 Welcome everyone and thank you for joining us here at the Mechanics Institute for our Cinema Live Films series of which this month we are featuring a series of films exposing Chinese stereotypes in films and of course as you know this is part of our grant from the NEA big leads program of which we will be having several films series of events book groups and salons that will continue to out here until June so you can see our website for all the offerings that will be happening this year. I want to point out that this Thursday and the featured book of our NEA big lead will feature Charles Yu, author of Interior Chinatown A Novel which won the 2020 National Book Awards. We will be having a Zoom interview with him he's in LA and he'll be in conversation with Bay Area writer Ban Su and he'll be at 6 o'clock on Thursday October 20th and he'll be joining us so sign up for our Zoom program with Charles Yu and his series should be available. If you have not read the book we do recommend it it's here in the library and it's an amazing week. It's a novel that's actually written at this screen point. Also I want to point out of this series is continuing and we'll also have another series coming up in March as well as a collaboration but our guest speaker tonight is Steven Gong who is the Executive Director of the Cannes Film Festival and I look forward to hearing from him. He has still been introducing our film Shen and Angel and also he taught us more about the upcoming festival. So but please first welcome our curator and host Nancy Kennedy and our guest speaker Steven Gong. Thank you Laura and good evening everybody. This is a wonderful event tonight. This is our second in the series that Laura mentioned and I am very very excited to introduce our guest co-host tonight. He is making his cinema lit co-hosting debut this evening. I want to also just personalize this episode slightly. I met Steven. We met like 35-ish years ago. I was on the staff at the California Arts Council and Steven was served on the media arts panels repeatedly and that's where we met and so we knew a lot of people in common and so forth and we were putting this series together and I realized that he was currently the Executive Director of the Center for Asian American Media. It was kind of a no-brainer that you know it's based here in San Francisco that he should of course come and present to us during this this month and he is graciously agreed. So Steven is the as I mentioned the Executive Director of the Center for Asian American Media. He's been there in that capacity since 2006. His previous positions have been in arts administration including Deputy Director of the Berkeley Art Museum and the Pacific Film Archive, Program Officer in the Media Arts Program at the National Endowment for the Arts, Associate Director of the National Center for Film and Video Preservation at the American Film Institute. He has also lectured in the Asian American Studies Department at UC Berkeley where he developed and taught a course on the history of Asian American media. In addition to writing about film history, Steven provided critical commentary on several DVDs including Treasures from the American Archives, volumes one and five, which is a great treasure trove of early American film, that series. Chan is missing, the seminal independent film directed by Wayne Wang and he also was the featured historian of documentary Hollywood Chinese. Does that bring the bill for anybody? Like everybody who was here last week, we've already you know completed this even through his excellent commentary on Hollywood Chinese. He is also the Board Chair of the Center for Rural Strategies and serves on the advisory board of the San Francisco-Silo Film Testable Society. So without further delay, let's all give it up for our guest host, Mr. Steven Gong. Thank you all. Yeah, you saw the documentary. I didn't darken my hair. It's a real pleasure to be here. And afterwards I'm still looking forward to our joint conversation. We connected and that was quite a remarkable film story at the stage in its career. So deeply immersed in really recovering exciting lives, the lesser known, the deeply important kind of lives. And we share a lot of the same impulses about film as cultural anthropology. And essentially in introducing tonight's film, that's kind of where I wanted to start. Because what I would say is we do have this arched theme and an increased awareness of how powerful the film medium is, many messages it gives, its glamorous, the most amazing kind of to me art form that partakes of so many other art forms. You know, it is either it is visual, it is, it incorporates music and sound, it envelopes all of our senses. And that's what makes it wonderful. But it also carries many values. And it also communicates hierarchies of power in the world. And it tells if we both reflect on the conditions and structures of its day. And sometimes that when we look at it with today's lens, we can see, you know, deep issues and problems when you're depicting other people and you're not really involving those people from those cultures. So we'll be talking about that. And that is much of the work I do now. But in the introducing of film, I actually want to present you with something different as we look at the film before we talk about the lens we might have today. And that is to understand what it represents in its time. And that's where I make this connection