The Curse of Quon Gwon: When the Far East Mingles with the West

This holds some interest as the earliest known example of independent Chinese-American production. It was produced, written and directed by Marion Wong, who appeared in it; her family made up the rest of the cast. In 2004 the only known surviving print was donated by Miss Wong's nieces and nephews to the National Film Board (without titles) and it was added to the National Film Registry two years later.

A young Chinese American couple get married and are amused and repulsed by the appurtenances of the ceremony. When they have a baby, it falls sick and the mother is exiled to wander around until the child recovers.

Although the actors do not seem particularly talented in their performances, the production is well done. Props, costumes and settings are very well done. The camerawork is solid, as is the editing, offering a good movie about the conflict between old and new.

The IMDb trivia claims this is the first movie directed by a Chinese-American, which may well be true. It also claims this is among the earliest movies directed by a woman. I wonder what Alice Guy, who had been directing movies since 1896 would have made of that claim!

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's a little tough to review an incomplete film, one in which only two of seven or eight reels survive, and which has none of its intertitles. The story of a curse on a Chinese family for being too westernized is hard to follow as a result, though what we do see does allow us to fill in some of the blanks. In one very nice shot, pioneering director (and producer, writer, costume designer, and actress) Marion E. Wong gradually fades the bracelets a young bride has received into manacles, which is how she begins to see her new life. It's sad that after the film was rejected for distribution and thus flopped, the 21 year old never made another. Watch the fragments of what survives for film history; this was the first Chinese-American feature film and has an all-Chinese cast. It's refreshing to see these images in light of the portrayals of Asians that were coming out of Hollywood at the time, and which would persist for decades.

One of early cinema's cruel ironies is today's viewers don't have a complete record of so many crucial achievements that serve as a foundation to today's films. Singer/entertainer Marion Wong short career in film is a prime example. Her only movie she produced, wrote and directed, July 1916's "The Curse of Quon Gwon: When the Far East Mingles with the West," a 90-minute feature, never was distributed despite viewings where the audience applauded at its conclusion. The motion picture is acknowledged as the first Asian American feature film to be produced in the United States.

Wong, through wealthy relatives, formed The Mandarin Film Company in Oakland, California, where she had high hopes of delivering high quality, realistic movies depicting portrayals of Asian Americans in the states. Her first script reads something akin to 2018's "Crazy Rich Asians," where a traditional family in Asia rejects the modern woman when a marriage introduces her into the clan.

Wong took a trip to China with her two brothers in search of spouses, which inspired her to write the screenplay for "Curse." Hiring a cameramen who worked with Charlie Chaplin during his days in Niles, CA., Wong slotted her sister-in-law, Violet, the wife of one of her brothers found during that pivotal trip to China, as the lead actress. She hired professional actor Henry Soo Hoo to play her fiancee/husband.

Wong was quoted in the Oakland Tribune a month before "Curse's" premier as saying, "I first wrote the love story. Then I decided that people who are interested in my people and my country would like to see some of the customs and manners of China. So I added to the love drama many scenes depicting these things. I do hope it will be a success." Alas, despite rave reviews, the movie could not find one distributer for commercial play. Some prospective distributers cited a lack of an audience who could identify with those on the screen nor understand the customs clashing between the two cultures portrayed. Also, the characterizations Wong had shown were not the stereotypical Asians movie viewers were used to seeing on the screen.

Wong, disappointed by the lack of interest, closed up her film production company and asked that her family never speak about the film again. She started up a restaurant, the Singapore Hut, in Richmond, CA, which became popular for its musical cabarets. Wong raised a family of entertainers, thanks to her influence. Among those was a daughter, Arabella Hong-Young, who as an adult played the role of Helen Chiao on Broadway for the original "Flower Drum Song," a landmark play in representing Asian-Americans for the arts in true form.

As for the film "The Curse of Quon Gwon," Violet Wong had in her possession two reels of the movie and told her grandson about it in 1969. A filmmaker heard about the existence of the canisters and took them to the Academy Film Archive in 2004 for restoration. Of the original eight reels, the existing film has only reel number four and number seven remaining. Because her notes are preserved concerning the movie's plot, Wong's pioneering intentions make her motion picture a true cinematic treasure.