Les Fils du dragon

Dragonseed is a whole lot like that other far better film of a Pearl Buck novel, The Good Earth. Since both came from the MGM studio the two films have the same look to them and in many ways this is another generation of the family depicted in The Good Earth facing new problems of the Japanese invasion.

Of course if it were made today, you'd be casting all oriental players in the roles. But in The Good Earth, both Paul Muni and Luise Rainer were well suited to ethnic roles. A lot of the members of the cast of Dragonseed were not.

Walter Huston at least to his credit never tried an accent in playing a Russian in North Star or a Norwegian in Edge of Darkness also films about resistance to Axis invaders. He's once again the voice of reason, driven to do unreasonable things against his nature by war. Still he doesn't come across as Chinese. Neither does Henry Travers as his scholarly cousin.

But most of all Katherine Hepburn just doesn't make it as an oriental. When Luise Rainer played Olan, the part was written with minimal dialog and she won that Best Actress Oscar for her facial expressions which said more than pages of words. Hepburn unfortunately sounds like the peasant from Bryn Mawr.

Seeing real oriental players in smaller parts like Philip Ahn and Benson Fong only draw attention to how ridiculous some of the occidentals look.

It's not a bad story, maybe it would have been better if they cast Anna May Wong though.

When hard-working China is attacked by the power-hungry Japanese, a pre-feminist Chinese woman struggles with her family for survival; eventually she and her husband become fighters in the Resistance and help to influence their family and fellow villagers to join them. Hollywood product, with intentions that seem sincere, adapted from a Pearl Buck novel and starring...Katharine Hepburn? Actually, Kate is not flossy or "regal" here; she's nobody's fool and probably knows she's miscast, but her Asian make-up is commendable and she tries (not in vain) to find a character. In support, Walter Huston and Aline MacMahon, as Hepburn's Old World in-laws, are excellent. The movie has beautiful cinematography and absorbing passages, but its length is self-defeating and there are some howlers in the script and in much of the casting. Not a hit at the box-office, but by this time people were so used to Hepburn's hit-or-miss choices that it didn't hurt her. *** from ****

Let us get the obvious criticisms out of the way first: DRAGON SEED could be held up as a classic example of mimicry and/or orientalism, with the supposedly Chinese characters played by a variety of actors from different backgrounds. Led by Walter Huston as the familial patriarch, the cast also includes the Russian-born and Stanislavski- trained Akim Tamiroff; Turhan Bey, the Viennese born son of a Turkish father and Czechoslovakian mother; New England patrician Katharine Hepburn; the English-born Henry Travers, and the Irish American J. Carrol Naish as a Japanese kitchen overseer.

On the other hand the film must be approached in context as a propagandist flag-waver designed to highlight the Japanese menace while emphasizing the importance of the global fight for freedom. In these terms Jack Conway and Harold S. Bucquet's epic works extremely well: the Japanese are portrayed as sadistic brutes who will stoop at nothing to achieve their aims - shooting dogs, raping and killing innocent women while relishing the thought of getting Hepburn's Jade Tan into bed. With the aid of Chinese traitor Wu Lien (Tamiroff), they set themselves up in a grand mansion and enjoy elaborate meals prepared by slave cooks, while capturing locals as slave labor.

Pitted against them are the local Chinese, part of a farming community dedicated to centuries-old rituals. Nothing, it seems, can disturb the peace of their lives. When the Japanese invasion occurs, they are pitifully under-prepared to cope: Ling Tan's (Huston's) eldest son Lao Er Tan (Bey) and wife Jade (Hepburn) leave to help build a city in the hills dedicated to making weapons; while another son Lao San Tan (Hurd Hatfield) goes off to join the Chinese army. Ling Tan and his wife (Aline MacMahon) are left behind to forage for themselves, often living on scraps.

