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Hollywood Chinese: The Chinese in American Feature Films

Hollywood Chinese: The Chinese in American Feature Films (2007)

tomatometer

100

Average Rating: 7.4/10
Critic Reviews: 6
Fresh: 6 | Rotten: 0

No consensus yet.

audience

79

liked it
Average Rating: 4/5
User Ratings: 265

My Rating

Movie Info

Filmmaker Arthur Dong's documentary Hollywood Chinese pays homage to the first century of the American film industry, as specifically colored and influenced by the Chinese immigrants to whom Hollywood owes an inestimable debt. Dong touches on everyone from actress Anna May Wong, of Limehouse Blues (1934) and Lady from Chungking (1943), to the late cameraman James Wong Howe, responsible for giving the Rock Hudson thriller Seconds (1966) such a creepy and inventive look. Dong also explores the

Unrated,

Documentary, Television, Special Interest

Arthur Dong

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All Critics (11) | Top Critics (6) | Fresh (11) | Rotten (0)

Hollywood Chinese is both a history of the Chinese presence in American films and a meditation on the difficulties Chinese Americans have had in being seen as individuals and in putting the reality of their experience on screen.

May 30, 2008 Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

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.

May 2, 2008 Full Review Source: New York Post
New York Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A welcome entry in the constituency-cinema canon, Hollywood Chinese surveys a centuryâ(TM)s worth of Chinese-American actors and filmmakers, visionaries and dragon ladies, kung fu excellence and Fu Manchu insult, Oscar winners and clichà (C) mongers.

May 2, 2008 Full Review Source: New York Times
New York Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Just in time for China's (sometimes warranted) resurgence in the press as global bogeyman, Arthur Dong's survey of Chinese-Americans' prickly relationship with Hollywood is a fascinating exploration of the intricacies of cultural assimilation.

April 30, 2008 Full Review Source: Time Out New York
Time Out New York
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Half of the running time is devoted to clips both expected (The Good Earth) and refreshing (Marion Wong's undiscovered The Curse of Quon Gwon), the other to the musings of politely enraged talking heads.

April 30, 2008 Full Review Source: Village Voice
Village Voice
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The film is primarily a more astute-than-average combination of vintage footage and talking heads.

May 30, 2008 Full Review Source: Los Angeles Daily News
Los Angeles Daily News

...details the blend of glory and frustration that still dogs Chinese-American performers in Hollywood.

May 30, 2008

An eye-opening documentary delineating how motion pictures have negatively impacted the Asian community, and how they are like to continue to effect impressionable young minds for generations to come.

May 5, 2008 Full Review Source: AALBC.com
AALBC.com

Informative and thoroughly engaging.

May 2, 2008 Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide
TV Guide's Movie Guide

Myriad, amazingly culled interviews with actors, filmmakers and historians add rich texture to this bracingly entertaining, fast-moving survey.

May 2, 2008 Full Review Source: Film Journal International
Film Journal International

Audience Reviews for Hollywood Chinese: The Chinese in American Feature Films

[font=Century Gothic]"Hollywood Chinese" is a fascinating and informative documentary about the portrayal and roles of Chinese Americans in Hollywood films, as told through a plethora of clips and talking heads that include Nancy Kwan, Amy Tan, B.D. Wong, David Henry Hwang, Ang Lee, Wayne Wang, James Shigeta, James Hong, and Joan Chen.(Joan Chen did not just disappear after "The Last Emperor." At the very least, she was also a regular on "Twin Peaks.") What the documentary in general is interested in is the power of images and how they influence the viewer. This is then applied to a specific community, one that is simultaneously viewed as both exotic and repeatedly anglicized by Hollywood.[/font]

[font=Century Gothic]At the beginning of film, there were Chinese Americans who were pioneers in the field who tried to combat the stereotypes of the day.(I am always amazed whenever I come across any unfamiliar film history and there is plenty here.) With the advent of sound, the stereotypes softened somewhat but the roles of Chinese were played mostly by Caucasians, especially in "The Good Earth" and Charlie Chan films.(This is where Luise Rainer and Christopher Lee come into play.) But even there, there were young Chinese American actors who were finding work. Admittedly, some of it was for playing Japanese characters which is a practice that has been inexplicably continued to the recent day for "Memoirs of a Geisha."(No matter how far we have come, there is still work to be done.) Even after this, there were breakthroughs, even with the issue of stereotypes continuing.(The film makes no judgment about the work done by actors. Everybody's got to eat, right?) It is not until recently when Chinese Americans started directing movies that they were able to give a complete portrait of themselves to the wider world.[/font]
May 4, 2008
Harlequin68
Walter M.

Super Reviewer

Arthur Dong gives us unprecedented access to trail blazers of Asian American cinema--both current and legendary. Through a careful balance of archival footage, movie clips, and importantly, rich, informative, and moving interviews, we get a front-stage look at the various historical stages of Chinese Americans in mainstream cinema along with what is in store for this community in the future. This important work gives Chinese Americans hope that Hollywood will shift to be more reflective of diverse communities and also gives the mainstream community a template and a vision of how Chinese Americans ought to be represented--that is, as fully-human, three-dimensional characters and not merely stereotypes in the background of someone else's story.
November 20, 2011
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Foreign Titles

  • Hollywood Chinese (DE)
  • Hollywood Chinese (UK)
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