When Mandarin Wu's unmarried daughter becomes pregnant by a young Englishman, he seeks vengeance.When Mandarin Wu's unmarried daughter becomes pregnant by a young Englishman, he seeks vengeance.When Mandarin Wu's unmarried daughter becomes pregnant by a young Englishman, he seeks vengeance.
- Awards
- 1 win
Gertrude Olmstead
- Hilda Gregory
- (as Gertrude Olmsted)
Tetsu Komai
- Executioner
- (uncredited)
Soo Hoo Sun
- Man at Nang Pings Birth
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaFor the hundred-year-old look, Lon Chaney built up his cheekbones and lips with cotton and collodion. The ends of cigar holders were inserted into his nostrils, and his long fingernails were constructed from strips of painted film stock. He used fish skin to fashion an Oriental cast to his eyes and gray crepe hair was used for the mustache and goatee. The makeup procedures took from four to six hours to apply.
- Alternate versionsIn 2000, Turner Classic Movies presented the television premiere with a music soundtrack composed, produced, edited and mixed by Maria Newman, who also conducted the Viklarbo Chamber Symphony. Its running time is 91 minutes.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Lon Chaney: A Thousand Faces (2000)
Featured review
Tangled up in Wu
No, not a great silent film, but nearly so and still an absorbing and entertaining 90 minutes in which to wallow in yet another great Lon Chaney performance. And with some high MGM production values, I almost wished some of Cedric Gibbons' garden scenes could have been shot in Technicolor, although the b&w nitrate print is pristine and atmospheric.
Simple tale expertly unfolded: Honourable Mandarin Mr. Wu's beautiful daughter Nang Ping falls in love with heavily made up Englishman Ralph Forbes with the usual tragic biological consequences. Worthy of University dissertations is the portrayal of both East and West as hamstrung by racist social customs and conventions, real and fictional. It persists today: some people are simultaneously hamstrung by the fact that miscegenation can be frowned upon in certain backward quarters but paradoxically also that a member of one race can act the part of another on film and stage. Mr. Wu is shown to be the then usual Chinese stereotype with inscrutable savagery masked with a veneer of (Western) inculcated civilisation, but a real Chinese would have had to have played it the same as Chaney: it was merely the custom after all. And the whites were also shown to be usual Western stereotypes in a foreign country with condescension and arrogance mixed with ingenuousness. Anna May Wong is here in another good role as sidekick to the unfortunate heroine, whilst Holmes Herbert had a few patronising scenes and never looked older. The climax to the affair is striking - if remade today I'd expect a somewhat different conclusion to mull over!
All in all well worth watching for enlightened silent melodrama fans.
Simple tale expertly unfolded: Honourable Mandarin Mr. Wu's beautiful daughter Nang Ping falls in love with heavily made up Englishman Ralph Forbes with the usual tragic biological consequences. Worthy of University dissertations is the portrayal of both East and West as hamstrung by racist social customs and conventions, real and fictional. It persists today: some people are simultaneously hamstrung by the fact that miscegenation can be frowned upon in certain backward quarters but paradoxically also that a member of one race can act the part of another on film and stage. Mr. Wu is shown to be the then usual Chinese stereotype with inscrutable savagery masked with a veneer of (Western) inculcated civilisation, but a real Chinese would have had to have played it the same as Chaney: it was merely the custom after all. And the whites were also shown to be usual Western stereotypes in a foreign country with condescension and arrogance mixed with ingenuousness. Anna May Wong is here in another good role as sidekick to the unfortunate heroine, whilst Holmes Herbert had a few patronising scenes and never looked older. The climax to the affair is striking - if remade today I'd expect a somewhat different conclusion to mull over!
All in all well worth watching for enlightened silent melodrama fans.
- Spondonman
- Mar 3, 2007
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Languages
- Also known as
- Sr. Wu
- Filming locations
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $267,000 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 30 minutes
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
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