Dragon Seed Reviews

A strong cast (with taped eyelids) render good performances in this lengthy film which is based on Pearl Buck's best-seller about the wartime atrocities leveled by the Japanese against the Chinese. Jade (Katharine Hepburn) is the aggressive and idealistic wife of Lao Er (Turhan Bey). Fearing imminent Japanese invasion, Jade persuades her husband to escape to the mountains to work in a munitions factory, although her father-in-law, Ling Tan (Walter Huston), refuses to believe that the Japanese will attack. En route they stay with Ling Tan's son-in-law, Wu Lien (Akim Tamiroff), a well-to-do merchant who slavishly collaborates with local Japanese troops. When Jade learns that Wu Lien is preparing a banquet for Japanese officers, she poisons the food; as a result, Wu Lien is executed. Jade and Lao Er later return to find Ling Tan's farm looted and the old man's opinion of the Japanese drastically changed. Together with his neighbors, Ling Tan organizes a revolt to prevent the Japanese from further humiliating his people. This film dramatizes the plight of the Chinese farmer in sensitive and human terms. As was fashionable in post-Pearl Harbor wartime Hollywood, the filmmakers carefully funneled their patriotic audience's hatred of the Japanese into the storyline. At a time in American history when all were lumped together, this film at least made the effort to differentiate between two very dissimilar nations. Aline MacMahon earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her performance, losing to Ethel Barrymore for NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART, and the film was also nominated for its cinematography.