A short excursion into cinema..

The two best known Western films about Hong Kong are probably "Love is a Many-Splendored Thing", set in 1949, and "The World of Suzie Wong", set in the mid-Fifties.

Whilst they both deal with William Holden, falling for Jennifer Jones and then for Nancy Kwan in screenplays adapted from novels by Han Suyin and Richard Mason, respectively, they are quite good in portraying the atmosphere of some parts of Hong Kong society as it probably was then; the first film was pretty much shot around the Repulse Bay Hotel and was set in the better end of Hong Kong society and the second is set in slightly less grand circumstances. Both have excellent views of the city and the topography, and it is for this, rather than for the plot, the characters or the dialogue, that I commend them.

1949-50 (film released 1955) - "Love is a Many-Splendoured Thing"

Here's a compliation clip from "Love is a Many-Splendoured Thing", found on the Internet, with Jennifer Jones fitting into a cheongsam (not something many Western women are advised to attempt!) and two scenes of particular interest to me - a DC4, tactfully given the colours of a nonexistent airline - no product placement in those days - arriving at the old (pre-runway extension) Kai Tak and the characters boarding the ferry FATSHAN for a dirty weekend in Macau - the FATSHAN, owned by the Great and Ancient Hong, was in fact the vessel that brought the curiously overweight Freddie Clemo from Canton (see above):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFsBP1TKfaI

The book, by Han Suyin, is better than the film in establishing a perspective.

1955-56 (fim released 1960) - "The World of Suzie Wong"

And here for comparison is, I think, the whole of "The World of Suzie Wong", just about the first mainstream Hollywood film in which a Chinese role is taken by a Chinese actress, Nancy Kwan, a very well brought up young lady, whose father, Kwan Wing Hong, was a promient architect who had studied at Cambridge:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Kwan

She had attended the Royal Ballet School. She was 19 when shooting began and she does her level best to drop her "cut glass" accent and adopt the diction of a Wanchai bar girl. She fails, rather comprehensively, but charmingly!

At no point in the film does she utter the all important catch phrase, known to generations of "Wanchai Greyhounds",

"I love you no shit! You buy me drink!"

She got into hot water, socially, for playing a prostitute, and never did so again:

http://video.google.co.uk/videosearc...02652037821129

(note that Ocean Terminal is different - it is still Holt's Wharf in this picture - but Kowloon Star Ferry Pier is exactly the same and you can still travel on the Radiant Star!)

http://video.google.co.uk/videosearc...51249968444881

The policeman on point duty should have red tabs on his epaulettes, to show he speaks English. The street market, however, is "spot on"! Mason actually booked into the Luk Kwok Hotel and discovered to his surprise that it was, in effect, a brothel, which gave him the "idea for a story" that he was looking for. The film, tactfully, does not use the old Luk Kwok Hotel, which I remember (it was replaced by a much grander version in 1988)

http://video.google.co.uk/videosearc...67500594454573

http://video.google.co.uk/videosearc...22313696684452

http://video.google.co.uk/videosearc...91332834966110

http://video.google.co.uk/videosearc...76511982526486

http://video.google.co.uk/videosearc...81094321210092

http://video.google.co.uk/videosearc...81094321210092

http://video.google.co.uk/videosearc...30399801734915

http://video.google.co.uk/videosearc...82894277596363

http://video.google.co.uk/videosearc...99007864612875

http://video.google.co.uk/videosearc...30485800698677

http://video.google.co.uk/videosearc...13138188715114

By the way, do read the book; it's somewhat different, but very good. Unlike the film, the book gets the dialogue down to a T - word perfect. Mason must have had an exceptional ear for dialogue. He also wrote one of the first books in which a trans-racial romance does not end in disaster!

I remember that, in 1989 a journalist on the South China Morning Post tracked down Richard Mason, who was living quietly in Rome. This was a minor sensation, as nobody knew what had become of him. He explained that he had written four novels, each of which had been filmed. "The World of Suzie Wong" was the last, and when it became a huge sucess he decided that he had made enough money and stopped work!

Anyway, he certainly did more than his bit for Hong Kong tourism...

1996 - "Comrades, almost a love story"

For a modern Hong Kong romantic comedy with a serious side to it, I'd recommend this one, with Maggie Cheung as the cunning little vixen and Leon Lai as the sweet innocent abroad - it contains a witty and touching reference to William Holden:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comrade...t_a_Love_Story

Here's a clip :

2C+almost+a+love+story&hl=en&view=2&emb=0&qvid=Com rades%2C+almost+a+love+story&vid=30396252591431044 47

You may wonder why the film is subtitled in both English and Chinese.

The reason is that all Hong Kong movies are - the English subtitles were a Government requirement, back in the Fifties, lest films contain dangerous Communist propaganda, and the Chinese subtitles are there because the film may be made in Cantonese/ Guangdonghua (for Hong Kong and Guangdong distribution) or in Mandarin/Putonghua for distribution in Taiwan and Singapore and elsewhere in the mainland. This particular clip is in both, with some English thrown in.