Passport to China (1960) User Reviews (14)

"You look for beautiful girls in Hong Kong"

[hwg1957-102-265704 · 6/10 · 11 October 2021]

A travel agent, called Don Benton, in Hong Kong gets involved with a disputed plane crash and a secret agent in Canton. This is reasonably entertaining though Richard Basehart is unconvincing as Benton but the film does have Burt Kwouk as his Chinese friend Jimmy, Bernard Cribbins as his Portuguese employee Pereira and Eric Pohlmann as the dubious spy Ivono Kong to provide more thespian entertainment. On the distaff side Athene Seyler is suitably maternal as Mao Tai Tai and Lisa Gastoni is fascinating as the agent Lola Sanchez with her head full of dangerous knowledge. It looks good with plausible settings photographed in glowing Technicolour.

It was rather mean for Lola Sanchez to get killed at the end. She was my favourite character.

Visa to Canton

[CinemaSerf · 5/10 · 12 November 2022]

This whole thing just looks like a series of out-takes from a "Fu Manchu" movie - and not a very good one at that! Richard Basehart is the wily travel agent "Benton" who makes a decent living in Hong Kong after the war. When his local brother "Jimmy" (Burt Kwouk) disappears flying his commercial aircraft, he must head up-river to (rather easily) rescue him and is soon embroiled in an intrigue involving the Red Chinese. His protagonist is the unlikely "Ivono Kong" (Eric Pohlmann - who reminded me of "Con-Fu-Shon" from the 1958 version of "Tomb Thumb"). Deciding the answer lies in neighbouring Canton, he avails himself of an offer of a visa from "Kong" and makes the journey where he encounters the brightly made-up "Lola" (Lisa Gastoni) who is scheming to rescue some refugees from the communists. Can they escape? This is standard Hammer fodder that plays to stereotype from start to finish. The dialogue is banal, as is the acting and the scenario and indeed, even by daytime feature standards, this looks like the budget went on the star and positively nowhere else.

Blah

[blanche-2 · 5/10 · 22 December 2023]

What a big fat nothing of a movie.

Richard Basehart plays a travel agent living in Hong Kong. A friend of his has piloted a plane with a courier in it, and the government wants his help in finding the courier; Basehart wants to clear the pilot's name, as the man is like a brother to him.

I really like Richard Basehart but even filmed in color this film had nothing to it except some beautiful location shots. I will say Basehart's relationship with the man's family was lovely.

Eric Pohlmann plays a bad guy, and Athene Seyler does a good job as the matriarch of the pilot's family.

It sort of reminded me of a bad Elvis movie - a travelogue, this time in another country.

One interesting thing - the last part concerns a real event, Massacre of the Sparrows (sounds gross, and it is), which was stopped the year this film was released.

The Mystery of the Missing Formosan Plane

[richardchatten · 3/10 · 9 April 2020]

The loud music by Edwin Astley and Cold War politics makes this resemble a Technicolor episode of 'The Saint'; but instead of Roger Moore we get Richard Basehart wandering nonchalantly about in a sharp sixties suit in front of a succession of travelogue views of Hong Kong before heading back to the studio to concentrate thereafter largely on talk...

The surprise of seeing Athene Seyler billed second is compounded by discovering her speaking pidgin English as Burt Kwouk's grandmother!

Pedestrian spy movie

[gtroup · 6 April 2020]

Visa to Canton (Passport to China) is a routine and below average spy movie. The opening music sequence is reminiscent of the early Bond movies but that is where the similarities end. Richard Basehart is pulled into an adventure to rescue his 'brother' in communist China, who piloted a plane that had crashed. It is not actually a brother but a friend from a Chinese family who is very close to Basehart and helped him during WW2. After bringing his brother back he is then recruited/coerced into returning and tracking down an agent who has valuable scientific information, which is never explained. The plot is quite pedestrian and none too complicated. He encounters a Russian General who is the main antagonist. The Russian has bad make-up seemingly to look part Asian. He is more cartoonish rather than sinister. Anyway, Basehart's mission is only partly and much too easily accomplished. Nothing very interesting or complex in this plot. I watched an HD copy so the cinematography is colorful and interesting.

Lacks suspense but enjoyable

[carol_laidlaw · 6/10 · 7 March 2024]

This film is in the spy-espionage genre but it is wrong to compare it with the James Bond films. It doesn't have the budget, the.gadgets, the suspense, the level of violence and the locations don't wander all round the world. Think more of the Harry Palmer spy films, except that this one is located in Hong Kong not Britain.