with anthropology. Because works like this, right, very much, if you imagine you are from completely different culture in a different time, 100 years in the future, you might wonder what is this thing we've seen. And obviously too, I mean, even thinking about Anna, they want to, we may see as we want to think, you know, she has the same agency as Marina Dietrich. But we know at the time in the function picture industry, she didn't. But I want us to enjoy the film first. So what I want to tell you is I am so thrilled to be able to see this film again, because it involves two of the most intriguing creative figures, well, you could say any number, three, four, five, but especially its director, Joseph von Sternberg, who is really one of the most important early directors. And his incredible relationship with Marina Dietrich, they made seven films together, and they were almost all masterpieces of this particular period in film history, the early sound film. And they made these films for Paramount Studios, which was the most glamorous of all of the film studios. So one thing, this picture was nominated for the Academy Award. It was the only the ninth year of the Academy Awards, but it was nominated for best picture and best director and best cinematography. It did it only won the Oscar for best cinematography. That was for Lee Garnes. But I'll tell you, the visual look of the film is probably due to Joseph von Sternberg, because all of his films, particularly with Marina Dietrich, looked as wonderful as this. He is really a visual master. He played a moving camera that keeps people aware. He was deeply interested in how she would be lit. And she is glorious and honest. As examinee. What else to tell you? He was sort of pictorial. Joseph von Sternberg was born in Vienna. He did work in the German film industry before he came over in the Son of Europe, but then worked his way into directing films here in the U.S. His big breakthrough film with Marina Dietrich was The Blue Angel. And that's a film about a professor who was another much younger student who reverses the power dial on him. And it is said in film history that Dietrich's and von Sternberg's relationship was actually very much like that. So watch this as it undercurrents. Five brooks will play the British romantic lead, but you're looking at von Sternberg, and you're looking at this power that Dietrich would have looked at him. What else to say? It is said that the great Chinese-American cinematographer James Wong Howard worked on this film, but we're not completely clear about what parts you get. But I will just say this as a personal reflection. My people, my family are from one particular county-sized area of Guangdong province in southern China. It's called Tosan. And in Mandarin it's Taishan. And it's kind of thought of what kind of helpings that part of China. But a lot of the first Chinese in America in San Francisco came from Tosan because it was not, you know, for a better life. I'm sorry, I'm not speaking directly. So I'm Tosanese. So is Anne Wong. She's Tosanese. And so is James Wong now. He's Tosanese also. So I feel like I've got velvet tips in the film. So anyway, we'll talk more about Anne Wong, but because of the theme, I did want to tell you, in some places this is a remarkable film for one of her very best performances. She's not on the screen for a long, long time, but I think we will see the very powerful kind of presence she has. And, you know, there's a notable occurrence just recently announced. The U.S. Mint is about to put her on our 25 sentences, right? She will be the first Asian American on our currency and the first Asian American woman. So maybe afterwards we can talk about Anne Wong. And in a way, as a film historian, I have to admit, if it were the credentials of sort of great performances, if you look into her filmography, you don't find much. Almost more than any other lead personality of American film history. Her career was proscribed, I think you saw me, I'm just thinking, realizing that you saw how in the Chinese you heard her say it was proscribed by race and gender. She never really got the chance in short. And so that's part of the collection. But tonight, as I say, enjoy what you're seeing, enjoy the film, let's talk about anything. You know, it's purportedly based in China on a true incident. We can talk about that a little bit. We can talk about what is the depiction of China in the period. You know, this is deep in the throes of a certain kind of American or Western imperialism in China. And it does relate to how the, or this figure is in it. We want to understand China today, and why China sort of feels like it is their time finally to be dressed, how they were treated throughout the 19th, and much of the 20th century will say that. And yeah, I'll share what I know, but you know, I want to respect that so many of you as members of the community, as members of the institute, are probably much better versed in history. And so I invite you to share what you know also as we enter into this conversation. Okay, with that, let's go to the next slide. Sorry, there's so many points of discussion. We're going to see if I'll be there in a moment. But I doubt there's any mystery as to why this film was invested in the part of China, right? Lee Garnes was a celebrated cinematographer, as Steve mentioned. There is, there's some records that James Wong-Cow, who's also a great