The Wife of General Ling (1937)
In this espionage drama, a Secret Service agent must discover who has been smuggling British arms into China. The prime suspect is a prosperous Chinese merchant-philanthropist and the agent thinks the merchant is working with the notorious Chinese guerilla warlord General Ling.
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Reviews
Fantastic!
The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
This film was made at Shepperton studios in the days when the owners were more concerned about churning out quota quickies to keep the studio occupied than in making films of quality.For some reason both British and American film makers seemed obsessed with oriental themes in the 30s.Charlie Chan,Mr Moto,Fu Manchu.In the UK there were the films of Anna May Wong,plus others such as Broken Blossoms and this one.Griffiths Jones plays a secret agent in Hong Kong trying to discover who is the smuggler of guns to General Ling.Like many films of this era oriental parts are played by European actors.The problem is that if you compare this films against its American equivalents eg Shanghai Express and The Bitter Tea Of General Yen the British filmlooks far inferior.This is partly due to the small budgets.In part this film looks as if it had been filmed in a studio the size of a bathroom.To a certain extent the plot of this film was a copy of the plots of the 2 films previously mentioned.Little wonder it is totally forgotten.