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What Price Honesty?

What Price Honesty?

Representation Score

2.2/10

Limited

1981

Director

Patrick Yuen Ho-Chuen

Runtime

89 minutes

Average Rating

No ratings yet

New Showbiz Analysis

What Price Honesty? is a visceral crime thriller that prioritizes genre clichés over social subversion. The film focuses on the brutal struggle of idealistic police graduates against a corrupt system, leaning heavily into masculine-coded action.

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Category Breakdown

Does What Price Honesty? have LGBTQ+ representation?

Limited

The film does not include any LGBTQ+ characters or narratives that question the assumption that everyone is straight or cisgender. It follows the traditional gender and orientation norms typical of 1981 Hong Kong action cinema.

How does What Price Honesty? portray gender?

Limited

The story centers on male police graduates navigating a struggle against depravity. Female characters do not play a significant role in driving the story or challenging traditional leadership hierarchies.

How racially and ethnically diverse is What Price Honesty??

Fair

The cast is ethnically uniform, reflecting the localized Hong Kong production context. The film does not utilize multicultural casting or metaphors for racial diversity.

How does What Price Honesty? represent religion and culture?

Limited

The narrative explores systemic corruption through a standard moral conflict between idealism and depravity. It functions as a genre-driven crime thriller rather than a critique of broader social institutions.

Does What Price Honesty? include disability representation?

Minimal

There is no mention of characters with visible or invisible disabilities. These themes do not appear to be central to the narrative.

Present on Screen

  • The film provides a localized, culturally specific look at the Hong Kong crime genre during its 'new wave' era.

Limited or Absent

  • The narrative lacks representation that reflects multiple aspects of identity and fails to challenge traditional gender or orientation norms.
  • The cast is ethnically homogeneous, offering little in the way of multicultural or diverse perspectives.

Official Synopsis

Police corruption is the theme of this brutal harbinger of the bleak "new wave" crime thriller. Pai Piao, Danny Lee, and "Venom" Sun Chien star as idealistic police school graduates who run afoul of such vicious, murderous depravity that the cop who is killed first could be considered the lucky one.

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