cinematographer, did some of the work on this film that is not clear what, certainly not the lighting and photography of the feature. That was Lee Garnes and Wong-Cow for me exclusively. But what did you have a seat in? Well, what do you think? How pretty good film. Would you two start us on? Okay, I mean, there are lots of, you know, stuff to say. We certainly want to talk about anime long. Maybe I'll start by saying my impression is that the structure of this film, she is, she gets third building, which is really quite remarkable. She has a lot less dialogue than most of the other, the other passengers, the size that she leads, that we get to know through the course of the film. And I'm wondering if there, in every scene of hers, you know what, I pay attention to her because that's sort of our focus here. Every scene of hers seems to be, to me, cut short. I want to know more about her. I want to know her, you know, her character's background. I want to sort of have some story of her that, that renders her ultimate killing of Shang, that it makes sense. I mean, now we just have to take one thing, which of course is the theme of the film, that, you know, she has, she has her reasons and, you know, she's actually the hero of the piece in a way, but we really know nothing about. And, you know, the lady with the dog and the part like both the religious man and the gambler, we all get to know better than her. And I wondered if that was purposeful so that we have that kind of movie device where, you know, the plot's moving along and then suddenly, oh my gosh, suddenly this, you know, this person who's been in the shadows takes, moves to the front and, you know, is absolutely improved with the plot in the killing of Shang. But we still don't know her, right, for the entire film. She remains this mysterious figure. It's actually a very limited screen time, which, again, it's kind of frustrating. I kind of wanted to know more. I'm also wondering if it was, it was purposeful and not, not about avoidance of, of screen time for a character, for a Chinese character role. But, you know, this is one of those cases I do think, as we look at it today, and I invite you to do this, that there's something that she's almost like a metaphor for the understanding of China at the time. So she's a stand-in for China that has been victimized. You know, there's a certain kind of modernity and, and, well, there's, there's this incredible mixture of the, of the chunk of sentimentality in it, of the love story, right? So, and it's this backdrop of revolution and the exotic, you know, China and these warring worlds. That's not really the story, you know, right? This is the story about a five-year love affair, you know, the fallen woman. So that's, that's a convention. But I think what, I think, I think, uh, John Sturford is a great storyteller. And I think he sees that the, the trumped-up romance, in a way, is enriched by the exoticism of the locale. And, you know, certainly doesn't want to get into the politics of the, of the revolutionary China at the time. This was very new, the First Republic of China. But it was already a failing revolution. Sun Yat-sen created the First Republic of China in 1911 and by 1917-1918, starting in the fall. And this is sort of based on an incident of a real, uh, halting of the train and holding all of its passengers to ransom. That took place in 1911-22. Um, but I, I don't think he cares about that either. Although I would say that generalized the worst security in anything. But, but he doesn't want to go there. But he, but he is starting to paint this, um, sympathetic picture of, of the down-trial Chinese. And that's what she is, a fallen woman. Uh, so she's, it can't be the heroine of this film. She's not really a hero. But, but she presents this, this sympathy, this sympathy or, or, uh, the heroine of the ironic, the sort of, the, the secondary story, which is actually the Civil War. Because at the end of the film, you know, you've got this very light scene about, you know, the, the two leads are sort of playing on each other throughout the film in terms of their koi language and whatnot. And at the end of the film, the very last scene, it's, I'm almost like scratching my head saying, annoying that it's coming to an end. Did we just watch a romantic comedy? You know, I mean, the wonderful way which was able to, um, oscillate between a very, very serious story of, you know, a people and, and, uh, civil war. I mean, we see an execution, we see a training being taken over, et cetera. We see, you know, the sadistic general rule has kind of a fascination with fire. That's pretty scary, right? And we're also having this, this lovely banter back and forth, you know, and not just from the two characters, the two leads, but it's a remarkable juggling act, I think that he's able to achieve, um, and both work, I think. Good. Let's, let's bring some folks out on the end of the conversation. We'll start here at that end. Go ahead. I agree. I excelled in comedy. And every, every time, every portion of it was a scary attempt from one time on, from literally to a snack, um, maybe on a bad time. And what affected me most was the photography, the way that I am used to, the train was good. I love the train. The train, for me, made the film. And, uh, I think she was also, for people who wanted to keep it, was filming in a very interesting way as well. But they only stayed with it, you know, so he