While the film emphasizes the importance of rituals as the foundation of a stable society, it also looks forward to the future. Jade wants to teach her newly-born son to read, for it is only through reading that enlightenment can occur. Lao objects at first - he favors more traditional pastimes such as love-making - but as the action unfolds he understands his wife's concern. DRAGON SEED also preaches a doctrine of sexual equality: Jade spends most of the action working alongside her husband in manual labor dressed in overalls rather than the traditional attire of a rural peasant.

In the end even Ling Tan comes to realize the importance of fighting for his country's future, despite his love of peace. The film ends with a climactic sequence reminiscent of MGM's GONE WITH THE WIND, as the Chinese community decamps from its long-established village to make a new home in the hills.

Based on a best-selling novel by Pearl S. Buck, Marguerite Roberts's screenplay contains a few clunky lines, where the propagandist elements assume more significance than plot coherence; but the film offers the role of a lifetime to Turhan Bey, hitherto associated mostly with B-pictures and horror films for Universal. He takes the opportunity with both hands, proving as competent as Hepburn in delivering lines with élan, as well as convincing us of the character's sincerity of purpose.

DRAGON SEED is certainly long - perhaps too long at 144 minutes, but it certainly fulfills its purpose, especially for those forced to fight the Japanese at first-hand during the mid-Forties.

Pearl Buck's novel "Dragon Seed" was made into a film in 1944. Back then, for reasons known only to themselves, the studios did not cast Chinese to play Chinese in major roles. Looking at the film now, I guess it's important to remember that to the 1944 audiences, there was nothing unusual about this.

Taking the non-Chinese casting out of the equation for just a moment, "The Dragon Seed" is a powerful story of what happened to the Chinese during the barbaric occupation of the Japanese.

The story focuses on the family of Ling Tan (Walter Huston), his wife (Aline McMahon), and his sons, Lao Er Tan (Turhan Bey) and wife Jade (Katharine Hepburn), Lao San Tan (Hurd Hatfield) and Lao Ta Tan (Robert Bice).

Jade is a modern thinker, and part of the story deals with the struggles between the new times and old traditions and the role of women. The other part of the story is how various people deal with the occupation. There is submissiveness, resistance, and collaboration.

I'm most moved by a review on this site by a man who has a Chinese father-in-law. His father-in-law loved the film. No one in China knew that America was on their side; they were taught to hate the western world.

So if a Chinese man can overlook the casting, I suppose I can too, but I can't. The acting is fantastic, but one wonders what was wrong with Anna May Wong, Keye Luke, Sen Yung, and why only the extras and children seemed to be at the very least Asian.

For me the most egregious casting was that of Katharine Hepburn. Her acting came alive in the second part of the film. She once said that Spencer Tracy made her seem very feminine. He's not in this movie.

In the beginning, in the love scenes with her husband, it doesn't come off. She's better when the character shows strength. Her finishing school accent and wig don't cut it either. Very difficult to watch. Also, she seems oddly matched with Turhan Bey.

This film is still well worth seeing. It's very dramatic and emotional, with a very big and poignant ending.

Those who know little of the invasion of China by the Japanese Imperialist Forces during World War Two can discover general ideas surrounding this period of world history. Granted, the film is somewhat melodramatic in places, and, yes, Westerners made up to look Chinese is somewhat disconcerting as one begins to view this film. Yet, as the film progresses one is soon so overpowered by the action of the film that these minor distractions quickly evaporate. In fact, one soon accepts Katherine Hepburn as Chinese and the true drama dominates the film. The basic theme of the film is the repelling of aggressive forces in one's homeland, a not uncommon theme for 1944. Jade (Hepburn) must not only battle the invaders, she must confront traditional Chinese family values. Both conflicts are challenging to a peaceful rural village about to clash with the changes of the twentieth century. As the film progresses, the agony of family fracture and the immensely powerful drama of the last few scenes turn this film into a sober reminder of the mutability which comes with war. Hepburn is very good in this movie, as is almost all the supporting cast. The "kitchen scene" may be one of the most suspenseful of the World War Two period films. Viewers are reminded that the war between Japan and China began in 1937, four years before United States involvement.