FAQ

Eurasian Doctor Han Suyin (Jennifer Jones), having studied medicine in England, has a staff position at a hospital in Hong Kong during the last years of the Chinese Civil War (1950). There, she meets American correspondent Mark Elliott (William Holden). Although Mark is married, he and Suyin fall in love, which causes both family and friends to pressure them into ending their cross-cultural relationship.

The movie is based on the 1952 novel A Many-Splendoured Thing by Eurasian author Elizabeth Comber (pen name Han Suyin). The book was adapted for the movie by American playwright John Patrick.

Although the book is considered a fictional novel, it is strongly autobiographical in that the life of the author Han Suyin and the life of the main character Han Suyin share many similarities. Both are Eurasian widows and both are medical doctors, both having studied medicine in London and later taking staff positions at hospitals in Hong Kong. Both fall in love with married war correspondents who are killed in Korea. Both raise an adopted daughter. The real Han Suyin went on to marry twice more and passed away in November, 2012.

The term Eurasian comes from European + Asian. It refers to a person whose one parent was Asian, while the other parent was European. In the author's case, her father was Chinese and her mother was Belgian. In the case of the movie's main character, her father was Chinese and her mother was English.

After losing her position at the hospital, Suyin and her adopted daughter go to live with Nora Hung (Soo Yong), while Mark is on an assignment in Korea. They write each other constantly. On the same day that Suyin receives a letter from Mark, Anne Richards (Virginia Gregg) stops by with a newspaper saying that Mark has been killed. Distraught, Suyin climbs the hill to the tree where they said their last goodbyes, half hoping to see him there again. When she realizes that he is truly gone, she falls to her knees sobbing. In the final scene, a butterfly lands on the tree in front of Suyin.

Yes; the TV show was intended as a sort of sequel to the movie. In it, Mia Elliott, who in the story was the daughter of Mark Elliott and Han Suyin (a surprise to fans of the movie, as there was never any hint that Suyin was pregnant), moves to San Francisco to study medicine. The show began in 1967 and at the time was daring and unusual for featuring a lead character who was Asian-American. However, it was felt the romance storyline between Mia and Caucasian man, plus a storyline about abortion, was too controversial for TV at the time. In 1968 the character of Mia was written out of the show, the abortion storyline abruptly dropped, and it was retooled to become a more standard soap opera of the time. Although it had decent ratings, the show suffered from frequent changes in writers (leading to sudden changes in storylines and shifts in the show's focus) and recasting of lead roles. It went off the air in 1973.