Mr. Wu

Director: William Nigh William Nigh

Overview

Previously filmed in England in 1919, the barnstorming Harry Maurice Vernon-Harold Owen play Mr.Wu re-emerged as a Lon Chaney Sr. vehicle in 1927. Chaney essays a dual role, as the titular Wu and Wu's honorable grandfather. After a lengthy prologue, it is established that Wu is a powerful, ruthless Chinese aristocrat who will stop at nothing to defend his daughter Nang Ping's (Renee Adoree) honor. When Nang Ping is seduced and abandoned by wealthy Briton Basil Gregory (Ralph Forbes), Wu begins plotting a horrible revenge, beginning with the killing of his own daughter (who goes to her fate with stoic resignation). He then captures Gregory's mother (Louise Dresser) and sister (Gertrude Olmstead), then forces Basil to watch as he prepares to subject the two women to unspeakable tortures. Wu is ultimately killed by Basil's mother, bringing this bizarre exercise in chinoiserie to a grim conclusion.

Product Details

Release Date:	10/26/2010
UPC:	0883316289549
Original Release:	1927
Rating:	NR
Source:	Warner Archives
Presentation:	[Full Frame]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Stereo]
Language:	English
Time:	1:22:00
Sales rank:	52,350

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Lon Chaney	Mr. Wu/Wu's Grandfather
Louise Dresser	Mrs. Gregory
Renee Adoree	Nang Ping
Holmes Herbert	Mr. Gregory
Ralph Forbes	Basil Gregory
Mrs. Wong Wing	Ah Wong,Ah Wong
Claude King	Mr. Muir
Sonny Loy	Little Wu
Anna May Wong	Loo Song
Gertrude Olmstead	Hilda Gregory

Technical Credits

Lorna Moon

William Nigh	Director,Producer
Lorna Moon	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

If only Renée Adorée, playing Lon Chaney's lovesick Chinese daughter, could have switched roles with the exquisite Anna May Wong, Mr. Wu would have made perfect melodrama. As it is, Adorée's light eyes and stocky figure do not exactly invoke Asian mysticism and she looks positively drab next to Wong who, as usual, is wasted in a subordinate role. But Hollywood miscegenation laws were strict and the redoubtable Ralph Forbes was stuck with the plump Renée. That aside, Mr. Wu naturally wholly belongs to Chaney, who once again is well nigh unrecognizable as both an ancient Chinese lord and his supposedly more enlightened grandson. The latter goes perhaps a bit overboard when his daughter's "golden secret" is about to be exposed, but who can really blame him for being a mite apprehensive of foreigners bandying about words like "chink" at every opportunity? The film was given a sumptuous MGM production, complete with art direction by the legendary Cedric Gibbons, and though the story is as familiar as they come (some of the titles positively reek of dialogue from a Charlie Chan serial), that's to be expected. The restored version of Mr. Wu received its world television premiere on Turner Classic Movies in 2000, but was unfortunately saddled with a rather ill-suited avant-garde score.

All Movie Guide - Hans J. Wollstein