I first heard of this silent as evidence that D.W. Griffith was not really a Ku Klux Klan sympathizer, just a storyteller who used whatever structure he found convenient. Coming four years after The Birth of a Nation, it has also gone by The Yellow Man and the Girl. Despite what you'd think, it tries for a positive depiction of a man from China and his feelings for a young white woman (Lillian Gish), while the main villain (Donald Crisp) is a white bigot. Sure, a white actor plays the protagonist, identified only as the Yellow Man, but he's more convincing than some cross-racial actors from much later decades and appears to mean no insult.
That said, there's not much of a romance. I thought I'd remembered reading that they got married, but no, not even close. The only line between them (as far as the intertitles tell us) is "What makes you so good to me, chinky?" Yeah, real sweet. The man shows clearer passion, which the narrator assures us is most "pure and holy." So...chaste? I wonder if Griffith even entertained the idea of letting them be happy together for long. I'd've given him major bonus points for that.
Even at less than 90 minutes, the story feels rather stretched thin. The Yellow Man moves to England, which he thinks could stand to learn the peace of Buddhism. His devotion declines in despair as he falls into a self-indulgent lifestyle (and, as we see later, buys a handgun). Meanwhile, Lucy has been the object of displaced aggression from her adoptive father, boxer Battling Burrows. After a worse beating than usual, she falls in the Yellow Man's doorway, and he takes care of her, knowing little more than her needs and her beauty. You can imagine the conclusion Burrows jumps to....
One of the oldest movies I've ever seen, it can't help but be one of the most dated. Nevertheless, if you want to see one Griffith piece, I recommend it. Most of his other titles are much longer. Intolerance is more popular but more poorly restored in visuals, with intertitles I couldn't read half the time. Way Down East is similarly stretched thin and seemingly less memorable. And I'm not sure the centennial of TBoaN will be enough to get me to check it out at last.
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