It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Brilliant and touching

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

I remember The World Of Suzie Wong but had never seen it. I dug it up because I am planning a 2016 trip to Hong Kong, and that is where this story takes place. I was 14 in 1960, and this movie would have been over my head. William Holden is an American architect who wants to become a painter. He goes to Hong Kong to pursue his dream and gets in with Nancy Kwan as Suzie Wong. She is a prostitute, although we have to read between the lines. I was more interested in the city than I was in the drama that ensued between Holden and Kwan. It comes out toward the end that Suzie has a baby, which ultimately dies in a flood. I felt like the story had to kill off her baby so Holden and Suzie would be free to marry and have one of their own. It was good to see an older man get the girl.

I can well understand Chinese not liking the film, with its picture of Chinese women as little sexual dolls, and the racial superiority of the white HK establishment. But that was the world as it was then. For me it evokes globes where the world is 1/4 red for the British Empire and HK stamps graced by a young and newly crowned Queen Elizabeth. I love its photography of Hong Kong c. 1960. The love story is somewhat contrived and the Suzie character not entirely believable. But the plot moves swiftly along and William Holden is usually fun to watch, and only slightly ridiculous. It's not surprising American males with fond memories of their R&R in the Pacific liked the story; I'm not sure if their wives felt the same way. But I think those that are oh-so-offended have decided they want to be offended, just because a place and a time and a people do not happen to reflect the values they hold most dear.

"The World of Suzie Wong" was the second film in which William Holden plays an American who travels to Hong Kong and falls in love with a local girl; the first was "Love is a Many Splendored Thing" from five years earlier. The differences between the two films perhaps illustrate the way in which society was gradually changing as the fifties gave way to the sixties. In the earlier films the two principal characters, Mark Elliot and Han Suyin, are both middle-class professionals in their thirties. A film telling the story of their romance would therefore have been entirely uncontroversial were it not for the fact that Suyin is of mixed race, something which in 1955 was enough to make the film seem daringly controversial. (To soften the blow somewhat the character was played by a white actress, Jennifer Jones).Here Holden plays Robert Lomax, a middle-aged American architect who gives up his job and moves to Hong Kong in order to pursue his ambition to become a painter. (In Richard Mason's original novel, Lomax was British and considerably younger than the character portrayed here). His love interest is Mee Ling, alias Suzie Wong, a twenty-year-old prostitute from the notorious Wan Chai district. Unlike Han Suyin, Suzie is supposed to be of pure Chinese blood, although a mixed-race actress, Nancy Kwan, was cast in the role. The film deals with the problems posed to their relationship not only by differences in nationality but also by issues not explored in "Love is a Many Splendored Thing", namely differences in age, in social class and (most importantly) outlook.This was Nancy Kwan's first film, and she makes a ravishingly beautiful and tender heroine. (She was only the second choice for the role, the first choice, France Nuyen, having been sacked, allegedly for putting on too much weight). Her inexperience as an actress does tend to show, but this did not prevent her from going on to become the second major Hollywood star of Chinese descent after Anna May Wong. Holden is better here than he was in "Love is a Many Splendored Thing", in which he made a rather uncharismatic hero.The film was of course highly controversial in 1960, and remains so today, although for different reasons. We may no longer raise an eyebrow at films about prostitution or white-man-and-Asian-girl love stories, even if Hollywood prefers to steer clear of some other racial combinations, notably black-man-and-white-girl. "The World of Suzie Wong" has, however, been criticised for allegedly perpetuating the racist stereotype of the meek, submissive Oriental woman.This is not, however, a criticism I would accept. To point out, as this film does, that some women in poor countries- and Hong Kong certainly counted as such in 1960- regard the idea of becoming the wife or mistress of a wealthy foreigner as the best way out of poverty is not a patronising racist stereotype but a regrettable statement of the economic facts of life. (For a time Suzie becomes the mistress of Ben Marlowe, a married British colonial official). Suzie does not act submissively because she is submissive by nature, but because she has been forced into prostitution by economic circumstances and because her clients expect submission from her. Much of the film's psychological drama arises from the efforts of the rather moralistic Lomax to realise this, and Suzie's efforts to realise that he is not just another Ben Marlowe, that he genuinely loves her and that she does not need to put on her submissive act with him. There have been "tart with a heart" films which have taken a much more patronising view of their heroines, but because these heroines have generally been white the films have not been criticised in the same way.The film also gives us an interesting picture of Hong Kong at a key moment in its history. Before and immediately after the war it had been regarded as something of a backwater, and had the Nationalists won the Chinese Civil War it would doubtless have been returned to China much earlier. The Communist seizure of power, however, gave it a much greater strategic and economic importance to the West, and its population was boosted by the stream of refugees from Mao's regime, a stream which by 1960 had become a flood owing to political repression on the mainland and the famines which followed the so-called "Great Leap Forward". In the long run, of course, it was the entrepreneurial skills brought by these refugees which were to be responsible for Hong Kong's transformation into a dynamic, prosperous trading centre, but in the short run they added to the city's problems of poverty and overcrowding, shown in this film by the shanty-town in which Suzie is forced to live.Much of the interest of "The World of Suzie Wong" is today historical, although it is still highly watchable as a moving love story between two people of very different backgrounds. It is more than a "tart with a heart" melodrama. It also has some pertinent points to make about colonialism and sexual exploitation. Although few colonies still remain, what it has to say on the latter subject is perhaps even more pertinent today than it was in the colonial era of fifty years ago. Then only a few colonial officials, businessmen and wealthy travellers could exploit women in this way; today the internet and cheap air travel have placed "sex tourism" and "mail-order brides" within the reach of many more. 7/10

A romance between an American artist and a Chinese prostitute, this show can't be truly appreciated by those unfamaliar with the Chinese cultures/way. Some find the behaviour of Suzie Wong in this show appalling in some scenes, the part where she seems proud that Robert hit her. In those day in the Chinese culture it is portrayed as a sign that the man cares about you, not so with American culture. I love the part where she gave her hard earned money to Robert because his paintings were not making money, his reaction proofed that he did love he, wanting to provide and not be provided for. I gave this show a 9/10 because the only fault i can find with it is the scene where she finds her son dead, i felt that she didn't act like a mother would when she found her son dead. Not enough emotion, William Holden did a fanstastic job as the artist. Charming yet dependable. Overall one of my favourites to date.