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Marion E. Wong (1895-1969) was an American filmmaker of Chinese descent.^[1] She is one of a few known female directors of movies.^[2] Wong created the first known Asian American-made movie.^[1]^[2]^[3] She wrote, produced, directed and acted in the Curse of Quon Gwon.^[1]^[3] Wong also made the scenery and costumes.^[3] It was one of the only movies that featured Chinese Americans in a non-stereotypical view.^[4] After making Curse of Quon Gwon, she became bankrupt and stopped filmmaking. Her movie became lost except for 2 tins, which were recently discovered.^[5]

Early life

Wong was born in San Francisco. She moved to Oakland when she was young.^[5] She went to until she moved. Because she was the youngest of a big family, she probably got homeschooled after moving.^[5] Her family owned a cafe. As a child, she spent a lot of time at the cafe.^[5] When she was 15, she and her brothers went to China to find spouses.^[3] At that time, there was an act called the Geary Act. It made it hard for Chinese immigrants to come to the United States.^[5] Because of that, Wong and her brothers could only stay in China for one year.^[5] If they stayed longer, they could not return to the United States.^[5] In China, one of her brothers died of smallpox.^[5] The other brother found a good wife named Violet.^[5] Violet and Wong became good friends.^[5] Meanwhile, Wong found a someone to be her husband. She rejected him and went back to the United States without a husband.^[5]

Career

After returning to the United States, Wong started writing the screenplay for her first movie.^[5] Charlie Chaplin filmed part of his movie, One Night Out, near Wong’s family’s cafe.^[5] She led her to creating a movie from the screenplay. She hired one of Chaplin's people to be the cameraman for the movie.^[5] This cost a whole lot of money.^[5] She got support from her uncle who was very wealthy.^[3] She started her own movie company.^[5] This company was called Mandarin Film Company.^[5] Her movies was much better than most movies made by beginner directors.This is partly because of the good person working the camera.^[5] She directed and produced her own movie.^[5] This movie starred Violet (her sister-in-law), her mother, Violet’s daughter and a professional actor, Harvey Soo Hoo.^[1]^[3] Her movie was different from other movies of that time.^[5] Other movies did not represent Chinese-Americans well.^[2] The other movies that had Chinese-Americans in them at that time were all very stereotyped.^[2] “I had never seen any Chinese movies,” said Wong, “so I decided to introduce them to the world.”^[5] In the first screenings of her movie, people loved it.^[5] Because her movie didn’t have stereotypes that were common at that time, distributors wouldn’t buy it.^[4] Wong couldn’t pay back her uncle.^[5] Her uncle became broke.^[5] She was really sad about her failure.^[5] She decided to not be a filmmaker.^[5] She asked the family to "never speak of her film again”.^[5]

The revival of The Curse of Quon Gwon

In 1969, Violet told her grandson Gregory Mark about a canister containing the rolls of The Curse of Quon Gwon. She told him to “do something with it.”^[6] In 2004 an Asian-American filmmaker Arthur Dong discovered the film rolls and took the to the Academy Film Archive to restore the film.^[7]^[8] In December of 2006 the film was recognized as an important historical and cultural film by the National Film Registry.^[9] Out of the 8 reels of the film only 2 are saved as of now and you can see them in the Oakland Museum of California.^[10]

References

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 ^1.2 ^1.3 Lau, Jenny Kwok Wah (2013). "Marion E. Wong". Women Film Pioneers Project. doi:10.7916/d8-s9yz-e287 – via Columbia University Academic Commons.
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2 ^2.3 "Six Early Films, 1900–1929". Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Retrieved 2023-02-13.
↑ ^3.0 ^3.1 ^3.2 ^3.3 ^3.4 ^3.5 Eagan, D. (2010). America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry. United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Academic. P. 55-57.
↑ ^4.0 ^4.1 Randall. (2015, Aug 09). KQED: First film ever made by Asian American discovered in basement. AsAmNews Retrieved from ProQuest.
↑ ^5.00 ^5.01 ^5.02 ^5.03 ^5.04 ^5.05 ^5.06 ^5.07 ^5.08 ^5.09 ^5.10 ^5.11 ^5.12 ^5.13 ^5.14 ^5.15 ^5.16 ^5.17 ^5.18 ^5.19 ^5.20 ^5.21 ^5.22 ^5.23 ^5.24 ^5.25 ^5.26 "Badass Ladies of History: Marion Wong – Persephone Magazine". Archived from the original on 2023-01-17. Retrieved 2023-01-17.
↑ "Made in Oakland in 1916, First Asian American Film Still Inspires". KQED. Retrieved 2023-02-13.
↑ Higgins, S., & Ross, S. (2005). Archival news. Cinema Journal, 44(4), 116-122. Retrieved from ProQuest.
↑ THE CLASS OF 2006. (2006). Hollywood Reporter, 397, 7-8,19. Retrieved from ProQuest.
↑ Elite list adds 'rocky': [ALL EDITIONS]. (2006, Dec 28). Newsday Retrieved from ProQuest.
↑ "Arthur Dong - DeepFocus Productions News (2009–11)". www.deepfocusproductions.com. Retrieved 2023-02-13.