Broken Blossoms (1919)

Original title

Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl

Directed by

D. W. Griffith

Genre

drama film, silent film, melodrama, romance film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 30m

Rated

NR

Rating

6.9 of 10 from 244 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A young girl living in London's Limehouse district is beaten by her violent father. She finds kindness from a Chinese man who runs a shop and cares for her.

tragicsentimentalslow-pacedsomberromanticvisually expressiveheartbreakingatmospheric

What happens

Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl, often referred to simply as Broken Blossoms, is a 1919 American silent melodrama film directed by D. W. Griffith. It was distributed by United Artists and premiered on May 13, 1919. It stars Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, and Donald Crisp, and tells the story of a young girl, Lucy Burrows, who is abused by her alcoholic prizefighting father, Battling Burrows, and meets Cheng Huan, a kind-hearted Chinese man who falls in love with her. It was the first film distributed by United Artists. It is based on Thomas Burke's short story "The Chink and the Child" from the 1916 collection Limehouse Nights. In 1996, Broken Blossoms was included in the annual selection of 25 motion pictures to be added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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