Daughter of the Dragon and A History of Violence

COMPARATIVE FILM STUDY
Daughter of the Dragon, Directed by Lloyd Corrigan, starring Anna May Wong
and
A History of Violence, Directed by David Cronenberg starring Viggo Mortensen

By Matthew Breimer

DAUGHTER OF THE DRAGON
ANALYZING A FILM:
The story of this classic film revolves around a quest for misplaced revenge, it is revealed through a series of short slides that tell the story of the fate of Fu Manchu’s family, and his misplaced desire for revenge on the Petrie family. Once complete, it is made clear that outside of this short “scene” the film will proceed in a linear fashion since each scene that happens afterwards is sequential.
PLOT:
Once the background is established, the film begins opening showing AMW as “Princess” Ling Moy, a Chinese dancer who is performing in England. We’re introduced to a second generation of Petrie, Ronald, who is introduced to Ling Moy through her Manager – Morloff.
The next series of scenes takes place at the Petrie home, and we see Petrie Sr. killed by Fu Manchu, but he is shot before he is able to kill Ronald. He escapes the Petrie home through a secret passage way, aided by Ling Moy’s manager.
After Fu Manchu escapes back to Morloff’s house where AMW is staying, it is revealed that she is his daughter. In an attempt to gain his favour before he dies, she vows to carry on his quest for vengeance by killing Ronald Petrie. In order to better hide her relationship with Fu Manchu, he says that he will try to kill her, but one of his loyal servants will summon the Scotland Yard nearby and stop him “just in time”. The plan works a little too well, and Ling Moy becomes so close to Ronald that she falls in love with him.
Her first attempt at taking Ronald’s life fails miserably because of this fact, but the plot is only partially revealed, Ling Moy is still close to Ronald, but now he has a permanent bodyguard from the Scotland Yard named Ah Kee.
In order to overcome what Fu Manchu’s surviving accomplice calls her feminine weakness, he poisons her with a form of incense that removes her capacity to love, so that she will instead focus on fulfilling her promise to her now dead father.
In her second attempt, she has now become as ruthless as her father and lures Ah Kee away from his charge by convincing him that she loves him, meanwhile Morloff and the other servants lure Ronald out of his home under the guise that Ling Moy has been kidnapped, and instead use the opportunity to capture both Ronald and his betrothed.
In her attempt to make Ronald suffer, Ling Moy makes the same mistake that every single Bond Villain has made, instead of killing him when she had the chance, she opts to torture him. However this takes too long, and the Scotland Yard get wise to her plan and the police manage to rescue Ronald, but not before Ling Moy manages to escape through the secret tunnels. However since Ronald’s friend already know about the tunnels, Ling Moy and her accomplice are trapped, and both are killed.
CONFLICT AND RESOLUTION:
The element of conflict in this film is that AMW’s character swears to kill her Father’s mortal enemy just before he dies; this provides motivation for all the characters involved throughout the rest of the film. This conflict is resolved by both Ling Moy and her late father’s accomplice being killed by Ronald and his friend.
VIEWERS:
In each of the categories that were listed in this subheading: Sound, Editing, Characterization, and Camera Movement this movie failed to capture any sort of reaction from me through all of these elements except Characterization. There are no heavily accented sounds of any kind, or anything that stands out in particular. There are sounds when there are supposed to be sounds, but nothing is deliberately placed to create certain reactions. In terms of editing and camera movement, aside from one or two zooms and a handful of close-ups the camera remains static in a semi-wide shot frame showing people coming and going from different rooms in the two main locations in the film.
Characterization was the only element that succeeded in conveying any sort of higher message. In this film all the Chinese characters are portrayed with an uneasy mystery about them, for the most part this conveys a sense of dread since all but one of them has a hand in the plot to murder Ronald Petrie. Another element that was well characterized was that the Chinese culture was steeped in tradition, patriarchy, and superstition. These is illustrated the best in a single scene: when Fu Manchu is dying and he pleads to his ancestors to forgive him for failing to fulfill his oath of vengeance, then Ling Moy says that she will carry this burden but he refuses saying that he essentially cannot count on her because she is a woman and wishes he that he only had another son, finally Ling Moy says that she will be his son, and they do a brief ceremony wherein Ling Moy vows vengeance so that her father may die in peace.


