Oct – Nov 2022 Film Calendar

63

Daughter of the Dragon with King of Chinatown

Sat, Nov 5 | 2pm | TMT

Daughter of the Dragon

After Anna May Wong’s breakthrough romantic role in The Toll of the Sea (1922), Hollywood relegated her to mostly stereotypical villain- ous parts, including the sadistic daughter of the evil Fu Manchu in Daughter of the Dragon . Wong stars opposite silent film idol Sessue Hayakawa, both in their first sound film, with both speaking standard English at a time before Hollywood latched on to the common practice of directing Asian characters to de- liver dialogue in overblown, accented broken English.

DIRECTOR: Lloyd Corrigan.

ADAPTATION BY: Lloyd Corrigan, Monte M. Katterjohn.

DIALOGUE BY: Sidney Buchman.

CAST: Anna May Wong, Warner Oland, Sessue Hayakawa, Bramwell Fletcher.

1931. 79 min. USA. B&W. English. 35mm.

Print courtesy of UCLA Film & Television Archive.

King of Chinatown

Under contract with Paramount, Anna May Wong embarked on a series of films upon which she exercised more input, starting with Daughter of Shanghai (1938), about which Wong declared, “We have the sympathetic parts for a change.” King of Chinatown casts Wong as a prominent Chinese American doctor raising funds for the Red Cross in war-torn China, inspired by the real-life Chinese American physician Dr. Margaret Chung. This fictionalized crime drama features Korean American actor Philip Ahn as Wong’s romantic interest, playing a lawyer out to expose corruption in the underbelly of Chinatown.

DIRECTOR: Nick Grinde.

WRITTEN BY: Lillie Hayward, Irving Reis.

STORY BY: Herbert Biberman.

CAST: Anna May Wong, Akim Tamiroff, Sidney Toler, Philip Ahn.

1939. 60 min. USA. B&W. English. 35mm.

HOLLYWOOD CHINESE

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