Sessue Hayakawa

The classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. British and American intelligence officers conspire to blow up the structure, but Col. Nicholson, the commander who supervised the bridge's construction, has acquired a sense of pride in his creation and tries to foil their plans.

After being shipwrecked, the Robinson family is marooned on an island inhabited only by an impressive array of wildlife. In true pioneer spirit, they quickly make themselves at home but soon face a danger even greater than nature: dastardly pirates.

A young Venezuelan idealist flees his native land to escape a revolution. Hoping to find peace, he goes to the mountains and the forests of the Amazon. There he encounters Rima, the Bird Girl, an orphan living a life of nature, who is feared by a local jungle tribe.

Eddie Kenner is given a special assignment by the Army to get the inside story on Sandy Dawson, a former GI who has formed a gang of fellow servicemen and Japanese locals.

Gilbert Wooley is a second-rate magician who is sent to entertain the troops in the pacific. During his time in Japan he becomes attached to a little orphan boy.

No description available.

Teruo gets caught up in a conflict between tradition and modernism after returning to Japan from Germany after having spent a number of years there studying. Now, he is supposed to marry Mitsuko, the daughter of his adoptive father, to whom Teruo has long been promised. But Teruo, who has gotten to know the freedoms of the western world, would rather marry the woman he loves and behaves brusquely to Mitsuko.

A venal, spoiled stockbroker's wife impulsively embezzles $10,000 from the charity she chairs and desperately turns to a Burmese ivory trader to replace the stolen money.

After an accusation of a breach of diplomacy committed by his brother, Hashimura Togo bears the burden and leaves Japan in disgrace for the United States where he enters the employ of Mrs. Reynolds as a butler. Togo discovers that Mrs. Reynolds' daughter Corinne is in love with Dr. Garland but is being coerced into marrying Carlos Anthony who, having seized all of her deceased father's funds, now promises to save the family from financial ruin in return for Corinne's hand in marriage. Enlisting the aid of a reporter, Hashimura succeeds in proving Anthony's deception in time to stop the marriage, freeing Corinne to marry Garland. After a series of misadventures, his name is cleared and Hashimura returns to his sweetheart in Japan.

No description available.

Borneo, 1941, during World War II. When the Japanese occupy the island, American writer Agnes Newton Keith is separated from her husband and imprisoned with her son in a prison camp run by the enigmatic Colonel Suga.

A Japanese maiden is pursued by an unscrupulous American young man who falsely believes her to have great riches.

Marooned on a desert island, Dr. Robert Farlow and wealthy toxicologist Count Ito Onato both fall in love with Lora, a beautiful Japanese-American girl. Lora prefers Robert but decides to reject him because of his excessive fondness for drinking. After their rescue, Lora marries Count Ito, but Robert, still in love and resolving to win her, stops drinking, and soon attains a reputation in medicine matched only by the count's.

Yukio is illegal in the United States and is used by a gang of spies for their plans. Yukio must steal secret documents from an admiral. When he's submitting the documents to the gang, he realizes what he has done and claims the documents back. A struggle follows.

With the advent of sound, the world's leading screen idol, Douglas Fairbanks, experienced a downturn in his fortunes. His thin, reedy voice was not suited to the talkies, his marriage to Mary Pickford was on the outs, and his son, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., had replaced him as a major box-office draw. Faced with the Hollywood equivalent of a mid-life crisis, Doug called up three of his best friends - director Victor Fleming, cinematographer Henry Sharp, and production manager Charles Lewis - and took them on a six-month tour of Asia, ostensibly to shoot a travelogue for United Artists (of which Fairbanks was still a major shareholder.) Their first stop is Honolulu, followed in quick succession by Japan, China, Peking, Hong Kong, Indochina, the Philippines, Siam, and India. Fairbanks and company spend time at such noteworthy spots as the Taj Mahal, Angkor Wat, the Summer Palace and the Sun Yat-Sen Mausoleum.

