There's much to admire in this Robert Florey melodrama, which plays more like a pre-Code feature than a 1937 quickie. The ravishingly beautiful Anna May Wong gets the bulk of the screen time as Lan Ying Lin, a San Francisco gal whose art dealer father (Ching Wah Lee) has been murdered by smugglers. She's soon on their trail with the assistance of FBI agent Kim Lee (taciturn Philip Ahn). The film also features outstanding performances by Charles Bickford as grizzled human cattle herder Hartmann and Cecil Cunningham as the brains behind the operation. Charles Schoenbaum's cinematography is excellent and especially impressive for a second feature: he uses unusual proto-noir camera angles and doesn't resort to the predictable set-ups you generally see in 'B' pictures. Ultimately, though, this is Wong's film, and though she was never a great actress, it's clear that if not for her ethnicity she would (and should) have been a big star.
Review of Daughter of Shanghai
