The Curse of Quon Gwon: When the Far East Mingles with the West
- 1916
- 35 मि
IMDb रेटिंग
5.5/10
280
आपकी रेटिंग
अपनी भाषा में प्लॉट जोड़ेंThe members of a Chinese family living in the US have a curse put upon them for becoming too "westernized".The members of a Chinese family living in the US have a curse put upon them for becoming too "westernized".The members of a Chinese family living in the US have a curse put upon them for becoming too "westernized".
- निर्देशक
- लेखक
- स्टार
- पुरस्कार
- 1 जीत
कहानी
क्या आपको पता है
- ट्रिवियाThe earliest known film directed by a Chinese-American and one of the earliest films directed by a woman
- कनेक्शनFeatured in Hollywood Chinese (2007)
फीचर्ड रिव्यू
Asian-American and Female Representation
Given the discussion about the treatment of Asian and Asian-American women in the United States after the Atlanta spa shootings on 16 March and since its restoration is included on the Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers Blu-ray set, for which I've already been watching a bunch of films from for Women's History Month, I decided to finally see "The Curse of Quon Gwon," credited as the "earliest example of Chinese-American independent film known to exist today," as well as having been directed by a woman, Marion Wong.
It partially exists, at least, as the 35-minutes fragment we have now is from an original feature-length film that may've been 7 or 8 reels. Today's print--or rather a combination of two 35mm reels marked as the fourth and seventh reels from the original film, plus a few more minutes from a 16mm dupe--is also missing intertitles, and there's some brief considerable decomposition. And this much only was restored and made available from the efforts of Arthur Dong's research for his documentary "Hollywood Chinese" (2007), as in 2004 the descendants of Wong made the discovery of their possession of the film known to him and granted permission for its preservation. Subsequently, it was rightly added to the U. S. National Film Registry in recognition of being "a culturally, historically and aesthetically significant film."
As it is, however, "The Curse of Quon Gwon" largely defies narrative evaluation, what with no surviving intertitles, nor script, and the Pioneers set only providing a contemporary review snippet that doesn't seem to quite match much of anything I saw in the film. From what one may glean from it, though, Wong, as well as writing and directing, stars as the picture's heavy of a scheming relative against the heroine, played by Wong's sister-in-law, as the independent Oakland-area production that reportedly didn't secure distribution was very much a primarily family affair. Anyways, at some point, the heroine, who's husband is apparently now away and they have a child now, is kicked out of her home by the relatives or in-laws and provided a knife--the suggestion being suicide. Eventually, for reasons that aren't quite clear, either, the tables are turned on the baddie and the heroine returns to domestic bliss.
Melodramatic stuff to be sure, but, boy, is this in stark contrast to a lot of the yellow-peril tripe passing for melodrama back then. To represent East-Asian Americans authentically, albeit in dramatic fashion, and not as mere stereotypes in 1917 California was a significant accomplishment in itself. Even a Hollywood star like Sessue Hayakawa had to put up with a lot of offensive typecasting in anti-Asian pictures (the lecherous foreigner in "The Cheat" (1915), or the sneaky and again lecherous foreigner in "The Secret Game" (1917), or the Buddhist bowdlerizing in "The Wrath of the Gods" (1914), e.g.) before earning enough power to exert some control over his films. Worse, when most Hollywood studios turned to Far East material, they tended to employ white actors, which could range from the relatively sensitive if stereotypical Richard Barthelmess in "Broken Blossoms" (1919) to the "Madame Butterfly" outrages of Norma Talmadge's embarrassing performance in "The Forbidden City" (1918), with intertitles spouting junk such as, "Buddah, please send love-man here to give me million sweet kisses." (Why she would even be speaking broken English to herself while in China, beyond the offense of a white actress and writers mocking the Chinese, further baffled me in my review of the film, but I digress.) So, not even to get into the Chinese Exclusion Act in American immigration and wider societal issues of the day, that was the environment in which "The Curse of Quon Gwon" was made. See "Hollywood Chinese" for a wider screen history of the subject.
Aesthetic appraisal of a fragmentary film is nigh impossible, too. Were jumps cuts a technical decision made for the film, a practical necessity of low-budget filmmaking, or a consequence of lost footage--and maybe it's a bit of all that. Nevertheless, it's evident that it was a small independent and rather amateurish production in that interior sets were still clearly filmed in the open-air, what with the windy bedroom set and some distracting light glares. Although the acting is generally relatively restrained and effective, one performer does appear to glance at the camera, as if for direction, at one point. That said, however, there's a nice mirror shot during a hair-brushing scene, a bit of a symbolic dream sequence of being in chains, some more seeming symbolism involving a lamb, and a lovely sunset silhouette composition. If anything, it's surprising how polished such a film is from 1917 and outside of mainstream Hollywood. I find it hard to believe that this would be Wong's only film credit, too, as it's quite visually sophisticated during that period for a first-time filmmaker (to see what I mean check out how awful even technically some of the first films of the most-acclaimed directors of the time were, like D. W. Griffith ("The Adventures of Dollie" (1908)) and Cecil B. DeMille ("The Squaw Man" (1914)). Like much of silent film history, for which most of it has since been lost, "The Curse of Quon Gwon" is just a glimpse into a rich past. We'll never know the whole story.