came up with a movie. And as for the, uh, I don't know why, I think I agree with you. She typified something as serious and as well. You didn't know what to expect when it's coming next. You know, the idea of some serious china and all that, as you're interpreting, I agree that too. But again, she was in a stereotype because at that time, that was a stereotype of the sort of driving lady, mysterious, peaceful, you don't know what she's gonna do next. Yeah. Yes. Thank you. Um, uh, Susie Wong, you know, um, the world of Susie Wong or love is the biggest pleasure thing. Yes. The Chinese prostitute is one of the reoccurring roles that we will see in Hollywood film to have a sympathetic character. You'll see in The Good Earth, it's also, of course, a long-suffering presence. But just, yeah, I mean, I don't want to overplay it. It is the, this film is, this film is just, is its own piece. But, uh, you know, modeling the D-Trix costumes, did you see that for black feathers, white feathers, fur, you know, wardrobe was to take it up in the entire car. I mean, how many truck towns? Oh, gosh. It was, so I got to see her. And then what I'm thinking and seeing is this contrast of the blonde, right? And so, so on Stanford is continental, right? So he's not really an American. So you don't see a lot. It's not an American film. It's like a European film in a way. And he is really getting into her. And she's contrasting so interestingly, you know, the blonde, the black hair. It was, yeah, I just find that, um, wonderful to kind of think about. Um, but in the back, yes, please. Why am I, I mean, well, Kilms Chang, I mean, the character, because she was raped and possibly gained raped. I mean, it's very clear to me for motivation and also having her be raped for the narrow purpose of showing the stakes that Marlene and Dietrich was choosing when she offered herself in exchange for the doctor. So it wasn't, to me, it was very, very clear what the stakes were and end that her role in that narrative. Thank you. Yeah. Well, that's true. That leads me to something. What did you all make of that Clive Brooke character, the British doctor? So anybody want to, do you think his performance, that really stiffness? And what do you think? Do you think, um, do you think like he said, it was, when he was a miscast or was Lone Starberg directing exactly like you wanted him to perform? You know, what is with their relationship and how long does it take him to have faith in her? I mean, it's all, I find that there is a almost, it's Lone Starberg is being playful about exactly how stiff he can make my role. Well, and maybe how, how, um, dim-witted the man can be when he's so hopelessly wrong, right? He doesn't figure out right away that, that Lily is just playing, you know, that there has to be an exchange if he's going to be set free. And that's Lily. And Lily doesn't want to, but as she says, she doesn't want to in the presence of Chang, that, you know, somebody's going to wind up dead, right? And he doesn't seem to figure that out until, interestingly, I believe it's the moment with the, with Carmichael, the religious man, who I think, you know, maybe all the characters in the film has the greatest sort of psychological transition, right? He is extremely judgmental of the women at the beginning. He doesn't even let his eyes on them. At the end, he's saying, you know, Lily's a better person than you are, Harvey. I mean, you know, get with the program here. I mean, see, you know, what she's doing, what she has to do in order to save your, save your sight, as well as, you know, potentially your life. I'm sorry. I just want to have a clarification. Marlene Dietrich says to, you know, the military British guy, make some explanation about the, you know, the Chinese woman with her says, oh, I'm just being nice to her? Or what is that comment that he, that she says? Because she, she, she makes an explanation for Anna Wong. Or am I just making that up? I know that there's some, it's like she's introducing her to the audience. Yeah. I, I, I interpret as to be able to eat in the dining car without being harassed and be treated and served to her what she paid for. So she, she wanted the doctor to accompany them to the dining car so that they would be legitimized. Yeah, that was the scene of good. Thank you. That is it. And he, that's interesting because he messes entirely does not step up. And so these are women who work together? What is, we don't even know. Well, no, they only, they only get in the car together because though, because the one guy who refuses to be in the car with her. The two women actually, I believe have no relationship with her. Oh prior until society puts them together. And in fact, they're, you know, a few times through the film, it's sort of, there's a point made that these two are not necessarily bonding. We might expect them to, because they're two women traveling alone and because of their shared profession, but they really, and I keep sort of almost wishing that like, can we have a little sister in here and you know, like, you know, advance, advance your, your, your own self-interest with each other, but they actually don't really. Well, so now we can finish a little bit. It is, it is rumored that they became quite close during the film. Yeah. Sensuality was all, was always in question during her life, but it's quite clear. She was, she was gay. And Marlene, the teacher is sort of famously bi. Yeah. I didn't know that. I was, I was thinking of the narrative. This is probably confidential. There we go. But well, let's not, let that go a shadow, you know, that, that, but you know, I think the important thing to think about the picture of, of, prostitution and how this notion of, of even the reverend, you know, seeing through this faith that we're deeper value. This is a pre-Hase Code film. So this film comes out in 1932. 