The Curse of Quon Gwon

Marion E. Wong's Mandarin Film Company, Oakland, 1916–17: the earliest surviving Chinese American feature, and one of the earliest American features a woman directed. Wong wrote, produced, directed, and played the unkind woman opposite her sister-in-law Violet Wong as the bride. Distributors would not take a Chinese-American picture without the usual stereotypes. Two reels survive of an estimated seven or eight, without original intertitles, restored by the Academy Film Archive. What remains is a wedding, a household, and a curse that may simply be tradition.