Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl 1919
Directed by D.W. Griffith
- Drama, Romance
- 88 min
- NR
A tale of forbidden love.
A frail waif, abused by her brutal boxer father in London's seedy Limehouse District, is befriended by a sensitive Chinese immigrant with tragic consequences.
- Harm to children
- Bleak ending
- Suicide or self-harm
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Character
Grave, earnest, classical in form and resolved.
- gravecomic
- earnestironic
- classical in formformally daring
- resolvedopen-ended
- intimateepic
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“Is Lillian Gish the best thing in Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl?”
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“Does the smallness hold it back?”
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Reviews on TMDB
Written by TMDB members; each links to the original. Not part of Tastebuds's numbers.
- CinemaSerfon TMDB · Jun 20227/10
Richard Barthelmess and an almost porcelain-looking Lilian Gish are both great in this intimate, beautifully photographed, tale of a true love. Gish is a young girl from London's East end who is persistently brutalised by her violent pugilist father. Barthelmess is a man newly arrived from China bent on encouraging the British to seek the peaceful ways of the Buddha. From his small emporium, he espies this young girl and after one particularly horrific attack by her father, takes her in and nourishes her back to health. Sadly, bigotry and intolerance are still pretty rife and when her father discovers where she has taken refuge, tragedy ensues... It's a simple story, very well executed by D.W. Griffith with a delightful style to it. An early outing for Donald Crisp as her bruiser father is a little hammy at times, he flexes his muscles and his grimace a little too theatrically - but the story is tightly told with empathy for the girl, sympathy for the boy and a gently bubbling hatred for the father for whom just desserts can only be a matter of time.
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Cast
- Lillian GishLucy Burrows
- Richard BarthelmessCheng Huan
- Donald CrispBattling Burrows
- Arthur HowardBurrows' Manager
- Edward Peil Sr.Evil Eye
- George BerangerThe Spying One
- Norman SelbyA Prizefighter
- Ernest ButterworthSecondary Role (uncredited)
- Frederic HamenSecondary Role (uncredited)
- Wilbur HigbyLondon Policeman (uncredited)
Crew
- D.W. GriffithDirector
- D.W. GriffithWriter
- Billy BitzerDirector of Photography
- James SmithEditor
- D.W. GriffithProducer
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