May. 14, 2003 - 6:26 pm
this was another Lillian Gish film that Greg had recommended to me last week when i was asking for some good silent film recommendations. i guess he must be a real Lillian Gish fan of sorts. and again, she was really quite good and believable in this short film. i think the plot of it turned out to be a bit too simplistic for me though and portrayal of "Asians" in the film was quite skewed.
this is about a Chinese man (played by an obvious caucasian) who comes to London's Limehouse district in order to bring the Buddhist religion to others of the world. he hopes to bring love and understanding, but instead he ends up running a store and being surrounded by people of low morals and character. one of these people is a local boxer who regularly beats the weak girl who lives with him and calls him "daddy." the Chinese man becomes infatuated with this girl and one day gets an opportunity to care for her when she has been beaten by the boxer. the two then form a short-lived relationship.
ok, the Chinese character is so ineffective and idiotic in this it's unbelievable. he just stands there and makes these faces like he's smelling flowers when he's around Lillian Gish's character. it's really weird and eerie. it also seems like he gets to London and doesn't even make an attempt to accomplish his goal for coming to the country. i don't understand.
one thing i was really amazed by in this film was Donald Crisp's performance and the fact that he was even ever a silent film actor. he plays the boxer quite effectively and the silent film acting style is just so different from what i'm used to seeing him do in films like National Velvet (1944) and How Green Was My Valley (1941). very few major actors successfully made that drastic transition from silent to sound pictures. and he won an Oscar for his performance in How Green Was My Valley.
anyway, Broken Blossoms had a few redeeming qualities like a few decent scenes with Lillian Gish and Donald Crisp, but mostly it was just ok.