Das Mädchen von Hongkong (1973)

Frank Boyd flies to Hong Kong to visit his old friend Edward Collins, who has built a lucrative business there and is soon to marry the attractive Meredith Harris. But almost as soon as Frank arrives, he learns that his friend has just been murdered. Collins was shot by a sniper outside the warehouse belonging to transport entrepreneur Delgado in Hong Kong harbor. Shortly before his death, Edward had left a mysterious briefcase with his fiancée, but it is empty. Boyd is determined not to let his friend’s death go unavenged, so he sets out to find Collins’s killer. Meredith’s father has also offered a reward of 10,000 Hong Kong dollars for the culprit’s capture, which Boyd could certainly use. The young Chinese woman Mai Li, whom he had met shortly beforehand, lends him a hand. He had recently helped the girl from Macau out of a tight spot by vouching for her, thereby enabling her to enter Hong Kong. As security, Boyd had to leave his identity card with customs. He can get his ID back only by paying 2,000 Hong Kong dollars. With an advance from Harris, Frank is able to retrieve his passport and begins searching for the killer. Powerful circles in Hong Kong put obstacles in his way. Before long, he runs into the inscrutable Delgado, who is as ruthless as he is brutal. Delgado has already decided to have Boyd eliminated. Meanwhile, Frank visits Edward’s old apartment, hoping to find something that might lead him to the killer. Boyd discovers a packet of heroin there. Three Chinese gangsters, Delgado’s men, who have followed him there, try unsuccessfully to overpower him. They shoot at Frank as he tries to escape across the rooftops of Hong Kong. The Hong Kong police catch him there and take him to Captain Richmond. Boyd hands him the heroin and asks him to check the empty briefcase for traces of heroin as well. At Harris’s house, he confronts the Chinese gardener, who is clearly involved in the disappearance of the briefcase’s contents. The gardener uses a phone booth to inform his employers, while Frank watches him through binoculars. A little later, the gardener is found dead in Mr. Harris’s swimming pool. When Boyd breaks into Delgado’s condemned warehouse to follow another lead, he is caught in a hail of machine-gun fire from his Chinese adversaries. He barely manages to escape. During a phone call, Delgado advises him to leave Hong Kong immediately. He also threatens to harm “a lady in your circle of acquaintances” if Boyd stays. Boyd does go to the airport and pretends he is leaving. Delgado watches him. But Frank secretly returns to Hong Kong. At the market, he meets Mai Li again, and she agrees to help him. Delgado has meanwhile discovered that Boyd has secretly returned to Hong Kong, so he has Mai Li abducted from the market where she works. His men try to beat Boyd’s whereabouts out of her, but Boyd rescues her from Delgado’s captivity. He then sneaks aboard a junk that regularly carries coffins to the Hong Kong cemetery. Boyd discovers that the junk is being used to smuggle drugs. Before he is discovered, he jumps into the water. He then returns to Mr. Harris’s villa. Boyd tells Edward’s widow that her husband had been involved in large-scale drug trafficking. The coffin junks were used to transport heroin. Suddenly, Harris appears, followed by Delgado. Delgado pulls a gun and takes Catherine hostage. He then admits that he ordered Collins’s murder. Using a rigged lighter that is actually a gun, Meredith shoots Delgado in the face, and he falls dead. Frank Boyd confronts Mr. Harris with the results of his investigation. Then comes a major surprise: Harris himself is the head of the drug trade, and Delgado was merely his henchman. Captain Richmond finally arrives and arrests Harris. Meanwhile, Mai Li, who is waiting in the hideout for Frank to return, is murdered in an ambush by the same killer who was responsible for Edward Collins’s death. Boyd is told that Mai Li, the girl from Hong Kong, has “gone home.”