Review of Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl (1919) by Jamie T — 24 Jul 2009

SPOILER ALERT.

D.W. Griffith, after his groundbreaking epics THE BIRTH OF A NATION and INTOLERANCE, made this old-fashioned, small-scale drama; yet this simpler work commands as much attention now as do Griffith's mammoths. The story is simple and powerful: A young Chinese man, Cheng Huan, goes to London to spread the message of peace his Buddhist beliefs promote. His ideals collapse, and he owns a small shop in a slum. Meanwhile, a vicious boxer continually beats his frail teenage daughter, and she is so miserable that she literally has to force herself to smile. But Cheng Huan finds her and takes her in, and for a few hours, they live in happiness. But her father, enraged by this, drags her home, and in a harrowing sequence, beats her to death. Cheng Huan, discovering she is dead, kills her father, then lays her body in state before committing suicide. This bleak tale is made bearable by the performances; Lillian Gish is affecting is the abused girl, and Donald Crisp almost pure evil as her vicious father. Admittedly, they are a bit over-the-top by modern standards, which makes Richard Barthelmess's subtle performance all the more moving. Already faced with the hurdle of being a white man playing an Asian, he does fairly well in that regard. But it is his economy of expression, his quiet, gentle movements, that bring the character to real life. Griffith tells the story very simply, and with great taste and intelligence. It remains one of his finest films.