1934 is the Hase Code. For those of you who don't know, there was a censorship board because there was an increase in, this is the kind of film that was starting to make the kind of blue noses a little bit nervous about immorality in motion pictures. And pretty soon the, the studios held to a code of self censorship because they were afraid of greater restrictions coming down from the government than us. They released it. So you would have seen a, probably a clear condemnation of any kind of fallen woman or the need for that to be apparent. And yet we see, and that's part of the, the mystery of Emily Wong's character is that we don't learn how, and under what circumstances she is a fallen person. And just as importantly, that she, I really ask that, yeah, it's like a family life. It's just more than one now to change, to make my, to make the nation change. I know that. I think the award for the best hairstyle goes to the woman with the dog. That's big, yeah. Yeah, but truly, it seems to me, Mom Sternberg is really being able to play with, with using costuming and care to convey crucial aspects here. But this is really slightly also going to move, but I want to make sure it's mentioned before I get into the evening. In 1933, Footlight Parade, which is a big splash of the birth of musical The Warner Brothers, another studio, had a huge production number called Shanghai Lil. And there was a character named Shanghai Lil played by Ruby Keeler of all people who was in Yellow Face. And it's, again, a huge production number. I agree with your attention only because it sort of points to the, a, a topical cultural reference to this movie was big enough that, that there was this production number from another studio that basically was a very direct reference to Shanghai Lil. And it's very, it's, it's amusing because like dozens and dozens of men in this production number know Shanghai Lil. So it's almost a comic approach to, you know, Shanghai Lil's profession and thing. It's just something to look at from, that was contemporary with his film work, a near reference point in popular culture. Great. Thank you. So maybe for a moment to, to make justice to the series, let's talk about, let's talk about the depiction of Chinese and what it's, what it seems to be telling us about China of the period. And as I said to you, you know, as a Chinese American and wouldn't be back at it now. And I mentioned this to Matthew Irwin this evening. You don't want to be younger, it's just saying I was, I was, I was probably getting more of a pass to people who were making movies at this time in America. And, and yet, you know, part of the depiction, part of the background of having, this is like the movie at Grand Hotel, they've been seeing that for you out, you know, six characters, each representing different nationalities. So let's take a look, there's a French military person, there's, you know, British officer, there's the person who was wearing the, the kind of fez. I wasn't sure what nationality, but they were colonized, right, because these were different European countries and the United States who at that time had forced China, the Chinese empire when it was weak during the 19th century, had forced them to open up China. There was a reference to opium, it is well known now that the British had a policy of importing opium from Afghanistan and addicting the Chinese people so that they could create a market in China. So the film does not go into it, but it's traced, colonialism is traced in the movie. And as I say, they don't, they neither valorize the rebels, what you might expect, even, you know, the Star Wars kind of way or certain, or the government. Neither one is given any kind of real agency film. Instead, we accept that the Europeans, that the British guys, right, it is their rise to kind of rule over this, this uncivilized or, or chaotic countries. That is the narrative of colonialism. And this narrative is rooted in that. And I, and to me, as I look at it today, and we look at the geopolitics, and I tell you, get off, you know, my view of China does evolve, but, but even in these last 20 years, and she should pay you're clearly a despot, like so many leaders, but less we feel superior, we elected one here ourselves. The fact is that this Chinese government has now raised 700 million human beings out of abject poverty. And as I say, the Chinese people, in a sense, have had the empty or the Chinese leadership has not forgotten a century and a half of the way that the West has treated them. And so the, so I think there is something to say in this film as an artifact, right, of a popular, of how America can make a glamorous, romantic, common drama, and ignore, in a sense, the real setting and the real suffering that was going on in the post of the Chinese people. And that's kind of this view that I have now as a senior person watching films that I would not have even 20, 30 years ago in the first episode. What is that due to your ultimate affection or respect for