Anna May Wong is a young woman named Lotus Flower, in China who helps rescue a white man lost at sea. She subsequently falls in love with him and they are married. However, after being reunited with his fellow Caucasians that man decides to go home to the United States and marries his old sweetheart. Lotus Flower never gives up the idea that her man will come back for her and tells her young son (the man's child) that his father will come for him. When he does, it is with his new wife and Lotus Flower is ashamed and devastated. She tells her son she is not his mother, but a Chinese nurse, and gives her son to the man and his new wife and commits suicide.A story of such profound tragedy, this is the only film I have seen from this silent era that compares to the innocent tragedy of Murnau's Tabu. Anna May Wong gives incredible depth to this traditional woman who sacrifices her entire life for the happiness of her son and the man she loves. Her innocence is heartbreaking. Her loyalty unmatched. In today's world this can easily be viewed as rather racist towards Chinese – first because the white man chooses a "normal" life with a white woman, and second because her character behaves so inferiorly to him. This is likewise, anti-feminist. While these would seem troublesome today, it does not take away at all from the power that this story emotes.The photography is simple and quite unique in its two-color (red and green) Technicolor. The shots of the flowers, the sea and of the beautiful Anna May Wong emote the simple charms of life in a simpler time. Her loyalty and love for him make him seem proportionately ungrateful and downright cruel. You spend every moment watching him wishing she'd lay a guilt-trip on him, but she never does. By the end of the film you pretty much want to kill this guy - one of the most obnoxious losers in cinema history. As a result, Lotus Flower's hope and sadness, mocked by local gossipers, gives her unequaled sympathy from the audience. Ultimately, this film succeeds because it offers no fluff to its story. The storytelling is classic and direct and lacks even a single gimmick. It has no unnecessary subplots to take away our focus and comes purely from the heart.I cannot say enough about Wong's performance. She gets every note right about how a naive young girl clings to hope and lets herself be broken over love. She was really an exceptional actress and this performance makes it sadder that Hollywood was racist towards her in not giving her lead roles like this. I just saw her in a small supporting role in "Mr. Wu" in which Renee Adoree was given the Chinese female lead over Wong. Adoree wasn't a bad actress, but viewing it today, it screams for Anna May to be in the lead, despite its' racist plot line.Regardless, Anna May Wong really was a ground-breaker for Asians and all non-whites in this early time period in Hollywood. Even today, few Asian woman are given such lead roles. She excelled in her opportunity. This 1922 film that runs just under an hour shows how basic, simple emotions need little screen time to evoke the same emotions from an audience.

Toll of the Sea, The (1922) * 1/2 (out of 4) Historically important but zero entertainment. A Chinese legend says that the ocean can give you great things but for every great thing you receive you will have to pay back double in loneliness. A Chinese woman is thrilled when an American man washes up on shore but after some brief dating he starts to have second thoughts about all that he has promised her. I'll get to the historic stuff later but the film here is deadly dull. This is one of a few examples where it seems there are more title cards than actual screen time. There's no direction throughout as the camera just sits there and the actors hardly move on screen. The title cards tell us what's going on, which is to be expected but they also try to tell us what emotions the actors should be showing us. I believe this was all done because everyone was more worried about the 2-strip Technicolor, which was being used for this film. There had been earlier examples of this technique but this film was the first where every scene was in color. There are some beautiful shots here and the director does try to use colorful locations to brighten things up. In the end, history buffs might want to take a look but other stay clear.

Up until I saw this movie, I thought that THE BLACK PIRATE (with Douglas Fairbanks) was the first color film entirely shot using the two-color Technicolor process. However, this pirate film debuted four years after THE TOLL OF THE SEA, so the dust jacket from the Kino version of THE BLACK PIRATE was mistaken by proclaiming it the first. This might be because up until quite recently, THE TOLL OF THE SEA was thought to be lost. However, a print was recently found and restored with all but the last couple minutes available for viewing on The Treasures of the American Film Archives DVD series.Being a two-color process film, the color seems very archaic. That's because unlike true color film, the two-color process involves special cameras with overlapping strips of film--one orange-red and the other green-blue. As a result, the print tends to look too orangy-green and colors like yellows and true blues and reds are non-existent. Probably the best example of the use of this process is in the small color segment of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1925), as they somehow DID get a nearly perfect red for the Phantom's costume at the ball. It's a gorgeous scene and if you are a nut about early films (like me), then it's imperative you see this restored print as well as THE TOLL OF THE SEA.TOLL OF THE SEA is actually a pretty good film--even viewed today. What I especially like is that the film has a wonderful message about race and features honest-to-goodness Chinese actors and actresses in the film. In the 30s and 40s, Asians rarely every played leads (like Anna May Wong did in this movie). Think about it--Sidney Toler, Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Paul Muni and even Katherine Hepburn played leads in films about Asians or Asian-Americans only a decade or two after this film!!!!! Ms. Wong plays a nice lady who finds a sailor washed up on the shore. She nurses him back to health and they fall in love. He later goes back to his country and vows to return to get her. However, time passes and she is left waiting,...along with the little bastard she bore this unworthy jerk. So far, I really liked the film. However, when the guy returns some time later with his White wife, the film has a less than perfect conclusion--at least for me. I won't say anything more, but the film was pretty sad and left me feeling a bit down when it was finished.Overall, a very good film that is worth seeing for all fans of early cinema.

GREAT film, and i don't give that title to just any movie. One of my favorites, definitely. Beautifully shot, wonderfully acted- uniquely made, as well. this is the only silent film i've ever seen that was filmed in color- with the obvious exception of mel brooks' Silent Movie. A red and green camera was used- who would have known that anything could look so realistic using only red and green? Miss Saigon stole the plot, by the way... they did it well, though, so i'm not mad.