An American veteran returns to Tokyo to try to pick up the threads of his pre-World War II life there, but finds himself squeezed between criminals and the authorities.

An adventurer tries to seize oil deposits in Mongolia .

Going to take up his post in Moukden, the forest engineer finds in a trainer from the cabaret "the midnight sun" a Russian princess, Armide, whom he once loved. He had met her in 1917 when the princess and her father were driven from their domain. Prince Ireniev is a gambler, a trickster, a matchmaker. Out of love for Armide, Forestier flew, and yet when he finds the two wrecks, he cannot resist. Abandoning everything, his position and his honor, he leaves with the woman of his destiny.

A history of anti-Asian racism and yellowface in Hollywood after the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack.

Based on the story about Guy Gabaldon, a Los Angeles Hispanic boy raised in the 1930s by a Japanese-American foster family. After Pearl Harbor, his foster family is interned at the Manzanar camp for Japanese Americans, while he enlists in the Marines, where his ability to speak Japanese becomes a vital asset. During the Battle of Saipan, he convinces 800 Japanese to surrender after their general commits suicide.

A behind-the-scenes show on the filming of Swiss Family Robinson on the West Indian island of Tobago. Then the True Life Adventure Water Birds.

Loey Tsing, the first love of Chan Wang, is sold into slavery by her father. Although Chan marries another, he still loves Loey; only the birth of a son relieves his unhappiness. He adores little Chan Toy even though he finds nothing to like about his wife.

Based on a novel by Maurice Dekobra, the film is set in Yoshiwara, the red-light district of Tokyo, in the nineteenth century. It depicts a love triangle between a high-class prostitute, a Russian naval officer, and a rickshaw man.

No description available.

When a famed matador is forced to become an outlaw, he seeks to get revenge on the dancing girl who betrayed him.

Sato (Sessue Hayakawa) faithfully works for importer James Thornton (James Neill). When the old man dies, he leaves his daughter Mildred (Vivian Martin) in Sato's care. Sato loves the girl, but as he is Japanese he cannot hope to ever marry her (at least not in the racially prejudiced era of the early 1900s). Besides, Mildred loves Harry Maxwell (Tom Forman), who was raised alongside her.

In May 1945, Japan's defeat was imminent after the attacks on Saipan, Iwo Jima, and the Philippines, and Tokyo was reduced to a sea of ​​fire by another massive air raid. However, within the Ministry of the Army, there were still officers who were enthusiastic about a decisive battle on the mainland. Eventually, the Okinawa garrison was annihilated, and the US military was approaching the mainland, but on July 27th, the Potsdam Conference between the US, Britain, and the Soviet Union broadcast the Triple Joint Declaration, which set out the final terms of surrender for Japan.

Before the G, PG and R ratings system there was the Production Code, and before that there was, well, nothing. This eye-opening documentary examines the rampant sexuality of early Hollywood through movie clips and reminiscences by stars of the era. Gloria Swanson, Mary Pickford, Marlene Dietrich and others relate tales of the artistic freedom that led to the draconian Production Code, which governed content from 1934 to 1968. Diane Lane narrates.

At her Chinese father's bidding, a woman goes to murder an enemy and meets a Scotland Yard detective.

Denise Moret joins her husband, Pierre, in Mongolia where he works as a civil engineer. One night she loose a lot of money on the roulette and therefore is forced to borrow money from Prince Lee-Lang. The Prince immediately begins to flirt and make advances towards Denise. Advances she rejects.

An American sailor falls in love with a fisherman's daughter and convinces her that Jesus is more powerful than the gods who have cursed her.

The manager of the American oil company quits out of fear of El Jaguar, the bandit who is terrorizing the Mexican countryside, Phil Jordan is sent in his place. Phil arrives with his younger sister Nancy, when the bandit makes a unwanted pass towards the girl, Phil beats him, causing El Jaguar to vow revenge. Waiting until Phil's bride Beth arrives, El Jaguar captures all three Americans and sadistically forces Phil to choose between leaving with his sister or his wife. Beth volunteers to remain as a sacrifice, and Phil and Nancy ride off, soon to encounter a troop of rangers. They all rush back to rescue Beth, but before they arrive, the bandit is killed by a woman whom he had abducted and violated on her wedding night.

