To the American reviewer who thought it was a poor western movie, I would agree, it was a poor American Western movie, however, this is NOT the United States.
Firstly, let's get a few facts straight. There was no Chinese opium den IN that settlement that the Mountie showed up at in the beginning. That was a flashback to what got him a year in the stockade. He got drugged up, picked up his gun when the little girl came to tell him about what was going on and shot up a bunch of Chinese bad guys. A year and a bit later, the Northwest Mounted Police dispatch his butt up to the Yukon territories (Part of Canada) to survey the best location for a new police outpost. (They called it a fort to placate the States)
**********************SPOILERS************************
The Mountie managed to figure the whole thing out because he was concerned the people were getting sick. It was a hotbed of crime going on in that small settlement with former miner turned priest to cover all the bad stuff he was doing, running the place.
Then you had a bunch of guys that were trying to take over, hence the need to grow opium to keep them away from what was REALLY going on.
Oh, incidentally, MANY people from Russia, the Ukraine and Latvia settled in Canada and to be blunt, many would prefer the Yukon territories simply because it was a land closer to where they came from. So, not that big a stretch to have Russians and Latvians up there.
Our main character doing a bad Clint Eastwood and the flashback bit about the Chinese being a little too confusing made me take away points from this movie but all in all, a very WELL DONE movie that is more than worth your time to watch. ENJOY!
15 out of 20 found this helpful