Review: ‘Hollywood Chinese’

Title: Hollywood Chinese
Directed by Arthur Dong
Release Date: May 30, 2008

Hollywood Chinese joins a relatively short list of well-made documentaries that focus on the history of motion pictures. More often than not, these movies are so broad in their focus and poorly constructed that they lack any real interest. This, however, ranks fairly high on my list of movies about movies, when it comes to documentaries.

Dong has made an excellent piece of film, documenting the history of the Chinese-American working in the American Motion Picture business. He begins back in the day of the silent film, with The Curse of Quon Gwon (1916) and with a man named James B. Leong, who overcame racial barriers to build himself as a reputable writer/director with films like Lotus Blossum (1921).

The film takes us on through the next eight decades, seamlessly tying it all together into a concise but wholly entertaining history lesson. We get a glimpse of the Chinese-American experience in Hollywood through World War II, through the turbulent 60’s and during the martial arts movie explosion of the 70’s. Dong blends some great clips of old movies, both recognizable and not, with interviews from industry names like Wayne Wang, Ang Lee, Nancy Kwan, Joan Chen, James Hong, Justin Lin, B.D. Wong, Amy Tan and even Christopher Lee.

[rating:4/5]