SURPRISINGLY entertaining, “Hollywood Chinese,” a fast-paced survey of how the Chinese have been portrayed in American films from the silent era to the present, is packed with unexpected delights.
Filmmaker Arthur Dong offers up a cinematic banquet – everything from tantalizing excerpts from a 1916 film directed by Chinese-American Marion Wong to an interview with 98-year-old Viennese actress Luise Rainer.
The latter won the Best Actress Oscar as the Chinese heroine of the 1937 film “The Good Earth” after MGM executives judged a test by Anna May Wong – the leading Asian-American actress of the time – “disappointing.”
It’s shocking to realize that no Chinese-American performer has graced Hollywood’s A-list since Nancy Kwan, another interviewee, who made a splash with “The World of Suzie Wong” in 1960 but was toiling in B movies by the mid-1970s.
Today’s top Asian stars, such as Jackie Chan and Jet Li, invariably come out of Hong Kong and mainland China.
Dong wisely doesn’t lecture about the limited opportunities for Chinese performers, or Hollywood’s unfortunate tendency to lean on stereotypes, from Charlie Chan to “Chinatown.” He lets the clips speak for themselves.
Dong’s who’s-who of talking heads (novelist Amy Tam rhapsodizes about “Flower Drum Song,” while Joan Chen talks about going from “The Last Emperor” to the god-awful “Tai-Pan” and then a career as a director) is impeccable and illuminating.
You certainly wouldn’t expect Oscar-winning director Ang Lee (“Brokeback Mountain”) to turn up in the same documentary with Christopher Lee – who talks about how hard it was to be made up as the Chinese villain in a Fu Manchu movie.
HOLLYWOOD CHINESE
Invaluable history lesson.
Running time: 89 minutes. Not rated (some violence, profanity). At the Quad, 13th Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues.