If you think it’s difficult being an Asian American director today trying to make Asian American-themed projects, imagine what it must have been like 94 years ago. Up until recently, it was, in fact, thought that no Asian American filmmakers existed that far back (Sessue Hayakawa wouldn’t start his own company, becoming the first Asian American producer/actor, until 1918). That is until 2006 when two reels of a 1916 silent feature entitled The Curse of Quon Gwon were discovered. The director and writer of the movie was a Chinese American woman named Marion Wong.
Documentary filmmaker Arthur Dong was researching Hollywood Chinese, his excellent look at the history of Chinese Americans in Hollywood, when he unearthed the two 35 mm reels (about 35 minutes of footage) in an Oakland basement. The film was preserved on highly flammable nitrate stock and had to be carefully handled and restored (among other dangers, old nitrate stock has a tendency to suddenly explode). The Curse of Quon Gwon was the first narrative feature made by a Chinese American and also one of the first films to be directed by a woman.
