In one of the most challenging performances of his illustrious career, Lon Chaney stars as a Chinese laundryman caught in a web of small-town jealously and extortion in Shadows. Cast by a storm upon the coastline of the small fishing town of Urkey, Yen Sin weathers the taunts of the closed-minded villagers and struggles for acceptance. But when he discovers a plot to blackmail the local minister (Harrison Ford), Yen Sin must step forward from society's shadows and bravely unmask the malefactor who threatens to rend the community.
Unlike the Asian impersonations of most American actors, limited to squinted eyes and pursed lips, Chaney's Yen Sin is an eleborate portrayal enhanced by revolutionary makeup techniques, bodily expression (from subtle hand and facial gestures to a spine bowed by a lifetime of hard labor) and a refusal to resort to hackneyed stereotypes -- even though the film's title-writers were not always so considerate. While the film puts forth a heartfelt plea for racial tolerance, time has not been kind to much of Shadows' noble moralizing.
In spite of Chaney's sensitive portrayal, Yen Sin is often painted as a lower-caste "heathen" encouraged to renounce his own barbaric faith before a frustrated Christian missionary. Yet these flaws make Shadows a fascinating document, encapsulating the widely shared misconceptions about Asian Americans that flavored the Hollywood melodrama (which can also be witnessed in Outside the Law, Broken Blossoms, and The Cheat). |