the film? I still love this film, but I mean, I see all the film in a different way. So, so thank you, but you know, in these last, I was kind of deserved American film. We restored Lost Horizons, wonderful film about the, the narrative about in between the world wars and maybe that there was a greater position of the East. So I spent much of my life celebrating American film. And yet the, just, I always held onto something about this emerging notion of being able to control our own narratives. And that's why a group of us, and it's said 42 years ago, started the organization that I'm now in the Executive Director of the Center for Asian American Media. And the premise of this, you know, quite simply is that, you know, not that every film needs to be made by the people who have recorded the important subjects of it. But film is enriched and our culture is enriched when we are all given access to the tools to tell, to be part of storytelling. And so I have this other kind of feeling now about the films that I would want us to make to be involved in, not to rely on the marketplace to, to you know, and the thing we give up is, is in some ways a united sort of single approach to a cultural belief. But we have to make way for this multiplicity of voices and appreciate what each kind of expression brings to the next. So, so that's my soapbox. But I'll tell you, I, I think this film stands up because it doesn't give us simple homilies. Munchenberg is a very complicated character. And I think, I think he, he presented a lot, he's aware of what politicians have to say to, of faith, you know, he does, he's kind of caricature the, you know, the intolerance, the rituals, the lady with the dog anyway. But yes, and at first I think he was doing that with the reverend, but the reverend does come around to making a more voice of something deeper, if, if romantic love, which is a Western concept that's derived from the Chinese and varying degrees of adherence to in terms of choosing what's made, let's say, right? This is, but this is a real, this is a holiday approach to romantic love trumps everything trumps revolution. It trumps, right, a common sort of state. That's kind of interesting. Yeah, that's that was maybe the genius of Hollywood in the United States. I was just gonna say that that transcends this film, right, in terms of, you know, Hollywood can make everything all better, right? Okay, I just, I was curious where it was filmed, because there are quite a few, like a remarkable amount of seemingly actual Asian, Asian American extras, and only one person potentially in yellow things that I could see, which was pretty unusual for the time, you know? So this was usual for the time. I mean, it's unusual to even help the other one turn away. No, that's what I'm saying. To have only one of the leads, because it was Chang who wasn't actually, or yeah, he was, yeah, who's supposed to be Asian or part Asian, to not actually be Asian, which seems really unusual to me for that time period, or even now. You know, I think we thank you for, if I should let you have your comment first. Oh, okay, it's quite different. You said something about how the story seems to be detached and ignoring the context in the film. This is really playing out. And so I was wondering, how would you like the film? How would you write the film in order to bring that up without spoiling any of the aesthetic aspects of it? Zhongy Mu made a film called Live During the 90s. You know, he's called the fifth generation of Chinese directors. And he made, yeah, he made a film about the Chinese Revolution. And I think not till the end. You need to get much further. I don't think this, I don't think you could really bring that into the rush you bring in the long way for the Chinese to speak to it. Or, you know, very much his last emperor, which is a really, you know, another girlfriend director, but he centralizes right in Chinese characters. And you have a couple British characters, but then this is down as the secondary. So it's hard to imagine it in the way that we tell story, right? It's hard to imagine how you can really, really create parity among all because the perspective of whose perspective you take is so crucial. But did you have a Okay, well, I'm going to talk about Warner Olin for a minute, because I am a big fan of Warner Olin. And he gets a lot of flack, you know, Warner Olin play Charlie Chan in the first series of Charlie Chan films, they're the best. And I really, and I, as I understand it, he looked like number one son in the in the first one, they were 20th Century Fox on Charlie Chan films. And later on, they got much more committed as Sidney Cawler played him. But in the Warner Olin films, he really actually, he looked in his memoirs, mentions, they had a father-son relationship. And they adored one another. And Warner Olin, he was a Swedish actor. And yet he always believed that the Swedish people kind of like we finish actually must have come from Asia first, because he always felt a deep connection to Asia. And this this film is before the Charlie Chan series starts, there have been a couple of other things about it, a son conversions, but they didn't stick. But the big Charlie Chan things start in 1936. This is 1932. But Warner Olin, they already played a number of Asian characters. And he he always did. And he did. Those are the that's not I make up for him. That's how he looked in life. So one of