Macao, l’enfer du jeu (1942) - film review

In the late 1930s, an apparently wealthy German, Werner von Krale, is involved in trafficking arms in the Far East.  He agrees to supply a large consignment of arms to a Chinese General, arms which he intends to buy from an important dignitary in the town of Macao, Ying Tchaï.  Unfortunately, Ying Tchaï expects to be paid in advance and von Krale does not have the money.  A woman that von Krale has befriended before his return to Macao tries to help, but fails.  Insulted, Ying Tchaï instructs his thugs to open fire on Krale’s yacht.  Von Krale manages to escape, with Ying Tchaï’s daughter Jasmine, a prisoner on his boat.  Hearing the news, Ying Tchaï agrees to supply von Krale with the arms.  Unbeknown to him, one of his henchmen has arranged for von Krale’s yacht to be sunk by airborne bombers.  When he hears the news, Ying Tchaï is devastated, knowing that his daughter will share von Krale’s fate.

This is the first of Jean Delannoy’s many great film triumphs, and probably his best.  In a film laden with menace and mistrust, he tells a complex story that is both satisfying emotionally and immensely watchable.

The sets offer an impressive reconstruction of the gambling port of Macao, complete with a bustling casino, crowded narrow streets, and Chinese architecture – all drenched in sinister shadows, in and out of which dart shady and unscrupulous villains.

On the acting side, we are afforded some very memorable performances.  Erich von Stroheim is perfectly cast as the luckless gunrunner, a role full of contradiction and ambiguity.  We can never be quite sure whether he rescued the young French woman at the start of the film out of chivalry or simply for him to use later on as a bargaining chip with Ying Tchaï.

The other main character, Ying Tchaï, is similarly a person with an uncertain moral position.  Played brilliantly by Sessue Hayakawa, Ying Tchaï is both the heartless villain that sends his lackeys out to recover, by force, the winnings of those who win too much in his casino, and the doting father who cannot bear to lose his daughter.  As the final shot suggests, it is the hand of fate that is the real villain of the piece, for creating the set of circumstances that leads to such a tragic outcome.

The film was partly re-made in 1942 with Pierre Renoir taking the role played by Erich von Stroheim, a move which was necessitated by the unpopularity of von Stroheim in France at the time of the Nazi Occupation.

© James Travers 1999

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