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Matt Glasby

This is the latest instalment in a feature series reflecting on instances of East meets West in world cinema, including China-US co-productions.
Released in 1955, Soldier of Fortune may play like a typical melodrama of its era, but its depiction of expat life in Hong Kong has a harsh ring of truth about it.
Directed by Edward Dmytryk (The Caine Mutiny), the film was mostly shot on location, with certain scenes recreated on the 20th Century Fox backlot by necessity.
Its writer, American Ernest Gann, lived in Hong Kong while growing up and always wanted to set a novel there. In 1953, he moved back, hired a junk to live on, and began his research. He adapted his own 1954 novel for the screen.


The plot sees Jane Hoyt (Susan Hayward), a plucky American woman, arriving in Hong Kong on the trail of her missing husband, Louis (Gene Barry). He is a photojournalist who ventured across the border to document life in mainland China, only to find himself taken prisoner on suspicion of being a spy.
After a warning to watch her step from police inspector Merryweather (Michael Rennie), and some unfortunate interactions with the city’s booze-soaked expats, she finds herself at the home of local gangster Hank Lee (Clark Gable).
He falls head over heels in love with her, then follows her to the mainland to save Louis so that they can ask for his blessing for them to be together.
While the logic of this move – especially from an avowed rule-breaker – may baffle some viewers, the movie makes some compensations. There is some beautiful location work to appreciate, particularly an ingenious point-of-view shot that seems to be fixed to the front of the Peak Tram.

Gable huffs and puffs around town with his trademark tough-guy charisma. The supporting cast speak Cantonese and are, for the most part, portrayed with dignity. And there is an early appearance from future star Grace Chang, albeit as a prostitute.
Gable, as the Post reported at the time, “enjoyed every minute of his stay” in Hong Kong and found the local people “charming”. But Hayward, who was in the middle of a divorce, could not take her children abroad and was forced to shoot her scenes in Hollywood instead. Despite the judicious use of a double, the joins are still apparent.
David Niven was originally due to play Merryweather, but he did not want to travel either. Judging by the chancers Jane meets, perhaps it is easy to see why.
The mainland China sequences are less than convincing, relying heavily on fog-shrouded sets and unfortunate Asian caricatures. At one point, Louis’ urbane interrogator (Kam Tong) tells him: “We Chinese are renowned for our patience,” as if auditioning to be a Bond villain.

But then Dmytryk, who had been blacklisted by the US’s House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) for being a one-time Communist Party member, had good reason to paint an unflattering portrait of China. Indeed, it is tempting to imagine that is why he took the project in the first place: in an attempt to clear his name once and for all.
If the romance between Hayward and Gable seems rote, and the action half-hearted, the film comes into its own as an exposé of expat life, with Hong Kong painted as the forgotten outpost of a dying empire.
“This is British territory,” Jane protests. “A few miles of land, yes,” Inspector Merryweather explains. “But just outside, the waters are Chinese and there they do as they please.”
Jane is repeatedly warned of the dangers of being a woman on her own in Hong Kong, and is both patronised and sexualised by the Western men she encounters. “Run along like the little lady you claim to be,” chides awful bar owner Tweedie (Tom Tully).

As a counterpoint to Jane’s proactiveness, we see poor Madame Dupree (Anna Sten) press-ganged into marriage because, she says, “I’m hungry and I’m broke.”
The ceremony, which takes place in Tweedie’s equally awful bar, plays out to the sound of a background fist-fight. A later scene in which a group of drunken servicemen and suits gather around the piano to sing Cole Porter’s “Don’t Fence Me In” is tragic in its irony.
But most pathetic of all is the way Lee, alone in his mansion except for the gaggle of street kids he has adopted, eats boring American food and listens, homesick, to the sounds of Chicago. “You’re just a shell,” Jane tells him. “A lonely, blowhard shell.”
If the film feels, at times, similarly empty, perhaps that is the point Gann was trying to make: that life in a distant colony may sound glamorous, but look closer and, like those street scenes shot on the studio backlot, it is all just an illusion.
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How depiction of Hong Kong expat life in Soldier of Fortune contained some harsh truths

Clark Gable and Susan Hayward in a still from Soldier of Fortune (1955). Directed by Edward Dmytryk, the film was mostly set and shot in Hong Kong and painted a somewhat dim picture of expat life in the city.

Michael Rennie and Grace Chang in a still from Soldier of Fortune (1955).

Kam Tong in a still from Soldier of Fortune (1955).

Clark Gable (left) and Michael Rennie in a still from Soldier of Fortune (1955).

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(From left) Miles Teller, Justin Chon and Skylar Astin in a still from 21 & Over (2013). Photo: John Johnson/Twenty One and Over Productions, Inc.

(From left) Skylar Astin, Justin Chon and Miles Teller in a still from 21 & Over. The original Hollywood version of this frat comedy and the subsequent Chinese cut are both controversial, but for different reasons. Photo: John Johnson/Twenty One and Over Productions, Inc.

(From left) Teller, Chon and Astin in a still from 21 & Over. Photo: John Johnson/Twenty One and Over Productions, Inc.

(From left) Astin, Sarah Wright and Teller in a still from 21 & Over. Photo: John Johnson/Twenty One and Over Productions, Inc.

(From left) Astin, Chon and Teller in a still from 21 & Over. Photo: John Johnson/Twenty One and Over Productions, Inc.

Chon in a still from 21 & Over. Photo: John Johnson/Twenty One and Over Productions, Inc.

(From left) Teller, Astin and Chon in a still from 21 & Over. Photo: John Johnson/Twenty One and Over Productions, Inc.

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Curt Jürgens (centre) in a still from Ferry to Hong Kong (1959).

Curt Jürgens (centre) in a still from Ferry to Hong Kong (1959). The movie, described by one commentator as part Casablanca, part The World of Suzie Wong, co-starred Orson Welles, who caused many issues for James Bond director Lewis Gilbert.

(From left) Orson Welles, Jeremy Spenser and Curt Jürgens in a still from Ferry to Hong Kong.

Sylvia Syms and Curt Jürgens in a still from Ferry to Hong Kong.

Orson Welles (left) and Curt Jürgens in a still from Ferry to Hong Kong.

A still from Ferry to Hong Kong (1959).

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Samantha Morton and Tim Robbins in a still from Code 46.

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Samantha Morton (left) and Tim Robbins in a still from Code 46.

Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton in a still from Code 46.

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John Lone as triad boss Joey Tai in a still from Year of the Dragon.

Rourke and Lone in a still from Year of the Dragon.

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Released in 1955 and starring Clark Gable and Susan Hayward, Soldier of Fortune came into its own as an exposé of expat life in Hong Kong


Released in 1955 and starring Clark Gable and Susan Hayward, Soldier of Fortune came into its own as an exposé of expat life in Hong Kong.


Cinema

Fame and celebrity

Hollywood

Old Hong Kong