The film: Feisty English missionary Gladys Aylward was once a familiar face in Hong Kong, having opened a mission school in the New Territories, and made front-page news here with her vehement opposition to the filming of her life story in 1958.

Her main concerns seem to have been that Ingrid Bergman was unfit to play her since she bore a child out of wedlock, and that she hadn't been invited to be a consultant on the film. 'She's Fuming and Indignant', 'Tearful Scene At Kai Tak' and 'I Wish Someone Would Help Me says GLADYS AYLWARD' ran a series of headlines during mid-August 1958 in reference to her departure for Taiwan and belated attempts to raise money to take on 20th Century Fox in America. But across the Pacific, three days after that last, sensationally uppercased headline appeared in The China Mail, final editing of The Inn of the Sixth Happiness was concluded.

Aylward is best known for shepherding a group of about 100 Chinese orphans across mountainous terrain to escape the advancing Japanese army in 1938, and despite the communist government's refusal to allow filming in China 20 years later, it was expected that Taiwan, then her home and eventual burial place, might welcome location crews.

Several scenes in the script related to foot-binding reportedly, resulting in refusal, however, and filming eventually began in Britain, with mostly Welsh exteriors, in February 1958.

Authenticity is, in fact, in short supply throughout. Bergman (below, with Richard Wattis) is an accented Swede paying a Londoner, Curt Jurgens is an oddly Teutonic-flavoured Eurasian army officer and Robert Donat - in his last screen performance - struggles as a Chinese mandarin.

Making up for this are 2,000 Chinese bit-part and background players, taken largely from Liverpool's extensive Chinese community.

Look out for a young Tsai Chin as the eldest adopted daughter. A former student of Hong Kong's King George V School and the first Chinese actress to study at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, a year later she would make her name on the West End stage playing the title role in The World of Suzie Wong.

The Inn of the Sixth Happiness is an ambitious film that unfortunately fires on few cylinders. Its subject's poverty-stricken journey from England to China alone would have provided enough material for a whole film, and probably a more entertaining and authentic one.

The extras: Film historian Nick Redman has had a lifelong interest in Aylward (his mother was a fan) and knew some of her friends and acquaintances, and so is the ideal person to anchor a fascinating audio commentary that also features Bergman biographer Donald Spoto and author Aubrey Solomon. The picture quality is good.