The film The Hatchet Man is based on an unproduced play written by one Achmed Abdullah and theatrical impresario David Belasco. Belasco had died the previous year and I'm sure Warner Brothers must have bought the right to this play from his estate. The play was entitled The Honorable Mr. Wong and it was an outsiders view of what life was like within the Chinese ghetto on the Pacific coast. It's important to remember that when trying to rationalize the yellow peril attitudes that are in this film.<br /><br />Edward G. Robinson did not look fondly back on The Hatchet Man. I imagine neither did his heavily lacquered co-star Loretta Young. Both look positively ridiculous and neither attempts any kind of Chinese accent. I guess they didn't want to sound ridiculous as well. <br /><br />Robinson is in the ancient an honorable profession of Hatchet Man or more precise he's a Chinese contract killer for the Tongs. He's been given a contract on J. Carrol Naish by one of the Tong heads, Dudley Digges. Though Naish is an old friend and has even made him prime beneficiary in his will which includes his daughter who grows up to be Loretta Young. Naish says do the deed quickly and Robinson does.<br /><br />Fifteen years passed and Young's now married to Robinson, but the Tong Wars are heating up and he's not giving her the attention she needs. Leslie Fenton is around and he's a Chinese gigolo and opium addict.<br /><br />Although the plot takes a few surprise twists in the end it does come out as one might expect. The Honorable Mr. Wong never got produced by David Belasco and I suspect for good reason. The Hatchet Man feeds into all kinds of attitudes prevalent in the day about the Yellow Peril. And it's just not a terribly good or even terribly bad film. Just bad enough.