From Fu Manchu to Kung Fu Panda: Images of China in American Film

List of Illustrations

ix List of Illustrations Figure 2.1. Broken Blossoms (1919): “His love is a pure and holy thing” | 25 Figure 2.2. The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933): Megan, the general, and Mah-Li | 36 Figure 2.3. The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933): Megan dreams of the general | 37 Figure 2.4. The General Died at Dawn (1936): A brave American confronts a sadistic Chinese warlord | 40 Figure 2.5. The Cat’s-Paw (1934): Ezekiel Cobb stages an execution | 46 Figure 3.1. Mr. Wu (1927): From loving father to diabolical torturer | 51 Figure 3.2. The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932): “The Yellow Peril incarnate in one man” | 55 Figure 3.3. The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932): The “Garden of Torture” | 56 Figure 3.4. Shanghai Express (1932): The femme fatale befriends the future dragon lady | 65 Figure 3.5. Shanghai Express (1932): The warped warlord prepares to vent his rage | 67 Figure 3.6. The Shanghai Gesture (1941): Two half-castes engage in a danse macabre | 72 Figure 3.7. The Shanghai Gesture (1941): “Her blood is no good,” says Mother Gin Sling of her daughter | 74 Figure 3.8. The Good Earth (1937): Paul Muni as Wang Lung | 88 Figure 3.9. The Good Earth (1937): Wang Lung declares his love for his wife | 91 Figure 4.1. The Manchurian Candidate (1962): A latter-day Fu Manchu | 118 Figure 4.2. 55 Days at Peking (1963): The Boxers savagely disrupt a diplomatic function | 127 x List of Illustrations Figure 4.3. 55 Days at Peking (1963): The dowager empress, General Jung-Lu, and the duplicitous Prince Tuan | 128 Figure 4.4. 55 Days at Peking (1963): American benevolence on display | 135 Figure 4.5. The Sand Pebbles (1966): Jake about to embark on his fateful voyage | 141 Figure 4.6. The Sand Pebbles (1966): The doomed American seamen | 143 Figure 5.1. Red Corner (1997): Beaten and framed for murder in Beijing | 154 Figure 5.2. Lost Horizon (1937): Shangri-La/Tibet as a utopian paradise | 161 Figure 5.3. Kundun (1997): The young Dalai Lama becomes the leader of his country | 167 Figure 5.4. Kundun (1997): Tibetan spirituality and peace on the eve of the Chinese invasion | 168 Figure 6.1. Kung Fu (1972): David Carradine as a Shaolin monk in the old West | 185 Figure 6.2. Shanghai Noon (2000): Buddies in the old West | 186 Figure 6.3. The Wedding Banquet (1993): The competing claims of love and family | 189 Figure 6.4. Chan Is Missing (1982): An angry cook denounces Chinese stereotypes | 194 Figure 6.5. Chan Is Missing (1982): San Francisco’s Chinatown “seen from the inside” | 195 Figure 6.6. Mulan (1998): Mushu, the diminutive dragon | 202 Figure 6.7. Kung Fu Panda (2008): The apotheosis of the panda | 212 ...