those things, I just find him a very interesting actor. Well, one thing I've noticed over the, you know, I watched a whole movie when I was a kid, a lot of the Warner Olin were always interested in me was he did very frequently play Asians. But he was always, there was only something relatively complex about even this guy, he said, I'm not proud of being that white. It was kind of an interesting line that Yeah, thank you, right? That's that's exactly kind of how I feel. And he always shows up. He was a very cheesy wearable place. He plays a Japanese explorer in London who was living in London. He's the one who's the source of the wearable. And he plays in this home. It's interesting, he plays him speaking perfect English. He just happens to be Japanese and he's a scholar. And he's happens to be a wearable. And it's not there are no stereotypes in the way he portrayed Asians, at least not in that sense. Now, in terms of Chinese, of course, he was talking in fortune cookies. Yes, definitely. But this is going to be way too good. Sorry. But if you if you've watched as many as I have, try to get, you know, you get a chance almost any of is he only did like eight or nine of them. And then Sydney told her there's about 13 of them. But they get much more fortune cookie and kind of outrageous as it goes to the public studios. But when it was 20th century parks like Charlie Chan and the Olympics, Charlie Chan and Honolulu, they're really huge performances are quite good. And his this dialogue with number one son, if you look, really wonderful. He was based on a real real. Yeah, Chalna Panna was a real Honolulu detector. And yes, as and if you want to, if we if we do another series on news on Charlie Chan, let's talk about. And she would always mention one change and they are men of corrections, wonderful, you know, so therefore, I would be a field field. Oh, my God. And also, you're very much with a French show, I suppose, about the name of French, it's about and then the other one, and she and this young man. And it's Korean, though. Yeah, anyway, they were called daughter of Shanghai. Yeah, yeah, I mean, probably it's really interesting. And then I want to speak with the chairman of the I think I think you're gaining a series that we're planning. Stay tuned. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, well, everyone had quite an extensive silent. And that's when she, at least in the United States, was getting into the world. On YouTube, you can see a film called Total of the Sea. And it was the first time and she was just a teenager. It's her first film and she stars in it, but it's a but anyway, it's now said in China, but it's a white officer goes and, you know, has an affair. She has a baby. He promises to return. She gets all her hopes up. And then he goes back and falls in love with this. Three years ago. It returns every so often. And yeah, she's quite good at it. Actually, I talked about it in Hollywood Chinese because she she really is a wonderful presence. I don't know if it's the film you're thinking of, but if you all get a chance to see a British film called Piccadilly, she's only in the first part of it. She's actually a victim of a murder, but she has a scene or two that are really remarkable, really, really wonderful. But that's why I say about Anne May is, you know, I find it remarkable and another would find her an important actress because her filmography is not really extensive where she's started with the film. She's even an assignment. She's about the thief of bad math, but she's like a slave for all. She has bit parts. And I just find that there weren't rules for her. The studio system was not set up at that time. And that's where we get touch on what yellow face or, you know, to be exotic was Rudolph Alatino because he was Italian. And that was exotic, you know, right? So you're talking about and for all of that, the default was how to not offend white Protestants, audiences. So you weren't really going to be promoting, you know, once we get into the 30s, you just don't, you don't see depictions of people of race. And then, of course, you know, African Americans, and I'm old enough to remember Sir Sidney Monte just passed away. I'm sure most of you, just looking around, remember when Harry Bell Foundation and Sidney Poitier made an appointment saying we have to make only positive goals because there were no real roles for black actors, right? There was this whole sub-industrial race film, but not an Hollywood film. And so, you know, this is just part of the legacy. We are in a different state now, thank goodness, a different stage of evolution in our filmmaking, but it was not that long ago. Because in the 50s, it was still a big, big deal, right? This was coming together. Could you see a white perfect actor kissing a black actor, particularly a black male kissing a white woman in a lengthy taboo? So, anyway, that's the end. Sorry about that. But if we visit, you know, that's what we've got to revisit, too. And if you think about, it's not, I guess I'm making an apology for the opportunities that Anthony Wong could not have. Well, and to make your point about a black man kissing a white woman in 1967, that was a big deal, right? I guess it's going to dinner. When Barbara Stanway in 1932 made the bitter tea of General N, a switch actor, Nils Astor was hired to be General N, and the two of them are doing quite a bit of heavy kissing in that film. And