just watch it!

Just perfect...

An action-packed slog

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

The delectable Anna May Wong has a great role in Daughter of Shanghai, a 1937 "B" which achieved an immediate cult reputation when Paramount suddenly re-issued it twenty years later. Oddly, when Charles Higham asked director Robert Florey about the movie, he couldn't even remember making it! Directed at breakneck speed, the screenplay is not only packed to the gills with action and incident, but a series of arresting characters, led of course by the resourceful Anna May Wong who is partnered by way-down-the-cast-list's Philip Ahn (of all people) against the baddies led by hideously credible, super-sleazy Charles Bickford and smarmy, high society Cecil Cunningham in by far the most impressive role of her whole eighty-plus picture career. Other notables like jealously possessive Evelyn Brent and all-out villainous Fred Kohler also make their mark—as does Frank Sully in an unexpected hero-to-the-rescue bit.Yes, the plot may be a "B"-movie standard, but it's given a great work-out here by director, writers and players. Charles Schoenbaum's noirish photography and Robert Odell's knock-out sets also assist no end.

There's much to admire in this Robert Florey melodrama, which plays more like a pre-Code feature than a 1937 quickie. The ravishingly beautiful Anna May Wong gets the bulk of the screen time as Lan Ying Lin, a San Francisco gal whose art dealer father (Ching Wah Lee) has been murdered by smugglers. She's soon on their trail with the assistance of FBI agent Kim Lee (taciturn Philip Ahn). The film also features outstanding performances by Charles Bickford as grizzled human cattle herder Hartmann and Cecil Cunningham as the brains behind the operation. Charles Schoenbaum's cinematography is excellent and especially impressive for a second feature: he uses unusual proto-noir camera angles and doesn't resort to the predictable set-ups you generally see in 'B' pictures. Ultimately, though, this is Wong's film, and though she was never a great actress, it's clear that if not for her ethnicity she would (and should) have been a big star.

This film is about smugglers who take people from other parts of the world and bring them to the United States to work for others (sounds almost contemporary). Anna May Wong plays the daughter of Quan Lin, a successful merchant, who refuses to "buy" anyone for his business. He gets killed and his daughter narrowly escapes. This plays as a film noir, and it could even be considered a B movie, but it is pretty good. The plot thickens, there are a few surprises and then there is the beautiful, accomplished actress Anna May Wong. She was something special. I liked its pacing, and I feel it is a film you should watch, if you're into mystery and intrigue. Check it out.

This is a relatively low budget B-movie and aside from one factor, it's pretty ordinary for the genre. The difference is the casting. First, the film has an unusually large number of very talented supporting characters such as Charles Bickford, Buster Crabbe, Anthony Quinn and J. Carrol Naish. Second, in a very unusual move for its sensitivity, the film stars two Asian actors--Anna May Wong and Philip Ahn. In just about every other case during this era, Asian leading characters were played by Westerners and this is the only film of the era I can think of that was made in the USA that had two Asians playing leading and sympathetic roles. Oddly, while Ahn is clearly the leading man, he is given low billing while Wong gets top billing. Perhaps this is because he was never a star and didn't command the same level of pay as Wong, although in Ahn's VERY long career, he appeared in 174 parts! The film is about an evil group of human smugglers who kill Wong's father and try to kill her as well. Instead of waiting to inherit her father's fortune and live a quiet life, she goes undercover to infiltrate the gang. Later, Ahn also appears with the baddies, as he also infiltrated the gang. Now it's up to the pair to bring these folks to justice.The fight scenes and script are all pretty standard. Apart from its sensitive portrayal of the Chinese (they were like real people--not patronized or evil), there isn't a whole lot to make this film anything other than a standard B programmer. However, for cinephiles like myself, it's an important film for being a bit of a milestone for Asians in Hollywood--too bad that this success didn't translate to more such films until the 1960s and later.