" I'm Anna May Wong. I come from old Hong Kong. But now I'm a
Hollywood star. " This is what Anna May Wong sang in her performance . She was
the first Asian American to become an international star in
Hollywood. It's a pity that I have never heard of her name and any of her
works in her Hollywood period. I created a toll to check how many people would
be familiar with her and her life story through a Chinese website where most of
my friends in China get on. I was not too surprised by the result. One out of
15 people has voted that she has heard about her name before; the other 14, all
voted to have never heard of her at all. In her career, she focused on silent
and sound film, television, stage, and radio as well. However, the first movie
she featured the leading role is The Toll
of the Sea. I like it not only because I don’t watch silent movie a lot,
but also I think she did a good job at the age of 17.
In the movie, Anna May
Wong played a young and naïve Chinese girl Lotus Flower who finds an American man,
Allan in the water by her village. They fell in love and he promised to bring
her back to America. While watching, I was thinking of a series of questions in
my mind. Will he come back for her, this poor girl? Or will he just forget her
forever? Apparently, the scriptwriter did not amaze me too much. I think Anna
May Wong did very good performance. Like some other movies of hers, she always
ended up losing her life or losing her heart. I really mean that because she
views his man, in The Toll of the Sea, as
her everything in the future. But he abandoned the love and affection between
them. She was heart-broken with losing her husband, later on, giving her own
daughter to her husband and another American woman. As usual, it is always what
Asian performers get in American movies.
The reason why I love
silent movie is that, I could focus more on their performance. The background
music goes up and down by Lotus Flower’s emotion. And at the end, the scrip in
my head is when Lotus Flower saved Allan by the water, the inhibitant said to
her “be aware of strangers”!
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