An Oriental villain named Halloway is called in by wealthy oil interests who want to destroy a dam project for hydroelectric power that may threaten their profits.

Makino works for Kayosho, a Japanese curio dealer in America. To reward Makino's dedication, Kayosho sends for Toki-ye, a picture bride. Upon arrival, she is married to Makino in a civil ceremony. However, Kayosho intends to keep Toki-ye for himself. This angers Goto, another employee. Kayosho was betrothed to Goto's niece, Hana. One day Kayosho is found dead in a pool.

Japanese poet Akira living in Tokyo, loves American Ruth Vale, who was placed in the care of Akira's father when her missionary parents died. Ruth returns Akira's affections until she meets Edward, but the American proves an unfaithful husband. Three years later, Ruth is gravely ill while Edward amuses himself with his new lover, Adrienne Chester, but Akira comforts the dying woman with the promise that he will protect her little daughter Blossom.

Chinese merchant Wing Lung and Elizabeth Mendall, an American, marry and have a son named Jang Lung. Because Elizabeth wants Jang Lung to be raised as a Christian, Wing Lung locks her in the cellar and she becomes insane. Jang meets Marcell Matthews at an Eastern university, and she returns with him to San Francisco to be married.

No description available.

In the office of Major Northfield, the quartermaster of the Pacific Coast, a leak has been discovered which may endanger the safety of American transports that are secretly carrying troops across the Pacific. Nara-Nara, a Japanese detective, is assigned to the case because his country has guaranteed safety to these transport ships. Nara-Nara believes that Northfield is guilty, although in reality it is Northfield's secretary Kitty Little, a girl of German ancestry, who is passing information to Dr. Ebell Smith, a German agent. Nara-Nara falls in love with Kitty, but soon after discovers that she is the leak in the quartermaster's office.

The Chinese prince T'Su Wong Shih loves Quan Yin, the daughter of a gardener, but his uncle wants him to marry a girl of his own class. Leaving to study in the United States, the young man promises his beloved that they two will be together soon. Having finished university, one day T'Su Wong Shih visits the market of San Francisco, and at an auction of slaves, he finds Quan Yin auctioned. To save her, he agrees to pay a price of five thousand dollars but, not possessing the full amount, he makes a deal with the auctioneer for a three-year extension in which he must work to raise the money needed to rescue the girl. T'Su Wong Shih has no great success until he manages to win a large sum in a lottery. However, Quan Yin is now in danger because a Chinese gangster wants to have it and, to do that, goes to threaten the auctioneer who is forced to comply. T'Su Wong Shih is then engaged in a struggle to liberate his beloved: he defeats the gangster, rescues Quan Yin and claims her as his...

A silent melodrama from the very first series of American films to use a Japanese cast. The scenes of the story are laid in Japan during the last revolution in the late '60's.

A young Hans Christian Andersen goes in search of knowledge in the Garden of Paradise in order to make his studies easier. Each time he falls asleep, he experiences in his dreams the different characters he would later write about in fairy tales including The Little Mermaid, Thumbelina, and The Emperor's New Clothes.

Tai Leung, a young man who dreams of love and carves ivory images, falls in love with the pretty Kao Ai. Her cruel foster father owns a restaurant where she works, and he overworks and mistreats her. She blossoms when she meets Tai Leung, who is determined to rescue her from her hard life. Her foster father agrees to let her go, but only if Tai pays him a large sum of money. Desperate for money, Tai learns of a condemned pirate, "The Wolf," who has been sentenced to hang and will pay a lot of money for a substitute, and Tai agrees to take The Wolf's place on the gallows to ensure Ko Ai's happiness. However, things don't work out quite the way Tai planned.

A picture depicting the engrossing adventures of a small town youth in Hollywood and showing the intimate home life of some of the screen's greatest stars.

