Sessue Hayakawa may be best known today for his Oscar-nominated performance as the commandant of the Japanese P.O.W. camp forced to negotiate with Alec Guinness' British colonel in The Bridge on the River Kwai, but he had a long and distinguished career in American film. During the silent era, in fact, Hayakawa was a popular leading man, and eventually established his own production company, Haworth Pictures, which made more than 20 features presenting a more authentic view of Japanese culture than found in Hollywood movies of the era. The 1919 silent film The Dragon Painter—generally considered among the best of the Haworth films and long thought lost but restored here from a rediscovered French print—stars Hayakawa as Tatsu, a reclusive artist living in the mountains. Thought insane by the local villagers, Tatsu is obsessed with recovering his fiancée (the source of his inspiration), who he believes was abducted by a dragon. Recruited by an older painter to become his protégé, Tatsu ends up falling in love with the man's daughter but loses his incentive to paint…until the woman sacrifices herself, restoring Tatsu's genius. An odd but effectively told story, The Dragon Painter features impressive performances by both Hayakawa and his wife Tsuru Aoki. DVD extras include a second full-length feature film starring Hayakawa, Thomas Ince's The Wrath of the Gods (1914), which is notable for some early special effects (such as a volcanic eruption). Other bonus features include a comedy short in which Hayakawa cavorts with Charles Murray and Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, a stills gallery (with illustrations from Mary McNeil Fenollosa's original novel The Dragon Painter), and an impressive set of DVD-ROM-accessible materials, including an essay on Hollywood's silent Asian films, the script of The Wrath of the Gods, and Fenollosa's complete novel. Recommended. (F. Swietek)
The Dragon Painter
Milestone/New Yorker, 53 min., not rated, DVD: $29.95 Volume 23, Issue 3
The Dragon Painter
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