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G. Allen Johnson
04-11-2008
Documentary. Starring Joan Chen, Christopher Lee, Nancy Kwan, Ang Lee and Luise Rainer. Directed by Arthur Dong. (Not rated. 90 minutes. At the Kabuki and Grand Lake in Oakland.)
What's amazing about Arthur Dong's "Hollywood Chinese," a chronicle of Chinese Americans in Hollywood beginning in the silent era and culminating in today's success stories, is how much fun it is. Loaded with film clips, celebrity interviews and without an ax to grind, it's a film not just for Chinese Americans but for film lovers in general.
Where else would you find the grind house movie "Wonder Women" (1973), in which Nancy Kwan - yes, Suzy Wong herself - runs an all-girl army, accorded in its own weird way the same respect as "The Joy Luck Club"?
It's a film in which Joan Chen can talk about the colossally bad "Tai-Pan" as easily as she can speak about "The Last Emperor," the best picture Oscar winner that might be Chinese Americans' "Gone With the Wind." Or Luise Rainer, still vibrant well into her 90s, talking matter-of-factly about her yellow-faced Oscar-winning performance in 1937's "The Good Earth" in a role that was supposed to go to Anna May Wong.
It turns out that the first Chinese American film was a silent movie made in Oakland in 1916. "The Curse of Quon Gwon" was directed by Marion Wong and starred her sister, Violet Wong. Recently discovered, it has already been cataloged as a major work by the Library of Congress. (Incidentally, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums has declared Saturday "The Curse of Quon Gwon" day in Oakland to commemorate the film's historical significance.)
Dong also traces the importance of San Francisco's Chinatown in American film history, from the production company formed in the 1930s by Joseph Sunn Jue (sadly, most of those films are lost) to the setting of "Flower Drum Song," the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical that was a breakthrough in mainstream Hollywood Asian casting.
Of course, there is the frustrating phenomenon of yellow face, in which white actors portray Asian characters, most notoriously Charlie Chan - by several actors, most notably Warner Oland. In one sense, Chan is an advancement in that he is an Asian character who is the star, the hero and not the villain, is intelligent and was among the most beloved characters among movie audiences in those times. But he is being played by a white actor.
That Dong was able to persuade Rainer, actor Christopher Lee, who played Fu Manchu in the 1960s, and Turhan Bey, a veteran character actor from the 1940s, to talk honestly about their casting is one of the achievements that elevates "Hollywood Chinese" into rarefied air. Lee even demonstrates how the yellow-face makeup was applied.
"Hollywood Chinese" is a story whose ending has yet to be written. Ang Lee, who is Taiwanese born but U.S. educated, became the first (and only) nonwhite man to win the Oscar for best director ("Brokeback Mountain"). Justin Lin ("Better Luck Tomorrow," "Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift") is an A-list filmmaker. But most Chinese stars in Hollywood are not American-based (Jackie Chan, Jet Li, etc.). The sad fact is, there hasn't been a major home-grown Chinese American star since Kwan, and that was a half century ago.
Advisory: This film contains brief nudity and some mild violence in film clips.
- G. Allen Johnson
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