That was an excellent one.

Lack of good storyline.

Admirable film.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

An early silent film tragedy, beautifully photographed and directed, and featuring a moving performance from a young Lilian Gish. Set in London's Lighthouse District, she plays Lucy, a girl who is constantly abused by her temperamental boxer father (Donald Crisp). She lives in squalor, and her only possessions are a few coins, some tin foil and a letter from her dead mother. One day she runs away from home into the shop of a china man (Richard Barthelmess). He's worshiped her from afar before, and now he feels the need to care for her, loving her in his own silent way. Though the story is simple and fairly dated (the moving being adapted from the story 'The Chink and the Child'), 'Broken Blossoms' is a beautiful film, showing why silent film is a lost art, the pantomime performances of the three main players being fascinating to watch and emotionally resonating. Sally's attempts to smiling by pushing up her lips with her fingers is harrowing, and her father's physical and mental abuse of her is still effective in it's brutishness. The loving gaze of The Yellow Man as he takes care of Lucy by her bedside in his shop says more than title cards could (though there are some beautifully worded inter-titles throughout).The relationship between the two is delicate and subtle, his intentions for her not being entirely clear. When he tries to kiss her, we see her point of view - seeing him in extreme close up, coming towards her, looking almost as her father did when he stares at her. She moves away from him, and but he's understanding. It's not typical early silent film acting - being exaggerated as possible to get across an emotion to all audience members in the theater - but rather screen acting, mixing film techniques and nuance to convey what each character is feeling. Also effective today is the use of editing and cross-cutting between scenes, contrasting The Yellow Man's life in China with the spiritually corrupted London and its opium dens. The scene where Suzy is hiding in terror from her father in a closet while he strikes the door down with an ax, and the Yellow Man is running to save her is truly suspenseful as well.Nearly one hundred years old, 'Broken Blossoms' is still fantastic, and one of the best silent films I've seen.My blog: www.dynamitefilms.blogspot.com

Another Griffith's melodrama! It was so hard to get to the end that full of madness film. Even, if its director made lots of interesting films, masterpieces, this, was completely not worth it. Storyline is quite poor. F.e we don't know much about main character's mother. All we can see, is pathology in family. And at the end of film we don't exactly know the reason why the girl ends like that. Also acting is terrible! Especcialy the moves of Donald Crisp are so so cheap or even weird. Lillian Gish is OK, but she is always sad so we can't rate her acting at all. And of course 'the Chinese Guy' who isn't even Asian- he don't shows us nothing special. I saw also, a few completely unnecessary shots- film was too long. ,,Broken Blossoms'' action moves on in the end, in the beginning there was nothing but cruelness. The last thing that shocked me.. main sick love of 20 (or more) year old guy to girl who was a innocent child- the way he looked at her was awful..

. . . who needs enemies? Actress Lillian Gish as the London waterfront motherless waif Lucy, a.k.a. The Girl, is constantly begging her brain-damaged-from-boxing dad NOT to whip her to death, saying in the same breath (subtitled, of course) that he might hang if he does her in (boxing has been known for centuries to cause its adherents to do irrational things, such as practicing public cannibalism and demanding facial tattoos). Taking advantage of the mentally deficient father, a possibly illegal immigrant installs the under-aged female in a love nest above his specialty shop on the sly. The hatred of Londoners for off-islanders can be traced back at least as far as the Roman Invasion, so it is no surprise that Lucy's smashed-noggin father is crazed when he finds out what an older man who should have known better has done with his under-appreciated offspring (a real workhorse around his squalid flat; you never value what you have until it's gone). The addled brained dad quickly whips his daughter to death, and the alleged Buddhist pacifist missionary grabs his revolver (!!) and does in the dad before killing himself. For those of you born AFTER director D.W.Griffith foisted BIRTH OF A NATION & BROKEN BLOSSOMS upon America, it is important to remember that he cut his movie-making teeth (beginning in 1908 on RESCUED FROM AN EAGLE'S NEST) at the notoriously wrong-headed, racist, and obstructionist Edison Manufacturing movie making muck hole.

This is really a timeless piece of art. I don't think this would have worked as well as a talkie. It is a timeless tale beautifully told in marvelous black and white.The story of a young idealistic man coming to London to spread the word of a peaceful religion, is disillusioned that his message is not well received and takes solace in the local opium den. Meanwhile a local girl is being abused by her aetiology father. After a beating she received she barely makes is the the shop of Cheng Huan where she collapses. Cheng nurses her back to health, but a friend of the abusive father finds her and tells the father, who comes looking for her with tragic results.This is not a grandiose movie the Griffiths epochs but is a story told close up with a small cast and use of a lot of close up shots, It all works well together making a stunning and emotional tale