‘I was killed in virtually every film’: how trailblazing Chinese-American star Anna May Wong upended cinema | Film

Anna May Wong is everywhere these days. The chic Chinese-American actor who first made a splash in the silent era has been fictionalised in films and TV shows, including Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood and Damien Chazelle’s Babylon, and an excellent novel, Amanda Lee Koe’s Delayed Rays of a Star. She has her face on the quarter, the first Asian-American to be honoured in that way, and she is the subject of a page-turner of a biography, Not Your China Doll by Katie Gee Salisbury. But what about the films? This month, BFI Southbank in London hosts a retrospective of this remarkable star’s career, titled Anna May Wong: the Art of Reinvention.

Wong was born in Los Angeles to second-generation Chinese parents in 1905. At the very beginning of her film career in 1921, she self-consciously told a movie magazine that she was “a considerable spot of yellow that’s come to stay on the silver of the screen”, announcing her difference as a rare Asian-American leading lady and her determination to become a star in the same breath. As her career continued, she would become more outspoken about the challenges of typecasting and her disappointment with the representation of Chinese characters on screen.

“I was killed in virtually every picture I appeared in. Pathetic dying seemed to be the best thing I did,” she said. She never got the career she deserved, banned from playing romantic leading roles where she would kiss a white co-star, and passed over for Chinese roles in favour of white actors in yellowface. “She was forced to reinvent herself at different points of her career,” says season curator Xin Peng, assistant professor in film and screen studies at the University of Cambridge. “She didn’t have the option to repeat what she was doing, or retire in luxury.”

The season traces Wong’s career from her first leading role in early Technicolor silent The Toll of the Sea (1922) through to her last film appearance in the Lana Turner vehicle Portrait in Black (1960) – plus, Flower Drum Song, the spectacular musical she was preparing to star in when she died in 1961. “By watching those films, we can imagine the kind of alternative futures that she may have had,” says Peng.

There is plenty in the season to show how impressive Wong was on screen, charismatic even in small roles in silent fantasy The Thief of Bagdad (1924) starring Douglas Fairbanks, or Peter Pan (1924), beautifully shot by Chinese-American cinematographer James Wong Howe. Not to mention the unforgettable Shanghai Express (1932) where she shares a railway compartment and a worldly glamour with Marlene Dietrich. “They put Wong in the background, but I’m not sure she’s very good at staying there,” says Peng. “The Thief of Bagdad is exemplary of Wong’s ability to steal the show, because even with the most fleeting appearance, she was able to shift your attention from any of the stars. You wonder: ‘Who’s that?’”

In search of better roles, Wong went to Europe, where she made two beautiful silent melodramas in Germany and another in the UK: Piccadilly (1929), a romance set in multicultural London, with a screenplay by Arnold Bennett. She was particularly warmly received in the UK, at least at first, after her struggles for recognition in Hollywood. In Piccadilly, director EA Dupont filmed a kiss between Wong and her white leading man, Jameson Thomas, which was cut before release against the director’s wishes. In 1930’s Hai-Tang, an early talkie filmed in English, French and German, once again her kiss, with John Longden, was cut for British audiences. Not until 1934’s Java Head would Wong break that taboo, kissing John Loder on screen – a landmark for British cinema.

Wong did return to Hollywood in the 1930s, for Shanghai Express and plenty more besides. These films are something of a rollercoaster. Daughter of the Dragon (1931), in which Wong gets top billing, nevertheless contains a collection of orientalist stereotypes, with Wong playing the vengeful child of Fu Manchu. Bizarrely, Wong plays opposite Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa and Swedish Warner Oland, all three playing Chinese characters.

Wong finally visited China in 1936, where she was roundly criticised for her portrayals of Chinese villains and stereotypes in foreign films. On her return, she determined to take charge of her career. In B-movies such as Daughter of Shanghai (1937) and King of Chinatown (1939), she was able to play characters with more control over their destiny, and formed Hollywood cinema’s first Asian-American screen couple, with her childhood friend Philip Ahn, a Korean-American actor and activist.

In the Edgar Wallace adaptation Dangerous to Know (1938), Wong revives a role she played to great acclaim on stage. Although Wong plays the marginal role of the gangster’s mistress, the climax of the film contains one of her greatest moments on screen. “It’s the most spectacular ending, with a virtuosic performance from Wong, and that performance was possible because of her life experience, her whole career of being typecast in a certain character with a certain fate,” says Peng. “I was completely shocked when I first watched the film.”

Wong has many such arresting scenes. Even when playing hackneyed characters, she strikes a bold, modern tone. Following the strange course of her career across these films tells a remarkable story of a woman with a powerful talent, who indeed made her mark on the silver screen – as both a brilliant actor, and a trailblazer in an often hostile industry.