I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

A Japanese general comes to stay in a Chinese village to await his main force. Also becoming involved in the story are two American airmen, a German night club owner, a partly Russian singer and a Chinese woman who leads the local partisan group. It is low budget but quite effective in its way at portraying the oppression of an occupied people. The firing squad scene is quite chilling and the ending is sad and uplifting at the same time. William Nigh directed over a hundred films and is probably thought of as a hack director but there are some little gems in his long career and this is one of them.The shining centre of the film is Anna May Wong as Kwan Mei. She is believable as the elegant woman charming the general, a worker in the paddy fields and the leader of the village rebels. She can be sweet and she can be ruthless. Of the supporting cast Mae Clarke is very good as the cynical singer Lavara but not in it enough unfortunately. Harold Huber as the Japanese general doesn't look the part but is solid enough.It's a wartime piece of propaganda but the message doesn't impede the drama.

By allowing many films to fall into the public domain, copyright owners have given movie audiences the chance to see obscure movies that otherwise they may not have thought of watching. Through the many public domain video and DVD companies, these movies have become rediscovered and future film-goers are looking at them and sometimes even more creative than the features made during the golden age of cinema.PRC, sometimes referred to as pretty rotten cinema, had a few masterpieces. Some of them truly stand the test of time and are truly influential in giving ideas to independent filmmakers as to how to make the type of movies that is part of their artistry. The new wave of films in the 1940s and 1950s created a whole new set of filmmakers who probably were lucky enough to see these B films made while they were at their movie-going teenage height.During World War II, there were hundreds of movies made that dealt with the issues of the war. Some to be honest are crap. They have stereotypical villains of German or Japanese backgrounds. Italians for the most part were usually sparred such one dimensional portrayals. I guess when you have a short man with an angry looking mustache and a Donald Trump hair don't and an evil looking Asian man, it's easy to type cast them as the villains. The Japanese got some horrible typecasting in their villains, but a few films managed to show the leaders of the Empire's military as slightly more human than some other filmmakers did. That is the case here, where the beautiful Anna May Wong plays a Chinese woman who becomes the Joan of Arc of her nation by standing up to the invading Japanese, becoming almost a Mata Hari herself as she leads the efforts to destroy them. Wong gives an excellent performance, and every action that comes from her face is as revealing as the lines she is reading. She gives a sneer without squinting her nose and it indicates both hatred and fear, not necessarily for herself but for her people. With Harold Huber playing the Japanese general, she is willing to come off almost as a prostitute in order to reach her mission. Anna knows that her life is at stake, it is worth the risk. May Clark, the actress famous for having the grapefruit shoved in her face by James Cagney, has another good role as a tough Russian singer.I don't know how realistic this is in the lives of the Chinese peasants who found their homeland being invaded by the Japanese but you can't help but admire the ones who are willing to give up their own lives to preserve liberty. There are many great little details in this film, particularly the excellent photography which while still rather shoddy compared to the a Studios is still impressive. This is a film that has managed to stand the test of time because it shows both of Chinese and the Japanese in a different light then they are normally given and does a great chance to see the much neglected walk in a leading role even if it is at one of the poverty row studios.

A group of Chinese farmers are being worked by the occupying Japanese army during World War II, while secretly working their underground movement to end the oppression. Kwan Mei, whose family was killed by the invaders, is questioned by the Japanese concerning the whereabouts of an American flier that was shot down. General Kaimura is taken by Kwan Mei's beauty and becomes his mistress, but she uses this to her advantage in order to obtain information vital to the Allied war effort. When she learns of a Japanese troop train that is to arrive, it is up to her to lead her fellow Chinese and allies to intercept it, overcoming the obstacles of the Japanese army and her fellow farmers who believe she betrayed them to the enemy. Very good propaganda film from PRC, which should have been done at another studio so its message of sacrifice and camaraderie would have been heard by more. Wong is simply terrific in her role as the clever Kwan Mei and her message at the end of the film captures the essence of every person oppressed by an evil captor. The scenes with Clarke, Donath, and the American fliers really take away from the main essence of the film and just seem to pad the running time. Worth a look. Rating, 7.

Overall, this is a solid if unspectacular wartime drama, with a message that was important at the time. But Anna May Wong's performance lifts it well above the norm for its genre, and although it seems likely that she was cast primarily so as to lend her charm and her reputation to the movie's message, the movie serves quite well as a showcase for her own considerable abilities.The story has Wong as the leader of a resistance group to the Japanese occupation of China, and while the film definitely has a low-budget look to it, the atmosphere is generally convincing. Mae Clarke does a good job and is rather appealing herself, as a cynical singer whose loyalties are obscure. As the Japanese general with whom Wong's character must match wits, Harold Huber is too obviously not Asian for the role to work completely, but he does do a solid job of portraying the general as greedy yet short-sighted, egotistical but foolish.Wong gets plenty of good material to work with, and she does an excellent job with all of it. At times she must act as a meek subject of the occupiers, at other times a tough-minded leader in a desperate situation. Then, in the scenes when she tries to win the general's confidence, she is finally able to do justice to her beauty and her elegant reserve. She makes it very convincing to believe that she could captivate a man much tougher than General Kaimura. Finally, in the speech that drives home the movie's message, her voice works very well in delivering the message.Anna May Wong is certainly better remembered for her roles in other, far more lavish productions than this. Without her, "Lady from Chungking" would a well-meaning but generally nondescript feature. But it's easily worth seeing for the opportunities that it gives her to provide an example of her wide range of abilities.