The lead character, (played by Richard Basehart), is Don Benton, a former World War II pilot who runs a travel agency in Hong Kong. He has a close relationship with his adopted Chinese family, who hid him from the Japanese during the war. The first scenes portray his travel agency and set him up as a man with wide contacts and somewhat loose scruples. When two customers complain about having difficulty getting a visa to visit the Phillipines he knows exactly who to ask and which official to bribe to get the visas .expedited. He is visited in his office by a US agent called Johnson who clearly wants him to get involved in working for the US government but Benton refuses because he doesn't want to get tangled in politics and orders him out of his office. But another agent later catches up with him and explains that the US government is interested in finding out the whereabouts of several passengers on a plane that crashed in China during a typhoon. Benton's adopted brother Jimmy (played by Bert Kwouk) was the pilot. He survived the crash but is now trapped over the Chinese border. Benton goes looking for Jimmy and brings him back. Jimmy reveals that his plane was decoyed off course over Chinese territory and shot down by two Chinese MiG fighter planes. .Back in Hong Kong the police arrest Jimmy because they believe the plane was intercepted with the connivance of the pilot. Jimmy cannot prove he isn't an agent of the Chinese government because all his identity documents are at the bottom of a river with the wreckage of his plane. Benton then uses one of his contacts to get a visa to Canton so that he can investigate what happened and prove Jimmy's identity.

People who like their spy films with lots of action and suspense are likely to find this one disappointing. There is very little suspense and the plot is largely dialogue-driven but it moves along at a good enough pace to maintain a viewer's interest. Benton's close relationship with his adopted Chinese family adds a warm and pleasing element to the story and the film has a satisfactory ending. It's an average film that is pleasantly watchable.

I always take films in their context and so I'm not generally put off by women (In this film, Benton's sisters) being given limited, stereotyped roles. That was typical of films made in the sixties. And I can put up with white European actors playing Asian characters. But I don't like it when that turns into caricature. The big jarring note in this film is the white actress who plays the Chinese family's matriarch. She is badly miscast. She doesn't look remotely oriental, speaks a cringeworthy version of pidgin English and her acting is more at the level of a pantomime than a film. It's a pity the film makers didn't find a Chinese actress for the role.

An unusual Hammer offering

[bensonmum2 · 3/10 · 26 November 2020]

Don Benton (Richard Basehart) is a former WWII pilot running a travel agency out of Hong Kong. He's approached by a government official about help with locating a downed plane inside mainland China. The plane was carrying an agent with vital secret information. At first Benton doesn't want to help, but changes his mind when he discovers the plane's pilot is an old friend.

Passport to China (lor Visa to Canton) is a different sort of Hammer film. Spy/adventure films aren't what you normally associate with Hammer. Overall, this one goes over about as well as a lead balloon. It's dull, overly talkative, and lacks any sort of real suspense. The mission is handled all too easily and all too casually by Benton. He just sort of waltzes into Canton, shoots a Russian official, and makes his way back to Hong Kong - easy peasy. As with most Hammer films, director Michael Carreras isn't helped by the limited budget. The stagebound sets are distracting. But not as distracting as the non-Asian actors poorly playing Asian roles. Athene Seyler looks downright silly in her Chinese get-up speaking a sort of horrible pigeon English. Finally, there's lead actor Richard Basehart. He's just all wrong form the role. He never comes across as anyone capable of pulling off the mission he's faced with. It's poor casting and a poor performance.

3/10

Is this the worst Hammer film

[malcolmgsw · 2/10 · 4 May 2020]

This film has virtually nothing to commend it.The only plus is the colour photography of Hong Kong 60 years ago.The plot is inconsequential,dull and very talky.With ridiculous casting.Athene Sayer as a Chinese woman and Eric Pohlman as a Russian General.The Chinese extras have to crowd around the small backlot,giving a general cheapskate air to the proceedings.

Leaden Hammer thriller

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 1 August 2020]

VISA TO CANTON is a middling exotic thriller from Hammer Film Productions, directed by Michael Carreras, one of the leading figures behind the studio but a man whose best work was a producer rather than behind the camera. His output here is leaden at best and saddled with a dull leading man in the form of American import Richard Basehart, who travels into Red China in order to track down a missing man. There's some fun to be had with character stars like Burt Kwouk and Bernard Cribbins, but the thrills are in short supply and you never feel truly invested in the plot. Hammer did much better with their next Chinese production, the thrilling pulp adventure of TERROR OF THE TONGS.

