When an upstanding antique dealer is harmed by a gang of human traffickers, his daughter Lan Ying (Anna May Wong) vows to uncover the real culprit behind this nefarious racket. Though Daughter of Shanghai was conceived as a B-movie for Paramount Studios, it presented a rare opportunity for Wong to play a role not based on racial stereotypes.

Growing up in the Chinatown area of Los Angeles, California, Wong dreamed of a career in films despite her parents’ objection. She found her first leading role in The Toll of the Sea (1922) before being cast in The Thief of Bagdad (1924). As the first Chinese American star in Hollywood, she often felt discriminated against and constrained by roles that fit the on-screen Asian stereotypes of that era. Given the limitations, she took her career to Europe in 1928, where she received praise for her performances in films such as Piccadilly (1929) and The Flame of Love (1930).

After a trip to China, Wong returned to Hollywood determined to play roles that portrayed Chinese in a more positive light. These films often had a much lower budget than the studio’s marquee pictures, but they offered more fulfilling roles for Wong. Daughter of Shanghai was one such picture, where she played an intelligent, humorous, and beautiful young woman determined to expose her father’s assailants with the help of a federal agent (Philip Ahn) of Asian descent.

The screening on 22 November will be followed by a talk on the cultural significance of the films made by Anna May Wong and other filmmakers featured in this series. Dr. Fiona Law, Lecturer in Comparative Literature at the University of Hong Kong, will join M+ Assistant Curator of Moving Image Francisco Lo on this talk in Cantonese.

Robert Florey (1900–1979, France) was a French American director, screenwriter, film journalist and actor. Florey began his career with his first film One Hour of Love in 1927 and has since directed more than 50 films throughout his career. While some of his works reflect his avant-garde expressionist style, he has also earned a solid reputation in directing major studio B-movies. Some of his notable works include The Cocoanuts (1929), Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), and Daughter of Shanghai (1937), which starred Anna May Wong and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2006. In the 1950s, Florey was made a knight in the Légion d'honneur. He then devoted himself entirely to directing popular television series, such as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962) and The Twilight Zone (1959), before retiring in 1964.