SETTING:
The setting of this film is stylistic, with a small dose of realism thrown in for good measure. I say this because the film is very much set in the “real” world in England; however it portrays a very stylized vision of the aristocracy – an example would be the “secret passage” in the Petrie home and the caricatures that populate the home make me think more of a game of Clue than a true revenge tale. These things coupled with Morloff’s home which looks like its architecture was taken straight from the Forbidden Palace makes the setting more stylized than it is realistic.
CHARACTERS:
As I stated earlier the characters are more caricatures than they are representations of people. Rogers serves as the comic relief since his character is a bumbling high-class twit that only manages to do something right in the final 5 minutes of the movie. Morloff on the other hand appears to be almost like a “Dracula” character, his accent and his intention on helping Fu Manchu on his quest (which is never adequately explained) make him inarguably evil. The same goes for Fu Manchu’s closest assistant Lu Chow who constantly stalks the shadows, speaks in an incredibly thick (fake) accent, he reminds me of an evil Curio Shop owner that sells evil artifacts.
SHOTS:
The shots used by the director are rudimentary at best, but there isn’t much to be expected when looking at a film from 1939. I counted only one or two instances of a slow zoom, which served to draw the watcher’s eye to a single object in a larger room. Other than those, he seems to favour wide shots, showcasing rooms with multiple characters in frame. But during important dialogue sequences he uses frequent cuts between close-ups of the major characters taking part in the conversation.
CAMERA ANGLES:
For the most part the film is shot with a regular head-on angle, level with the subject of the shot, there are only two instances I can think of in this film where the director has deviated from this standard. The first is when Petrie Sr. meets Fu Manchu in his study; here the director places the camera lower, angled upward towards Fu Manchu as he speaks to Petrie. This angle serves to make Fu Manchu seem larger than life and more imposing, and creates a degree of empathy between the audience and Petrie who is terrified.
The second instance is much later in the movie, when Ah Kee escapes from Morloff’s home, but rolls down the roof and falls to the ground below. Here the director chose to have an angle above the fall angled straight down, which serves to show the audience exactly how far Ah Kee falls, and explains why he dies at the end of the film.
CAMERA MOVEMENTS:
As mentioned earlier, the only movements the camera makes are slow zooms to focus on particular objects within the scene. Other than those instances the camera remains static.
MUSIC:
The music is almost non-existent in this film, as it only happens during the opening and closing credits. The choice of that music is uninspired at best, as if the director went to the composer and told him to create something oriental and left it at that.


EXTERNAL CONDITIONS:
I think the underlying racist tendencies of the 1930s definitely affect where the film can go, instead of providing a deeper exploration of the Chinese characters portrayed in the film, the way they dress, talk, act, and look at their lives and mortality are all staples of Western thought regarding Asian culture.
IDEOLOGY/CULTURAL TENSIONS:
The main element of Cultural tensions in this film is that the concept of Honor is so important to the Chinese people, so much so that even if one were to swear vengeance on someone, and then only later discover that it was misplaced, honor would dictate that they had to follow through with the vow regardless if it were valid or not. It is this that causes Ling Moy to continue her Father’s misguided quest for vengeance, even after Ah Kee tells her that he was wrong, she is so blinded by her duty to her dead father that she ignores common sense.
FINAL REFLECTIONS:
Overall this movie was surprising. Looking past the uncreative direction, and terrible 1930s acting, the story is pretty solid as a thriller could be, if it were to be remade today I would bet that it would fair decently at the box office. I shouldn’t call the direction entirely uncreative, the use of shadows in the scene where Fu Manchu poisons Petrie. Fu Machu appeared out of the shadows, and remained only partially revealed by the flame from the fire place, which coupled with the lower camera made him seem even more like a specter coming back from the grave to finish his work.


A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
ANALYZING A FILM:
This great film revolves around someone trying to start a new life, but being prevented from doing so by an event where he is forced to use his old abilities to save people he cares about. The story proceeds in a sequential linear fashion, however there are multiple references to past events that are never shown. This helps to create a level of believability to the characters story, instead of just having the back story plopped down in the beginning credits.
PLOT:
The plot of A History of Violence revolves around Viggo Mortensen’s character, Tom Stahl. Tom is a small town diner owner with an idyllic family and life in general. That is until a couple of murderous psychopaths enter his diner and Tom is forced to kill them in self defense.
Because the media loves a good hero story, his face is plastered all over the news and he eventually gets the attention of Carl Foggerty. Carl is a scar-faced gangster from Philadelphia who is convinced that Tom is actually a man named Joey Cusack, the man that gave him his scar. Carl harasses Tom and his family trying to convince them that he is right and Joey needs to pay for what he has done, eventually things come to a head when Carl kidnaps Tom’s son and proposes an exchange: Tom for his son. Instead its revealed that Tom actually IS Joey and he uses his incredibly extensive skills to kill Foggerty and his goons.
Now that his family knows his secret, Tom/Joey realizes that this will never be over until he goes back to Philly and finishes things once and for all. So he goes to visit his brother, now a high level mob boss and proceeds to kill him and all of his thugs as well.
After this work is completed, he returns home and his daughter sets a place for him at the dinner table, and we’re left wondering how the Stahl family will continue with this secret.
CONFLICT AND RESOLUTION:
In this movie there are 4 major conflicts, and all except one end in bloodshed. As I started earlier there is the robbery attempt at the diner, dealing with Foggerty, then Joey’s brother. All of these are resolved with Joey/Tom murdering the people threatening his way of life. The final conflict though is much deeper than something that can simply be solved with violence. When Tom is finally revealed to actually be Joey, his family doesn’t know what to think of him since as long as they’ve known him he has been a simple, quiet father and provider, but when they see him for who he was (a ruthless and efficient killer) their world is turned topsy-turvey. This conflict isn’t really resolved, all we as an audience are treated to is a final scene of the Stahl family eating dinner with everything seemingly back to normal. It begs the question: Is it really over?
VIEWERS:
This movie does a great job covering all the bases when it comes to sound, editing, and characterization. Subtle sounds that would normally be indistinguishable background noise are amplified for effect, editing cuts create moods and help move the scene forward, and all the while Cronenberg and Josh Olsen (writer) create fantastic characters that really help the story’s believability.
The best example of the sound is when Tom shoots the one robber on the ground through the top of the head; this blows the lower half of his face apart and you hear his remaining struggled breaths gurgle through the pooling blood. This simple sound effect really drives home the level of violence being portrayed.
My favourite editing trick that was used was when Joey goes to confront Richie (his brother), he escapes and tricks Richie into going outside, and the trick is so effective that even the viewer thinks that he Joey has run off, when in fact he is still in the house and he uses the ruse to figuratively catch Richie with his pants down before shooting him in the head.
As for characterization, I think the most compelling element is when Foggerty is interrogating Tom about actually being Joey. Foggerty is clearly pure evil, tone of voice plus the scar couple to create an image of evil incarnate, meanwhile Tom is playing dumb and deflecting the questions, but there is still something about Tom’s character that doesn’t seem quite right (this is clear even before the attempted robbery). This dichotomy really sells the characters to the viewer.
SETTING:
The setting for A History of Violence is one that is grounded in the real world, the small town atmosphere of rural America, and the Mob Mansion during the climax do not seem farfetched from reality, and the characters are relatable enough to normal people. Though not everyone has gone on murderous rampages after trying to start a new life, stories of Mob violence and redemption of people trying to leave that life are dime-a-dozen. Obviously there needs to be some suspension of disbelief in thinking that a man like Joey would just up and leave the Mob and be able to transform himself into this quiet everyman is unlikely, but the need for the audience to make that jump is made easier by the viewers desire to see the good in people.
CHARACTERS:
The characters in this film are completely believable for the most part, though casting John Hurt in the role of Richie seems kind of off, everyone else is spot on. Tom/Joey has the perfect Jekyll/Hyde persona, his quiet side trying to cover-up his ultraviolent past, which of course comes back to haunt him. Carl Foggerty, as I mentioned earlier, is the absolute perfect villain since he remains menacing even when doing something as simple as ordering coffee in Tom’s diner. Finally I think the least appreciated character is that of Jack, Tom’s son. At first we see him as a mirror image of his father, quiet and unassuming, but since he is in high school he is seen as an easy target for bullies. But after Tom’s act of heroism, Jack becomes a dark reflection of Tom, going from quiet to violent in order to deal with a bully by beating him and his friends senseless.
SHOTS AND CAMERA ANGLES:
David Cronenberg uses a variety of modern film making techniques to create maximum impact with the audience. My favourite instance of this is in the opening scene when the younger psychopath needs to kill the young girl, he angles the camera towards the killer away from the girl because (a) the MPAA would never allow a movie showing a child being shot in the face to be released, but also (b) to focus on the killer’s dead unfeeling eyes while he does it. There is no remorse in his face, this establishes for the audience exactly how far gone this individual is.