Richard Baseheart as the ideal travel agent getting mixed up with the wrong kind of business

[clanciai · 9/10 · 4 November 2023]

Richard Baseheart is always an enjoyable experience on the screen for his intelligence and wit and wonderful diction - you never miss a word he says, and he is always intriguing. Here he is just an ordinary travel agent in Hongkong but very professional and reliable as such, who gets mixed up with the last thing he wants to get mixed up with - politics, as a plane from Taiwan is lost with a few very important passengers, one of them stuffed with vital information for certain political actors in Moscow, and the pilot happens to be an extremely close friend of Baseheart's, like a brother, so he has every reason to do all he can to get his foster brother out of the political clutches - and finds himself down to his neck with political red hot burning issues, in the shape of a beautiful woman. This is actually better than James Bond, and it is a pre-Bond thriller with the stage all set for the coming Bond chronicles. It is all here - the music, the style, the intrigues, the murders, the plots, the red hot spying business, and all you miss is the Bond crooks, who never were convincing anyway. Baseheart is fully convincing, so are all the others, the Chinese, the Russian boss, the Portuguese, all the lovely young women and his wonderful Chinese foster family, with the adorable grandmother crowning the clan - it is actually a wonderful movie, especially if you remember the good old days of China with a free Hongkong and Macao.

Cheap Throwback To The 1930s

[boblipton · 5/10 · 26 November 2023]

Richard Basehart runs a travel agency in Hong Kong. He has deep connections into the Chinesse community dating back to the War, so when pilot Burt Kwouk goes down near Canton, he goes n and gets him out. But Kwouk's papers vanished with the plane, so the police put him into custody, while Basehart heads back to Canton, to find Lisa Gastoni, who wants him to smuggle people out, and Chinese security man Eric Pohlmann, who wants to arrest everyone.

It has a view of China in this period straight out of Terry and the Pirates, but Basehart's calm demeanor and deep voice instill a sense of calm reality on this Hammer film directed by Michael Carreras. It doesn't always make sense, but it keeps moving right along. Wtih Athene Seyler and Bernard Cribbins.

Not the best Hammer film I have ever seen

[searchanddestroy-1 · 29 September 2008]

What a deceit. I expected much more. I know that Hammer film was not specialized in war and adventure movies, but they gave us little gems such as Camp on Blood Island, Terror of the Tongs, Yesterday's Enemy, and so on...And Michael Carreras is a good director - and producer - too. I don't understand why he has done such a flat, uninspired, talkative, dull routine drama about help to the refugee from Red China.

I almost got asleep. Nevertheless, the photography is pretty effective and the 2.35 format restores some brightness to this tepid story. A tale that we have seen a hundred times before. And often far better than this.

Richard Basehart is not enough to save the movie. Sorry...

But you can try it. Who knows...

Hardly James Bond

[HotToastyRag · 2/10 · 27 October 2022]

I sat through Passport to China to support Richard Basehart, but if you're not a fan of his, you should absolutely skip it. It's marketed as his version of James Bond, but it hardly is. Towards the later half of his career, I always feel sorry for him when I watch his theatrical and television movies. He had such a promising start and showed intense dramatic acting chops, but when he made the poor choice of relocating to Italy while he was married to Valentina Cortese, his career took a nosedive and never recovered.

This low-budget thriller shows exotic locales and an appalling lack of modern times. In 1960, Caucasian men were made up with fake eyelids to look like Chinese bad guys. It's ridiculous, and it just makes you feel sorry for everyone involved. To watch this movie, you'd never guess the leading actor could once act.

Passport to Hong Kong - Bond with a Brain

[arthur_tafero · 3 November 2023]

Richard Basehart was always a better actor than Sean Connery, so it only makes sense that a role as a spy played by both actors would be better under Basehart. This film is just as good as any Bond film, without all the bells and whistles, as well as special effects. I have always preferred a good story over those other things. A story based in Hong Kong and Canton in the early 1960s is very intriguing for me, as I worked in China for over a decade. Admittedly, there are a number of cliches and stereeotypes associated with Asian characters in the film (except for Jimmy). However, if one can excuse these shortcomings, you will have an interesting film to view.