A melodrama about a talented singer who finally makes her debut. A remake of the 1939 film of the same name.

While visiting Alan, who works in Tokyo, she attends a festival with her Japanese maid while wearing a Japanese kimono. There she meets the wealthy Arai Takada, who is taken by the mysterious woman. Alan has dishonored and betrayed O'Mitsu, and her brother Arai plans a terrible revenge.

Lopaka, a poor Hawaiian fisherman, falls in love with Kokua, a young girl of royal blood. Her father refuses to let him marry her, though, unless Lopaka can bring him two feather cloaks from a rare bird. While searching the mountains for the bird, Lopaka encounters a dying priest of Pele who sells him a wishing bottle in which Kono, the god of the volcanos, is confined.

In Macao, where places of pleasure and arms trafficking are concentrated, a tragedy opposes an adventurer and his daughter whom he has brought up in ignorance of his profession. She is torn from her environment and saved from tragedy by a young journalist who loves her.

Superintendent Thomas is investigating a cabaret owner with suspicious actions.

Indian Prince Rhandah is sent to be educated in England. After an English woman flirts with him to steal his betrothal amulet, he returns home embittered. When she and her fiancé are later captured in India, the prince ultimately relents to a plea for mercy.

The legendary tale of the forty-seven samurai who seek vengeance against the man who caused their master's death.

A behind-the-scenes look at the building of the bridge in the film The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and the preparations for its destruction.

An opium smuggler is marked for murder in this story of the Chinese Mafia.

In a day and age when interracial marriages were considered taboo, film star Sessue Hayakawa rarely got the girl in his pictures. The issue of prejudice is broached here -- and Hayakawa still doesn't get the girl, who in this case is society girl Marion Halstead (Doris Pawn).

John Gunther, a great traveler in many parts of the globe, presented on the American ABC channel the documentary program "John Gunther's High Road" from September 7, 1959 to October 1, 1960, namely 30 episodes. Two adventure trips filmed in distant places were broadcast: The first documentary film was shot exclusively for the show and the second film offered was a great classic adventure or exploit film by another director.

A look behind the scenes at Walt Disney’s Swiss Family Robinson (1960)

Russian brothers Count Boris and Alexis Rabourdin obtain a Japanese coastline defense map and plan to sell it to German agents in London. In America, Alexis schemes to marry wealthy Eve Bertram, who loves him. Boris, meanwhile, falls in love with Christine Lesley, Eve's neighbor whom Eve's brother Guy, an amateur inventor experimenting with explosives, also loves.

When his fiancée commits suicide after being used by an American artist, a Japanese art dealer seeks to get vengeance by seducing the artist's wife.

When Japan entered into the great tragedy that was unforgettable, the general general of the history of the Ming Dynasty, hokudai Yamashita, left the Malay front and occupied Singapore at once, and was praised as a "Malay tiger." However, the situation in Japan changed steadily by the failure of Sai pan from the GA Talca translation.

Another entry in the popular one-reel series.

Tamura, a Japanese man working as a gardener in America, saves his money to marry his girlfriend, Japanese-American Nume Rogers. His friend Watana works for a Japanese businessman named Motoyoshi so that he can get enough money to bring his wife Sat-Su and their children to America. However, on the day that Sat-Su is to arrive, something happens that changes the lives of everyone concerned. A lost film.

While her husband is away on a secret mission, the Marquise Yorisaka is Americanized by Mrs. Hockey and becomes the object of Captain Fergan's affections. Warned of the captain's activities, the marquis obtains a post for him on his battleship and forces him to take command when he himself is wounded. The death of the captain brings about a reconciliation of the couple and resumption of a life in keeping with their tradition.

Yukio, a farm boy, and Toru, a fisherboy, live in a small Japanese village that is periodically threatened by a volcano on one side and tidal waves on the other. Yukio's younger sister Setsu follows then and dreams of becoming a pearl diver. Toru is preparing to go fishing with his father when a bell tolls and a danger flag is hung high on the hill behind the village to warn of an impending tidal wave by the village patriarch, known as Old Gentleman.