CAMERA MOVEMENTS:
Referring to the previous statement about Cronenberg’s desire to provide maximum impact, the best illustration of this in Camera movement is during the same scene as mentioned above. The killer enters the office of the motel in order to refill their water supply, but by this point the audience doesn’t really think anything of it since they haven’t seen any acts of explicit violence. But as the killer walks through the office, the camera dollies along beside him and as he passes the front desk (nonchalantly ringing the service bell as he does) the camera stops and pans downwards to reveal two motel employees lying on the ground in pools of blood. It is made clear that this is the handiwork of the killer’s psychopath companion waiting in the car for him to return with the water, and serves to show how depraved they both are.
MUSIC:
The music in this film is extremely subtle, there aren’t any moments of bombastic music that overrides what is happening on screen, and there are very appropriate crescendos that happen when there is a sudden increase in the action on-screen, but outside of that it doesn’t really resonate enough to be specifically memorable. Normally I would consider this a fault, but since the pacing of the movie is slow enough, yet dialogue rich that it isn’t really missed, and only serves to reinforce the feelings of the moment where it is noticeable.
EXTERNAL CONDITIONS:
This movie doesn’t appear to be affected by outside conditions as much as movies made earlier in the history of film. It was made in 2005, was directed by a well known director, had a sizable budget, and had an all-star cast. The only thing that really could have influenced the movie would be the fact that it was based on a graphic novel. But even then the writer and director both took plenty of creative license with the source material to make it their own.
IDEOLOGY/CULTURAL TENSIONS:
In this movie there are no real ethnic or cultural differences between major characters, they’re all white American citizens. There definitely is a tension in ideology though, since Tom’s life in rural America is idyllic to say the least. He has a beautiful wife, two kids and a decent job. But when things go downhill and Foggerty shows up, it is clear that his ideology is based around power and violence instead of Tom’s new life which revolves around community and family. It is this ideological struggle that eventually forces Tom to revert back to Joey (whose ideology is the same as Foggerty’s) in order to save his family.
FINAL REFLECTIONS:
As I’m sure was made painfully obvious in reading this critique, I am a big fan of this movie. The way everything fits together to make a great cinematic experience is not something you see very often is modern film, most filmmakers and producers prefer to travel the path which guarantees them “asses in seats” rather than weave a compelling narrative.
I enjoyed this movie quite a bit, and not just because of the exorbitant level of violence and gore contained within, although these things definitely add to the experience, they aren’t necessary to enjoy the movie. If someone else other than Cronenberg had directed the movie and chosen to opt for a less graphic visual style, I’m sure that the film would be just as enjoyable as it is in its current form.


FINAL COMPARISON
The two films, Daughter of the Dragon and A History of Violence, ended up being surprisingly similar. Both have themes of murder and revenge, as well as main characters hiding their true selves from their loved ones. As I stated earlier, I believe my disapproval of Daughter of the Dragon stems from it being a victim of its time period. The technology was woefully insufficient for the types of stories they wanted to tell, plus the idea that stage performances were needed in these films rather than a new type of acting, and when we look at them today their performances are over-the-top and campy instead of being taken seriously. As we watch these films we sit and laugh at how awful they are. If this weren’t true, shows like “Mystery Science Theatre 3000” wouldn’t have gone on for eight consecutive seasons and spawned a feature film of its own.
A History of Violence on the other hand was made in 2005, with a huge budget and a star studded cast. These elements alone put it well above any movie made in the 1930s and it is honestly unfair to compare them on a purely technical level. But the fact still remains that the performances in A History of Violence are much more approachable by the audience since the characters on screen appear more human than their counterparts in Daughter of the Dragon, who appear to be caricatures of the characters the actors are playing.
That being said it is still quite possible to appreciate both films as works of art on their own standing rather than comparing them since that is akin to comparing a 5th Generation Chevrolet Camero to a Model-T.