Enthusiastically Received At the Carlton Another large "house" attended the "screening" of the British-American Tobacco Co.'s latest film, "Filial Piety," at the Carlton Theatre last night. This modern Chit ese "super feature," which "stars Mary Lee and Olive Young, was commented upon at length last week after it had been shown private, so that there is little to be added.
'Miss Olive Young, that popular] young Chinese actress, gave another exhibition of her excellent atilities in the part of Lucy Tong' and her portrayals of the "modern, up-to-date" girl, the happy lover, the disillusioned and heart-broken sweetheart and nurse could not, have been better. Surely, she is deserving of the title, the Chinese "Mary Pickford."
Miss Lee, the unhappy wife Kwei-_ Ting, too, acted her part well and present.
Chao-chun, (we don't know what his real name is), othe returned student, who is engaged in his boyhood to Kwei-ling but whose heart lies with Lucy Tong, in spite of every effort on the' part of his young wife to win his love, was also good, and well suited to the part.
The other parts were well played, the hard-hearted mother Chao-chun, who insists upon her! sen carrying out the contract entered into during his childhood to marry Kwei-ling, the father who agrees with the mother and Wu Na-Jen, the foiled lover of Lucy.
We emphasize, as we did before, that there is too much modernity, too many Americanisms, too little) of the real Chinese home life, customs, habits, ete., when there plenty of talent and wide scope for such a picture in China. The actors and their playing, the customs and the costumes used are too Americanized. Why cannot the Chinese, in Chinese pictures like this, use their own national costumes, and act in accordance with the quaint habits of days of yore! in China: Why must they constantly resort to foreignisms?
The titles, too, might be improved upon. Why insist on having English titles, in small lettering that nobody can read, on one side of the screen and Chinese on the other? These would be cut down, (and many do need cutting down), and set apart, to make them more readable and distinct to those who view the picture from a distance.
The action is inclined to be slow and long drawn out but, on the whole, the picture shows that considerable progress has been made in the Chinese motion picture industry.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.