Maj. Ralph Seton is a British army officer stationed in Cawnpore, India, when the Sepoy Rebellion--a mutiny of Indian soldiers in the Brtitish army in India--breaks out in 1857. He receives the prestigious Victoria Cross--the highest decoration that can be awarded to a British soldier--for his actions in battle. However, after a night of drunken debauchery, he is stripped of the honor and disgraced in front of his love, Joan Strathallen, the daughter of his commanding officer. When Indian rebel leader Azimoolah instigates an uprising by the natives and has Joan kidnapped, Seton sets out to redeem his honor and save the woman he loves.

Toyama wants to go to college in America but his alcoholic father won't supply the funds. He gets the money to go, however, from Sada, whom he has married in secret. But Sada has a secret of her own -- she told Toyama that she got the money from a relative, but the truth is that she has signed up to do a four-year stint as a Geisha girl.

Tokoramo, a Japanese diplomat on a mission to Paris, begins a love affair with Helene, a chorus girl, who subsequently rejects her American fiancé, Richard Bernisky. When the Japanese discover the affair, they try to force Tokoramo to end it, but Helene refuses to stop visiting him. One night, during one of her visits, Bernisky comes to Tokoramo's apartment and, while Helene hides, rebukes her to her lover. After Bernisky leaves, Tokoramo orders Helene out, but when he realizes his love for her, he calls her back. Suddenly, she rejects and insults him to the point that he strangles her. Tokoramo wants to confess his crime, but he must complete his work, and so his countrymen sacrifice a boy, Hironari, who pleads guilty to the murder and eventually is guillotined. In the end, Tokoramo also dies and his colleagues burn his valuable papers in order to protect Japan. -From the TCM.com Database, powered by the AFI.

A Persian novelist living in New York throws aside the woman who loves him, and she gets an American woman to help get him back. Meanwhile, the novelist's current novel is in progress, and it's dramatized for us as he writes.

A Native American warrior travels to a faraway tribe to find and defend a woman that haunts his dreams.

Sessue Hayakawa was making the transition from Asian villain to sympathetic hero in this picture. The plot is a combination of racial stereotypes that were common in the U.S. during the silent era and real-life situations experienced by Asians living Stateside. Hayakawa plays Suki Iota, a student who, while born and bred in America, wants a wife with traditional Japanese values. She appears in the form of Rei (Tsuru Aoki, Hayakawa's real-life wife), a singer who becomes known as the Japanese Nightingale.

Opera singer Renee Dupree is in love with struggling composer Julian who falls very seriously ill. She goes to impresario Mueller for the money Julian needs but is saved from sacrificing her virtue when a jealous lover kills Mueller.

Intimate views of the movie stars of the Silent Era, at work and play; featuring Sessue Hayakawa, Lillian Gish and others.

The Vermilion Pencil is a 1922 American silent drama film directed by Norman Dawn, and produced and distributed by Robertson–Cole. It is based on the eponymous 1908 novel by Homer Lea. The film stars Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa in multiple roles, and white actors Ann May, Bessie Love, and Sidney Franklin, all in Asian roles. It is now a lost film.

A colonial wife carries on an affair with a French officer, but the wife's native servant may have overheard their plan to leave Africa and return to Europe together.And then the servant goes missing.

Thinking that he has lost both his money and his beloved Nora's in a bad investment young New Yorker Ted Ewing arranges for his own murder. Suddenly he discovers the money is safe and has in fact doubled and sets out to cancel the contract on his life. But will he be able to do so in time?

Sioux leader Chief Gray Otter sends his son Tiah to the white man's school so that he can become a great leader. The son returns home drunk, disappointing his father. Things get worse when the son joins a group of renegades and robs a payroll wagon. The father, observing the clash from a distance, takes a side.

