Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Michael Neumann This rare and delicate silent drama, unseen for over fifty years, was the first film made in two-strip Technicolor. Today it might be considered little more than a museum artifact, but not even the predictably heavy-handed period emoting can hide the charm and simplicity of the story, a bittersweet romance about a young Chinese girl who rescues and falls in love with a shipwrecked American naval officer, only to find herself abandoned soon afterward. The production was financed by the Technicolor Corporation, and many artists (Maxfield Parrish among them) were intrigued by the handsome pastel color schemes, highlighted in the strikingly detailed costume and set designs. The screening I attended (in February 1986, at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, California) marked only the fourth exhibition of the reconstructed print.

lyrast I just finished watching "The Toll of the Sea" for the first time. What a beautiful and moving film! Anna May Wong was perfect in her "Butterfly "role as Lotus Flower. She was so beautiful and had such wonderful expressiveness in her face, eyes, movements, gestures. It was a performance that mesmerised me, that touched me profoundly. And she was only a teenager when she made that film! In the end, the other characters are really only supporting props for her portrayal of a deeply wounded and utterly sacrificial love for a shallow husband and sweet child. The supporting actors do their jobs effectively but it is Lotus Blossom we care for most. To think that this gem was thought lost! This is the first time I've seen an entire silent film using The two-strip Technicolor technique. I've only seen clips from "The Black Pirate", the sequences in "Ben Hur" and the Exodus episode from "The Ten Commandments". I found its use in "The Toll of the Sea" very effective, particularly in conveying an ambiance of the exotic in the film and adding lustre and richness to the settings. I haven't thought too much about the personal emotional impact it may have on the viewer. When I watch the film again I'll try to analyse this factor.The piano score has a very nice delicacy which underlines the feelings and reactions of the various characters. I thought it quite sensitive and telling.An utterly beautiful film!

Maliejandra Kay The Toll of the Sea draws an audience because it was made in the early two strip Technicolor process. The story is about a Chinese girl named Lotus Flower (Anna May Wong) who finds a man dashed upon the rocks by the sea and rescues him. His name is Allen Carver (Kenneth Harlan) and he is an American. He and Lotus Flower fall in love and get married against the warnings that he will leave her for a white woman. Allen has good intentions until some American friends convince him to leave Lotus Flower behind because an inter-racial marriage would never work. The prophesy comes true, and Allen marries childhood sweetheart Elsie (Beatrice Bentley) in America, leaving Lotus Flower with a baby (Priscilla Moran) and a broken heart.The story is simple, sad, and poetic with some great acting by Wong. Unfortunately, many of her films are lost or unavailable, but she is always impressive in the roles she is given. Thankfully, the Chinese are portrayed sympathetically with very little stereotyping.The Technicolor is amazing here. We see mostly green and red, but the costuming and settings are strategically designed to utilize those colors. What results is a breath-taking film.The end of this film is lost, but it was restored by filming the Pacific Ocean with an original Technicolor camera. The title cards make the ending clear and the loss of footage does not detract from the ending's emotional power.

Inigo Jones Updating MADAM BUTTERFLY for the twenties was an ideal way to showcase the talents of Anna May Wong, one of the earliest Oriental actors to become a star. The story was further updated, of course, for the theatre musical MISS SAIGON in the 1990s.The early use of Technicolor seen in this charming if somewhat undemanding picture makes the film more interesting than would normally be the case. An earlier reviewer said it ran at 41 minutes, but my version (on Video CD - compatible with most DVD players) has an accurate running time of 50 minutes - perhaps contains more material. Don't know how long the version runs for on the 'Treasures of the American Archive' DVD.Worth a look as a curio, and worth treasuring as a piece of cinema history.