Slaying the Dragon

This is a documentary about the history of Asian actresses in Hollywood. Even today, we still need more positive roles to improve the perception of Asian American women in the media. I liked the montage of images from classic movies such as "The Good Earth" and "Flower Drum Song" that showed the Chinese in a positive light. These images contrast with disturbing clips of movies that portray Asians as evil villains. It was very sad that back then the few good Asian roles out there usually went to non-Asian actresses wearing ridiculous heavy "oriental" makeup. However, rather than celebrating the efforts of pioneering actresses such as Anna May Wong and Nancy Kwan, the documentary would rather run them into the ground. Also, there was no mention of France Nuyen, another popular early Asian actress, which I thought was a bit unfair. In many ways these actresses helped "open the door" for the Asian actresses of today. So in summary, I would say it was in an interesting but, disappointedly, a somewhat biased documentary.