Mary and her son Buster live in a single room in the slums of the city, having been deserted by their husband and father, wealthy Spencer Wellington. While selling newspapers, Buster meets Wang.

Goro Mariyama uses the profits from his ethically run gambling house to help the poor. Gambler Blair Whitcomb accuses Goro of cheating, then shoots him after losing a $10,000 bet. Goro survives a punctured lung only through the efforts of nurse Gloria Manning, Blair's fiancée. When Goro confesses his love for Gloria, he is shocked to hear of her engagement. Following his recovery, Goro discovers that Blair has given him a bad check, and demands that the gambler pay his debt in person. Although Blair complies, Goro has him arrested for attempted murder. Gloria pleads for her fiancé's release, revealing that she can never love Goro because he is of a different race. The disappointed Goro enables Blair's escape as payment to Gloria for saving his life.

The skill of colorful Japanese artist Yamo Masata attracts the attention of a clever counterfeiter who seeks the artist's aid in the preparation of spurious bonds. At first deceived, the artist becomes indignant when he learns the truth of the enterprise.

An assassinated Lord's daughter refuses to marry a Chinese prince but agrees to be his mistress.

Blanche Sweet has a dual role in this picture -- she plays twin sisters, Edith, a sweet, normal young girl, and Grace, who is a drug fiend. They live in poverty with their parents and their father (Hal Clements) finally finds work. Because he is faithful to his boss (Thomas Meighan), he is offered a partnership.

Japanese architect Yoda is hired as groundskeeper for retired criminal Benson Burleigh.

No description available.

A wild man and genius becomes a master painter's disciple, but loses his divine gift when he finds love.

The renown Hindu scientist, Dr. Chindi Ashutor, who has conquered plague in India, visits Scotland and falls in love with Kate Erskine, whose sister Mary is engaged to Ashutor's college friend, James Bassett. Although Kate loves Ashutor, she says marriage would make them social outcasts.

Hawaiian prince Tom Garvin (Sessue Hayakawa) receives an American college education and falls in love with Enid Benton (Florence Vidor).

Reporter Frank Sloan, investigating the disappearance of a Chinese slave girl in Chinatown which leads to opium addiction, job loss, and personal ruin, until a major murder brings him back into the story, revealing the dark underbelly of the district.

The Japanese Prince Maiyo is in London to avenge the death of his father who years earlier committed hara-kiri because he had been financially ruined by an English swindler. The Prince warns his friend, the Duke of Devenham, that the Count de la Mar is attempting to seduce the Duke's bored American wife, and then is told by his servant Soto that the Count is the man who killed his father. During a foggy night, the Count, planning to elope with the Duchess, is killed in a taxi with the sword that the Prince's father used to kill himself. Although the American sister of the Duke, Penelope Morse, who loves the Prince, pleads with him to leave before being arrested, he will not perform such a cowardly act. After Soto confesses murdering the Count because he wronged his daughter years ago, the Prince is freed, but because of the racial barrier, he bids a sad farewell to Penelope and leaves.

A humble fisherman's girlfriend is kidnapped by an egotistical prince tricked into believing he has powers. The two lookalikes swap lives until reverting roles to marry.

In a Far Eastern town, a settling of accounts between Western and Asian opium traffickers draws the attention of the police.

Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa is cast as an ancient Egyptian donkey boy in An Arabian Knight. The humble Hayakawa rescues high-born Lillian Hall from lascivious pasha Fred Jones. All this brouhaha is actually a dream experienced by Hall.

In this picture, Sessue Hayakawa is in a dual role, playing twin brothers. One of them, Yamashiro is serious and hardworking, while the other, Sadao, is a playboy. There is a girl, Toko-Ku, who loves them both, but really prefers the bad boy. Sadao encounters Paul Berkowitz in a gambling den and borrows far more money from him than he can ever pay back.

Created for the "Esso World Theater" series of films in 1964, it features excerpts from "Bugaku," "Gagaku," "Noh, " and "Kabuki" scenes performed by the well-known dancers, musicians and actors and actresses.