Hong Kong Confidential (1958)

Hong Kong never looked so bad, 27 July 2019

The Quick Pitch:  A secret agent stationed in Hong Kong must locate a kidnapped prince.  

If Hong Kong Confidential were an episode of a television program (something like Danger Man for example), I might have rated it higher.  But as a “movie”, it’s really lacking. The direction is flat. There’s nothing here to elevate the movie beyond anything you could find on 1958 TV.  Everything is so obviously filmed on a soundstage. Nothing looks real or authentic. Cheap doesn’t begin to describe it. Throw in poor lighting, a predictable script, and a bombastic, in-your-face narration and the result is a pretty poor movie.

I will, however, give Hong Kong Confidential one big bonus point on the use of Asians in the Asian roles.  I don’t think I noticed one “white” face playing an Asian. That’s not something you usually found in 1958.  

I’ve never been much of a Gene Barry fan and this movie changes none of that.  He just seems out of his depth and unbelievable. And his lounge singer schtick is laugh-out-loud funny.  I can’t imagine an audience anywhere, let alone some bar in Hong Kong, enjoying his brand of bad singing and hysterical dancing.  Too funny!

4/10