilpin (Scott Cooper) who joins them on the trail. Along the way they meet up with the our smarmy Captain, who camps with them overnight. He also drugs the whiskey and takes off with the group’s moneybox and packhorses. He leaves them four of the Chinese girls, I suppose in his way of trade, but Tom sets out to reclaim their property.
Print re-christens the girls One, Two, Three, and Five and they call him “Honkle Pren.” [No. 5 is really called Ging Wa (Valerie Tian), No. 4 is Ye Fung (Olivia Cheng), No. 3 is Sun Fu (Gwendoline Yeo), No. 2 is Mai Ling (Caroline Chan), and No. 1 is Xing Moon (Jadyn Wong).] Tom has caught up to Captain Billy, who took off with girl number Four, and makes him a nice necktie out of one of his best ropes – thoughtful fellow that Tom, Billy was definitely in need of it.
Meanwhile, “Big Ears” Bywater (Chris Mulkey) has just been released from prison and has gone to “Big Rump” Kate’s (Rusty Schwimmer) brothel. She wants him to set off to find Captain Billy who is late in bring her new Chinese girls. Bywater refuses and would rather go to visit his favorite whore Nola (Greta Scacchi). Tom and Gilpin ride into Kate’s town to try and find an authority to take the Chinese girls to safety on Print’s orders.
Instead what they find is a town without a sheriff or any other authority, a pissed off Kate, but they do pick up Lung Hay (Donald Fong) who can translate for them. They barely make it out of town and end up with another passenger in the form of Nola who is on the run from Bywater.
Bywater could really care less until Kate tells him that it was Nola who was responsible for his going to prison, so he sets out to get the Chinese girls for Kate and revenge himself upon Nola. So our group has to get the horses to market and keep ahead of the villainous Bywater.
Broken Trail was produced for American Movie Classics and was I hoped a sign of quality product to start airing on the channel (especially since they started putting commercials into their movies – for movies lovers? Bah!). Sadly nothing new has come along to my knowledge.
However on a second viewing I’m going to have to say that Broken Trails’ quality, like a fine wine, has grown with time. Robert Duvall is excellent as Print and Thomas Haden Church holds his own when paired with him.
The show only looks better in high definition. Along with Lonesome Dove and Open Range this miniseries stands as a high achievement in Dr. Duvall’s western filmography.
Broken Trail is both excellent as a miniseries and as a western. It excels in both departments and stands as one of the best. It’s welcome on high-def and is a fine addition to the format.
Broken Trail [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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