The Hatchet Man

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Audience Member Astounding POS. Utterly impossible to suspend disbelief. Time and place notwithstanding, an enduring example of classic Hollywood racism, let alone execrable dialogue and direction. Eddie Robinson, a NY Jew, playing a Chinese assassin, without discernable makeup! Loretta Young, WASP, playing a Chinese maiden, with cartoon makeup. A mess! Rated 0.5/5 Stars •  Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 01/17/23 Full Review Audience Member Great Eddy G movie! see this Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/23/23 Full Review Audience Member It's a reasonably compelling story of a Chinese gang war in America, but the audience has the major hurdle to overcome of an entirely Anglo cast playing the Chinese characters. Directed by William A. Wellman, the studio reportedly felt audiences had a harder time accepting Anglo lead actors in Asian makeup alongside actual Asian actors, so they instead opted to cast all Anglo actors and put them in makeup. Maybe this worked better in it's day, but Edward G. Robinson and Loretta Young as "inscrutable orientals" is pretty hard to take. Still, it's a fairly gritty pre-code production that includes adultery, narcotics, and a somewhat graphic use of a flying hatchet. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/31/23 Full Review Audience Member Just awful especially coming from a talent like Wellman. Miscasting doesn't even begin to cover the ridiculous sight of Eddie Robinson and Loretta Young as orientals especially against some true Asians in the cast. Robinson although never believable for an instant at least attempts some depth in his characterization but Young is wretched. She's heavily made up but she lets the makeup do whatever acting she even puts forth. She could just as well be at the sock hop as an opium den for all the shading she gives her role. I suppose they were trying for something unusual but if they really wanted to do that they would have cast Sessue Hayakawa an Anna May Wong in the Robinson and Young parts. As it is their complete unsuitability continually distracts from the story. Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 02/27/23 Full Review Audience Member A perfect example of liberal American/Hollywood Orientalist racism (liberal AND conservative/reactionary, since it ultimately, mystically presents the old ways as the solution to the shortcomings of the old ways), and an expression of the contradictions of CAPITALIST society, AMERICAN capitalist society. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/24/23 Full Review Audience Member wrong cover 4 this as that is not the artwork for this pre-code talkie Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/25/23 Full Review Read all reviews

The Hatchet Man

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