The "Vampire's Prey," probably the first typical film romance attempted by Chinese producers and actors, was presented at the Olympic Theatre on Wednesday night. Such in event must be chietly interesting from the point of view of the the similarity or the dissimilarity of the piece compared with the ordinary American picture.
The film contains less of the lightning action and none of the shooting associated with much from Los Angeles. But otherwise the story, by the second son of the Jate President Yuan Shih-kai, in spite of its Treaty Port locale, has all the elements of a screen drama~—a pleasant entertainment of a, rather sugary nature and the usual display of heroics.
The scene is laid for the most part in-Shanghai. A girl from one of the local colleges is seriously injured in a motor car accident. It occurs in North Szechuen Road Extension. She is taken to hospital. The doctor who attends her falls in love with his patient. Three weeks later, when she is convalescent, he proposes, but is not at. that time accepted. Later, they. arrange to meet in a public garden. With more complaisance than is usually displayed by Western feminity at a first meeting, she waits on a seat for the doctor until unknown to her he has finished an animated versation with two Chinese ladies of not unimpeachable character. Thence onwards he becomes slave to the wiles of these women. He gets into shocking embarrassments. At last he is rescued from a terrible den, where his life is actually in danger, and all ends happily.
It is a pity that some of the artificial "business" of the Western producer could not have been left out. The mystic gathering of the "Ten Sitters' (the name of the imimmoral sect to which the two bad women belong) is somewhat unconvincing. Were this episode even characteristic of certain Buddhist or Taoist ritual they would be out of place in a play where all the characters so aggressively typify young China. Otherwise the picture is satisfactory. It has a coherent scenario, something which is far too rarely achieved in the West. The leading characters, particularly Eng Shien-foo, as the doctor, give a very creditable performance. of its confidence in him, the Chinese -Government has repeatedly spoken of giving Dr. Koo the rank of Ambassador. Last year he was appointed one of the Chinese delegates to the Washington Con-terence, where with his two colleagues, Dr. S. K. Alfred Sze, Chinese Minister to Washington, and Dr. Wang Chung-hui, Minister _of Justice, he signed the treaty. He has repeatedly been mentioned as a possible successor to Dr. W. W. Yen as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.