Review of Noble House

Your reaction to the idea of setting the TV show Dallas in Hong Kong will probably determine what you think of this mini-series. From the very opening credits (which have the visual feel of Dallas, though sadly the music is not as stirring) this is familiar territory. I'll call it a movie below because that was how I saw it, as four sequential episodes with no delay between them.

The good:

• The movie tries really hard to give one a reasonably full feel for the geography and appearance of Hong Kong, while also throwing in some of nearby Asia, and some highlights of recent Hong Kong history.

• The pacing was almost always spot-on. There are two sequences where I feel the pacing is way too slow, both involving special effects. One gets the feeling that the producer felt that, having decided to spend the money of these effects, he had to justify it by keeping them on screen far longer than made sense.

• To go with the pacing, the balancing of characters and subplots worked well. In a movie like this with so many balls in the air, it's a delicate balance to ensure that the viewer does not get confused by too many characters and too many subplots. This movie handled these issues better than many.

The amusing:

• For the most part a lot of money appears to have been spent on the interior and exterior photography, on the costumes, on setting up the shots. Which makes the one special effect sequence toward the end (I won't say more to avoid being a spoiler) all the more glaring and laughable, like something from a homemade YouTube clip.

The bad:

• Just like Dallas, this is a show about business as politics, and not even real politics but gossipy cartoon politics. Business rivalries are driven by personal vendettas, and business problems are solved by charisma, threats, and calling in favors. Nothing of the day-to-day reality of business has any place here. All we learn of the actual business of the Noble House is that somehow ships are involved. There is nothing about one business succeeding compared to another based on their using technology better so as to be able to ship using less oil, or to offload cargo faster, or to better understand the requirements of its customers. There is no place here for operations, R&D, marketing, not even realistic financial engineering and tax planning. This is the world of CEO as charismatic lone genius.

• There is altogether too much reference to "Hong Kong ways" and the mysterious behavior of not just orientals but the European locals (who have all gone native and also practice these mysterious ways). This is a boring trope we see constantly in this sort of entertainment. The Dallas TV show will tell us how business in Dallas is unlike anywhere else, the Moscow movie will tell us how business in Russia is unlike anywhere else, the Johannesburg novel will tell us how business in South Africa is unlike anywhere else. Lazy, stupid, clearly untrue.

• Right alongside some perfectly good acting, the sort of level we expect from expensive US TV productions, there is some laughably bad acting.