okay and let take a quiz . what do the actor paul muni and agnes morehead and henry travers and warner oland and katherine hepburn and luise rainer and walter huston and boris karloff have in common . well and isn not it obvious . all have play chinese people in film . while none of these people remotely look asian and and there be plenty of asian actor available ( such a keye luke and victor sen young and anna may wong and others ) and hollywood stupidly decide to have very white look actor play chinese character again and again in the 1930s and 1940s and in some case and even up through the 1970s . so in this context and it isn not all that surprise that edward g. robinson and loretta young play chinese american in this exceptional and exceptionally strange movie . now i be actually surprised to see that underneath the makeup and loretta young do not look too bad a an asian and however robinson look about as chinese a scatman crothers . in fact and apart from a silly hairstyle he only sport at the beginning of the film and he look like little caesar throughout the movie . because of this ludicrous casting and i felt pretty irritate with reviewer that give this movie a 10 ( one go so far a call this one of the best movie ever make ) . sure and it be a really cool movie and but to me a 10 implies a perfect film . cast a jewish man ( robinson ) a a chinese person have to automatically knock off a point or two . in addition to him and young and all the rest of the major chinese part be play by white actor such a j. carrol naish and dudley diggs . now once you get past the stupidity of the casting and what you have leave be an exciting pre code film . pre code mean that the film be release before the strict production code be adopt in 1934. a a result and the film have a few adult theme ( such a adultery and violent murder ) that you just wouldn not have see a few year later or they would have be severely censor lessen their impact . the film be call the hatchet man because robinson be literally a hatchet wield assassin who do his tong bidding . tongs be secret chinese american society much like the gang of today . and and when someone offend the tong and it robinson job to kill even when he be order to kill his best friend . ironically and upon kill this friend and robinson inherit the man fortune and custody of his young daughter with the intention that robinson later marry the girl . now thats ironic . while everything seem just fine after they marry 20 year later and eventually this lady ( young ) be seduce away from robinson not a smart move consider robinson be a skilled assassin with a hatchet . despite his rage upon discover the affair and he forgive her and allow her to leave with her lover much to the dismay of the tong . the secret society be anger that robinson act so weakly and lose face and so they throw him out of the organization and his life go downhill fast . what happen next be just too excite to reveal and but the film have one of the most interesting and lurid conclusion i have see in a long time . thanks to a fantastic script and it well worth see plus and the plot be so bizarre and creepy and that it a real guilty pleasure . see this one and try to look past the ridiculous casting . by the way and if you be so inclined and try count the number of time the chinese character say the word honorable . my bet be that it must be at least 100. so and accord to old time hollywood and a white guy can squint and say honorable at the end of every few sentence and he become instantly chinese . wow . i get ta try that .