Dangers of Mixing Two Styles "An Unfortunate Girl" is the title of a Chinese motion picture drama which was shown at a pri-vote exhibition on Saturday night by the Shanghai Photoplay Ca It is by far the best picture written and produced by Chinese that we have thus far seen.
Goo Kno (Miss Anna Fu) is an unhappy maiden who clopes with the man she loves in order to escape marrying a rich man whom her father wishes to impose upon her. The young couple are married and live happily (she is not thrown out of the home by a profligate husband as is the case with so many of our pictures nowadays) until the husband, an artist, dies after the birth of their son. She manages to pull through life for a few years, her son, Foo Bay (Kiddie Dan), having by this time become a lad not yet in hig teens. They move to another place, and presently a year's rent is owing. Their landlord, a harsh and unscrupulous man (Wong Lai-tung), falls in love with the young mother and attempts to force her to marry him. She refuses, and later she and her son meet Li Ka-see, a Jawyer (Eu Sze-ling), who also wants to marry her but she refuses to do so, partly because it is against the family laws of China and partly because she has taken a vow to remain single all her life.
The acting is excellent but some of the story is incredible, and does not fit in with real life. Unfortunately, the play is spoilt by the many Americanisms, both in the acting and the titles, the latter being in a number of cases incorrect in spelling and in comparison with the Chinese titles. Instead of having a really good Chinese picture, showing the Chinese home, the life and customs of the Chinese, a comparatively foreign picture is shown. Foreign clothes, foreign surroundings, foreign food—and even foreign love making!
One or two scenes we did like, those in which everything is Chinese—where the young mother serves her food in Chinese fashion and where it is eaten by her son in the same manner. Again where the young woman is sewing while her son plays—everything being true to Chinese life helped to make the picture good. If this picture were shown in entirely Chinese surroundings, and foreign (especially American) "fashions" left out, the effect would be much better than it was, The picture on Saturday night was well taken, the light good and on the whole the play was well played.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.