The Curse of Quon Gwon
The Curse of Quon Gwon: When the Far East Mingles with the West (1916) is one of my favorite discoveries on the National Film Registry. Not only is it one of the earliest films directed by a woman, but the earliest known Chinese American feature film. The director in question is Marion E. Wong, a pioneer in filmmaking who sought to educate audiences on Chinese culture through film. In other words, a total goddess. She created her own production company, the Mandarin Film Company in Oakland, California and served as it’s president. So would this also make her one of the first women AND people of color to own and run a production company?! Marion has somewhat fallen into obscurity because of course, racism and sexism prevented her from earning the recognition she deserved and the one film her company produced, The Curse of Quon Gwon was thought to be lost until relatively recently. Marion wrote, produced, directed, and co-starred in the film. While most of the film remains lost besides the two remaining nitrate reels that have been preserved, the plot is mostly understood as a love story with East meets West themes. Unfortunately the film did not receive the proper distribution and Marion’s film career was tanked.
Yet in an astonishing turn of events in 1969 Violet Wong, Marion’s sister-in-law and star of the film, told her grandson Gregory Mark about a film canister in the basement of the family home. “You should do something with it,” she told him in what I imagine to be a most mysterious manner. The canister contained the surviving reels of The Curse of Quon Gwon. And Mark did do something with that film canister; he took the reels and made them into a 16mm, which lead to the film’s rediscovery. Later filmmaker Arthur Dong was exposed to the film when he researched his excellent documentary Hollywood Chinese. This in turn lead The Curse of Quon Gwon to be preserved by the Academy Film Archive and then to be inducted into the National Film Registry, where I was lucky enough to come across it. The small portion of the film that survives is readily available online.
Being a mixed Chinese American woman, whose parents had their own East Meets West love story with all it’s ups and downs, my discovery of The Curse of Quon Gwon was especially important to me. It breaks my heart that Marion’s goal of educating the public on Chinese culture through film was not taken seriously during her time. However, I’m glad that thanks to the NFR and the other contributing parties that her film has now been rediscovered and her goals are starting to come to fruition. Because it is never too late for people to get the recognition they deserve or for films to make a difference, no matter how old they are. That is part of why I have been drawn to the NFR, because it gives films and filmmakers a second life and second chance to make the difference they were always destined to make. I love Marion’s story and how her film was rediscovered. I hope her story itself is made into a film one day and that way a bigger audience may get exposed to her life and work. If anyone knows of a project like this that has already been produced or is currently in the works that I am unaware of, please let me know. If nothing like this exists, maybe I’ll try to produce something myself one day…
Handy Resources:
https://asianamericanmusic.org/asian-americans-on-celluloid/the-curse-of-quon-gwon/
https://msmagazine.com/2014/10/20/forgotten-women-of-film-history-marion-wong/