it looks amazing because he's, you know, playing a Chinese character, but the powers to be at the time, this was also a pre-code film, said, well, it's perfectly all right to watch a link or a kiss between a Chinese role, Chinese man and a white woman. Everybody knows that the Chinese role is in fact being played by a European. So it's twisted and whatever. But it does reveal, you know, what was considered offensive by that white majority that you're speaking of, you know, what was okay and what wasn't okay. And I respect. Yeah. And as a young person, yeah, that's why I guess you get imprinted like this. I was imprinted to want to be white, actually. No, yeah, took me to college and instead of being more comfortable with my because I know I'm something different, but your conception of what is normal, what is acceptable, is this default practice that we're going to work on. Oh, but I put some, you know, any of your comments of someone who hasn't that we've got any other this is so enjoyable, but I don't want to overstay your welcome. Thank you, Matthew. Well, this is, you know, something like that into language here, but I can't resist. You mentioned you've referenced Grand Hotel in this film, and a review when this film came out was a few months after Grand Hotel was released in the same year, referred to it as Grand Hotel on Wheels. And it's interesting to look at what's happened in terms of sort of structure of storytelling. The Grand Hotel style is referred to still to this day, and you know, it's sort of shorthand for a film with a multitude of stars in it. It's basically an ensemble that it's sort of a high end ensemble of famous people. And they're usually thrown together in a collective place that's confined like a train or a boat or an airplane. And there's usually some disaster or, you know, a crisis. And so we have these parallel stories, we get to know each one of the characters, but then they intersect the bone. The difference, I think, between, it's just interesting because Grand Hotel is given credit as being the progenitor of a style. And, you know, this goes into the disaster movies of the 70s, it goes into active Christie murder mysteries that are still being produced. But Shanghai Express, I think is an interesting example of almost that style without quite because you have a major hierarchy going on here in terms of the cast, right? But you do have that essence of, you know, these multitude of characters being thrown together in a confined space with a crisis. I mean, in that way it's very similar, I think, to what became the Grand Hotel style. It just doesn't have, you know, a cast of such luminaries that they have to be listed alphabetically, right? It's like, no, this isn't our language, and everybody else sort of falls in line. Just, I just bring that up as a kind of, I don't know that that a lot of films have gone into this structure that we saw tonight, as opposed to what Grand Hotel began. But that has the sort of stronger film traditions to interpret the storytelling and cast it. I'll just, I wonder if, for you, one of the pleasures is just seeing how you can create China on the back lot, a paramount, and, you know, done so beautifully, the cows on the train, the cows on the tracks, great scene, you know. But it does give you this flavor, right? That was wonderful. And just the, yeah, the lighting, the shadows, just the long tracking shot of the train of soldiers coming on, and the lighting, so beautiful. Yes. Well, there was just one image that I just loved, and it was near the beginning, and it was after it's shown the chaos of the train leaving. And you see, they keep showing soldiers shadows against the train in militaries constantly. But I don't know if you noticed it, but at one point there's a bayonet in the foreground, and it's got a cabbage stone on the end of it. And it's like, whoever, whatever the soldier was, probably my guess was, as someone was going by, you know, basically it was this way of standing in cabbage, it's being knelt up, and it's this, it was just, every time I've seen it, I've always noticed that it's in the story, but I wanted you to see it, or we're not going to have to. Yeah, it is, it's near before for a minute, it's a cabbage, it's there on a bayonet. Well, thank you. Thank you all. Also, a few words before we close to thank Stephen Gorm, for a wonderful conversation, and as we can be our hosting curator, I want to make a note about one more thing. We have our co-sponsor for tonight, and for the series is the Chinese Historical Society. You're presenting an exhibition called Radiating Bruce Lee, which is open now for a few months, and also we're going to have a tour to the society to do that exhibition, and they have a film series that's going on. It's starting in the late October and November, and so I will encourage you to go to that series by Saturday nights, which will be in Charlotte down in different venues. So please watch out for announcements about Radiating Bruce Lee, and also your film series that will also be a parallel to the exhibition. Also, a little promotion, my theater group is co-producing in Decent at the San Francisco Park House, so pick up a flyer. It's a little bit more wide open, you know, that counts on the door, and if you use the code community20, you get a 20% discount. So pick up your flyer, and I hope you join us at the theater, as well as at the Chinese Historical Society. Thank you.