
Women Pioneers of Silent CinemaFilm 8 of 22
The Curse of Quon Gwon: When the Far East Mingles with the West
Wong wrote, produced, directed, and played the unkind woman opposite her sister-in-law Violet Wong as the bride.
Marion E. Wong's Mandarin Film Company, Oakland, 1916 to 1917: the earliest surviving Chinese American feature, and one of the earliest American features a woman directed. Wong wrote, produced, directed, and played the unkind woman opposite her sister-in-law Violet Wong as the bride. Distributors would not take a Chinese-American picture without the usual stereotypes. Two reels survive of an estimated seven or eight, without original intertitles, restored by the Academy Film Archive. What remains is a wedding, a household, and a curse that may simply be tradition.
Marion E. Wong wrote, produced, and directed this for the Mandarin Film Company, the Oakland studio she headed, then could not get a distributor to take a Chinese American picture without the usual stereotypes. Production ran 1916 to 1917; she also played the unkind woman opposite her sister-in-law Violet Wong. Two reels survive of an estimated seven or eight, without original intertitles, and the Academy Film Archive restored them from the camera negative (reels 4 and 7). It is the earliest surviving Chinese American feature, and the company president's name is the one that belongs on this card.