There's a Frank Capra festival going on, so I decided to check out an earlier work of his than any I'd seen before. It's also his only non-comedy besides Lost Horizon that I've seen. Historically, it's most significant for advancing Barbara Stanwyck's career, along with Capra's The Miracle Woman in 1931.
Of course, the title and year should tell you something about values herein. In fact, it kept reminding me of Broken Blossoms: A Chinese man played by a white man develops feelings for a white woman, they don't really have my idea of a romance, and it doesn't end well. But unlike the saintly other man, Yen is domineering, cynical, and coldly pragmatic in matters of violence. This contrasts as well with Stanwyck's Megan, a missionary who was about to marry another missionary before the chaos of the Chinese Civil War ushered her into Yen's ostensibly protective clutches. Their irrational on-and-off chemistry has a Beauty and the Beast vibe in a bad sense. I was actually relieved to see that they wouldn't end up together, which would carry the ultimate "Nice guys finish last" message.
Thankfully, the movie is not primarily a love story as I see it. It's a wartime drama with more intrigue than I had anticipated, leaving only so much room for predictability. The best moments tend to involve actual Asian actors.
Racist? Not terribly, tho I understand that depictions of cruelty offended some dignitaries enough that the studio toned it down a bit. We do get some apparently genuine Chinese dialog. I could actually see a similar picture being made today, albeit with a genuinely Chinese lead.
Not that I'd bet on anyone remaking this early talkie. It is a little-known semi-classic at best. But I didn't mind going to the theater for it.
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