Hatchet Man is a relatively unknown movie, and thanks to its status as that, it caught my attention. Edward G Robinson starred in some of the most well known movies of all time, which is why some of his lesser known films tend to be quickly forgotten. I'll start by saying what makes this movie so unique. Robinson typically has a tough guy persona on screen and usually picks fights with rival gangsters, and this movie definitely does have that, but not in the way that you might expect. The setting is very different from most of his other movies, and his character doesn't really fit him. He plays a chinese character who lives in California and is called upon to avenge the death of one of his friends. He's in for a shock later on when he discovers another one of his friends from childhood is the culprit. When he shows up at his house to kill him, his former friend says how his daughter is destined to grow up to be Robinson's wife someday. By the time she is an adult, Robinson is now a wealthy and influential figure, but Toya (his wife) likes someone else instead, and she and her new partner are deported to China. Robinson then has to follow them and get his wife back. It's a weird movie. They didn't cast any asian actors to play asian characters because they felt none of them would be too well known and thus the movie wouldn't be popular, but it wasn't popular anyway. I just thought it was nice seeing Robinson as a kind of assassin for a change.
Review of The Hatchet Man
