Way Down West (1927)

If you have no interest in Asian or silent films, then this film will be very, very hard to watch. The film has some horrific over-acting and the film lacks the polish of later Asian films. But, for those who love martial arts films, it is nice to see this early film and see how the genre began.Let's talk about the over-acting. While by today's standards the acting was shameless by some with is pop-eyed expressions and over-emoting, you need to put it in its proper. This sort of acting was the norm for Chinese plays--where such acting was considered perfectly acceptable. Plus, with a small film industry in the country, it's really not fair to try to compare this output with the polished work of Hollywood.The story is about a young man and woman who fall in love at first sight--a pretty typical sort of theme. But, her family will not allow the marriage--he is not of her social standing. Through a series of events (including an attack by bandits), however, he is able to prove himself worthy of her love.The film features some nice martial arts action. While it is NOT of the quality of a Shaw Brothers film, it wasn't bad and once again it represents an early form in the evolution of films. The costumes were lovely and SOME of the acting very good. The most serious shortcoming of the movie, apart from some overacting, was the brevity of the film--it all seemed a bit rushed at only 43 minutes.

This early Chinese silent was based on a classic Chinese literature. What I understand is those Chinese classic novels are usually extremely long, so I was curious about if the running time of approximately 45 minutes will encompass the whole story. After seeing it and did some reading on the web, I realized that the movie did amazingly told a bare bone of the entire story.The setup was about a scholar, in ancient China, on his way to the Imperial city to take his exam and took a stop at a temple. There he found a beautiful girl also visiting and staying there with her mother and her maid. Of course, he and the girl felt in love. However, there was a gang leader who also wanted the girl. So the story was if the scholar was able to get the girl and how.The story seemed simple, but I thought the presentation was effective. The acting was very theatrical which was necessary for the silence. The only problem was the battle scene was just flashing and swiping of blade among of groups people in fast motion, which was nothing epic about that. I guess it was okay since this wasn't an action film. Overall, the movie was a worthy primer to this classic literature.

This silent movie was my first silent movie and I was fortunate enough to see it in a classical movie theater accompanied by live classic music (Debussy). The movie was played during the China - Amsterdam festival in Amsterdam. I really liked the story and the way it was played. The facial expressions are obvious and humorous (and you don't need 'sub'titles). There are some 'special effects' in the movie which I really enjoyed. I didn't know they could perform such effects in 1927. For me it was a great way to experience Chinese cinema and see a silent movie. Add the classical music and you have a super experience. Great movie, so if you got a chance: go see it.

This movie is based on the famous ancient Chinese play written several hundred years ago, and the film crew did an excellent job of keeping the originality of the original work. It is rather sad that there is not a sounded version of this famous ancient play, but the silent version was good enough for its time: Remember, the era of 1920's China is dominated by martial arts flicks that guaranteed the box office success, and most non-martial arts flicks at the time met miserable failure in the box office. The film crew took a very huge risk in venturing into something that is not mainstream of the time, and surprisingly, they succeeded, this romance was a box office success, just like the martial arts flicks.