It partially exists, at least, as the 35-minutes fragment we have now is from an original feature-length film that may've been 7 or 8 reels. Today's print--or rather a combination of two 35mm reels marked as the fourth and seventh reels from the original film, plus a few more minutes from a 16mm dupe--is also missing intertitles, and there's some brief considerable decomposition. And this much only was restored and made available from the efforts of Arthur Dong's research for his documentary "Hollywood Chinese" (2007), as in 2004 the descendants of Wong made the discovery of their possession of the film known to him and granted permission for its preservation. Subsequently, it was rightly added to the U. S. National Film Registry in recognition of being "a culturally, historically and aesthetically significant film."
As it is, however, "The Curse of Quon Gwon" largely defies narrative evaluation, what with no surviving intertitles, nor script, and the Pioneers set only providing a contemporary review snippet that doesn't seem to quite match much of anything I saw in the film. From what one may glean from it, though, Wong, as well as writing and directing, stars as the picture's heavy of a scheming relative against the heroine, played by Wong's sister-in-law, as the independent Oakland-area production that reportedly didn't secure distribution was very much a primarily family affair. Anyways, at some point, the heroine, who's husband is apparently now away and they have a child now, is kicked out of her home by the relatives or in-laws and provided a knife--the suggestion being suicide. Eventually, for reasons that aren't quite clear, either, the tables are turned on the baddie and the heroine returns to domestic bliss.
Melodramatic stuff to be sure, but, boy, is this in stark contrast to a lot of the yellow-peril tripe passing for melodrama back then. To represent East-Asian Americans authentically, albeit in dramatic fashion, and not as mere stereotypes in 1917 California was a significant accomplishment in itself. Even a Hollywood star like Sessue Hayakawa had to put up with a lot of offensive typecasting in anti-Asian pictures (the lecherous foreigner in "The Cheat" (1915), or the sneaky and again lecherous foreigner in "The Secret Game" (1917), or the Buddhist bowdlerizing in "The Wrath of the Gods" (1914), e.g.) before earning enough power to exert some control over his films. Worse, when most Hollywood studios turned to Far East material, they tended to employ white actors, which could range from the relatively sensitive if stereotypical Richard Barthelmess in "Broken Blossoms" (1919) to the "Madame Butterfly" outrages of Norma Talmadge's embarrassing performance in "The Forbidden City" (1918), with intertitles spouting junk such as, "Buddah, please send love-man here to give me million sweet kisses." (Why she would even be speaking broken English to herself while in China, beyond the offense of a white actress and writers mocking the Chinese, further baffled me in my review of the film, but I digress.) So, not even to get into the Chinese Exclusion Act in American immigration and wider societal issues of the day, that was the environment in which "The Curse of Quon Gwon" was made. See "Hollywood Chinese" for a wider screen history of the subject.
Aesthetic appraisal of a fragmentary film is nigh impossible, too. Were jumps cuts a technical decision made for the film, a practical necessity of low-budget filmmaking, or a consequence of lost footage--and maybe it's a bit of all that. Nevertheless, it's evident that it was a small independent and rather amateurish production in that interior sets were still clearly filmed in the open-air, what with the windy bedroom set and some distracting light glares. Although the acting is generally relatively restrained and effective, one performer does appear to glance at the camera, as if for direction, at one point. That said, however, there's a nice mirror shot during a hair-brushing scene, a bit of a symbolic dream sequence of being in chains, some more seeming symbolism involving a lamb, and a lovely sunset silhouette composition. If anything, it's surprising how polished such a film is from 1917 and outside of mainstream Hollywood. I find it hard to believe that this would be Wong's only film credit, too, as it's quite visually sophisticated during that period for a first-time filmmaker (to see what I mean check out how awful even technically some of the first films of the most-acclaimed directors of the time were, like D. W. Griffith ("The Adventures of Dollie" (1908)) and Cecil B. DeMille ("The Squaw Man" (1914)). Like much of silent film history, for which most of it has since been lost, "The Curse of Quon Gwon" is just a glimpse into a rich past. We'll never know the whole story.
उपयोगी•50
- Cineanalyst
- 26 मार्च 2021
टॉप पसंद
वैयक्तिकृत सुझावों के लिए रेट करें और वॉचलिस्ट में साइन इन करें
विवरण
- चलने की अवधि35 मिनट
- रंग
- ध्वनि मिश्रण
इस पेज में योगदान दें
किसी बदलाव का सुझाव दें या अनुपलब्ध कॉन्टेंट जोड़ें
टॉप गैप
What is the streaming release date of The Curse of Quon Gwon: When the Far East Mingles with the West (1916) in Australia?
जवाब