wishes, Short Round follows Sgt. Zack as he meets up with Corporal
Thompson (James Edwards), an African-American medic whose unit was also
wiped out.

In a foggy jungle (in reality a tiny set
that Fuller tricks the audience into thinking is a sprawling jungle via
tight close-ups and clever frame compositions), they meet up with a
straggling patrol led by the inexperienced Lieutenant Driscoll (Steve
Brodie). Once together, they have their first fire-fight with a small
group of North Korean snipers. It is here that the ingenuity of Fuller’s
technique comes into focus: the fighting is portrayed as a dirty,
terrifying, and intimate affair via close-ups, realistic fighting
(weapons jam, enemies are largely obscured and unseen, and the violence
occurs in occasional spurts interspersed throughout panicked calm), and a
palpable sense of fear.

In creating The Steel Helmet,
Fuller had deliberately wanted toportray an accurate cross-section of
the US Infantry. Therefore the patrol is made up of characters who defy
the traditional war genre stock characters like the ingenue farm-boy and
the tough-talking, cynical Joe Whats-His-Name from Brooklyn. There’s
the war-weary Nisei Sgt. Tanaka (Richard Loo), an ex-conscientious
objector who lugs around his old priest’s hand organ named Private
Bronte (Robert Hutton), a soft-spoken radio operator who lost all of his
hair to Scarlet Fever nicknamed Private Baldy, and a mute pack mule
caretaker known simply as Joe.

Once at the temple, Joe
is killed by a hidden North Korean soldier who is quickly taken
prisoner. Sgt. Zack wants blood, but Lt. Driscoll’s superiors want a
prisoner for interrogation. For the next few hours their prisoner tries
to sow discord among their ranks. He asks Thompson how he can fight for a
racist country