The Bitter Tea of General Yen

Plot synopsis:
In the late 1920s in Shanghai during the Chinese Civil War, as throngs of refugees flee the rainswept city, a couple of elderly missionaries welcomes guests to their home for the wedding of Dr. Robert Strike (Gavin Gordon), a fellow missionary, and Megan Davis (Barbara Stanwyck), his childhood sweetheart whom he has not seen in three years. Some of the missionaries have a cynical view of the Chinese people they have come to save. Shortly after Megan arrives, her fiancé Bob rushes in and postpones the wedding so he can rescue a group of orphans who are in danger from the spreading civil war. Megan insists on accompanying him on his mission.
On the way they stop at the headquarters of General Yen (Nils Asther), a powerful Chinese warlord who controls the Shanghai region. While Megan waits in the car, Bob pleads with the general for a safe passage pass so he can save the orphans. Contemptuous of Bob's missionary zeal, General Yen gives him a worthless paper that describes Bob's foolishness. Bob and Megan reach St. Andrews orphanage safely, but the pass only makes the soldiers laugh and steal their car when they try to leave with the children. The missionaries and children eventually reach the train station, but in the chaos, Bob and Megan are both knocked unconscious and are separated.
Sometime later, Megan regains consciousness in the private troop train of General Yen, attended by his concubine, Mah-Li (Toshia Mori). When they arrive at the general's summer palace, they are greeted by a man named Jones (Walter Connolly), Yen's American financial advisor, who tells him that he has succeeded in raising six million dollars, hidden in a nearby boxcar, for General Yen's war chest. Megan is shocked by the brutality of the executions conducted outside her window. Fascinated and attracted by the young beautiful missionary, the general has his men move the executions out of earshot and assures her that he will send her back to Shanghai as soon as it is safe.
One evening, Megan drifts off to sleep and has an unsettling erotic dream about the general who comes to her rescue and kisses her passionately. Soon after, she accepts the general's invitation to dinner. While they are dining, the general learns that his concubine Mah-Li has betrayed him with Captain Li (Richard Loo), one of his soldiers. Later, after General Yen arrests Mah-Li for being a spy, Megan tries to intervene, appealing to his better nature. The general challenges her to prove her Christian ideals by forfeiting her own life if Mah-Li proves unfaithful again. Megan naively accepts and ends up unwittingly helping Mah-Li betray the general by passing information to his enemies about the location of his hidden fortune.
With the information provided by Mah-Li, the general's enemies steal his fortune, leaving him financially ruined and deserted by his soldiers and servants. General Yen is unable to take Megan's life—it is too precious to him. When she leaves his room in tears, he prepares a cup of poisoned tea for himself. Megan returns, dressed in the fine Chinese garments he gave her. She waits on him in the gentle manner of a concubine. When she says she could never leave him, he only smiles, then drinks the poisoned tea.
Sometime later, Megan and Jones are on a boat headed back to Shanghai. While discussing the beauty and tragedy of the general's life, Jones comforts Megan by saying that one day she will be with him again in another life.

Tags: cruelty, murder

Review:
Frank Capra made a sort of "little" film in 1933, little in that it starred then up-and-coming Barbara Stanwyck (the future iconic star of Double Indemnity and The Furies had only been in a few films before) and that it dealt with a topic that was very touchy to attempt for in 1933; only Griffith before had tried to deal with some kind of interracial bonding and/or sexual tension between white and Chinese people on screen, at least to my knowledge.
This has excellent dialog and a potent message about trying to make a difference, to make some sort of change where things are, perhaps in simplification (hey, it's Capra), about the same as they've been for 2,000 years.It's a message that infers some tendencies to prejudices on both sides, of the white well-educated woman who sees to do good wherever she can and the stalwart General who will try to impress and act cordial around the lady but mostly because he wants to have his way- which may be with her.
The story itself sounds kind of typical, probably because by today's standards it is: Megan Davis has just come to China to do missionary work but is caught in the midst of a bad civil war going on, and after a tumultuous battle she gets caught up in in the streets and is knocked out is taken into the 'care' of General Yen (Nils Asther, no, not Chinese apparently but does so good a job as to not notice *too* much).
I'm not sure if the latter gave quite a great performance, but for what she's given she elevates it into a stern-faced but kind-hearted portrayal of a woman caught in an untenable situation, and Asther gives as good as he can by bypassing the obvious pit-fall of stereotyping by making Yen a very human figure.
Somehow Capra is able to garner very good work from them with a story that, in the wrong hands, could become the most ham-fisted thing on the planet.Luckily not only is Capra uncompromising in dealing with the issues at hand both upfront and underlying in terms of race and ethnicity and just the clashing of cultures, but in technical terms with the bits of battle scenes (the shoot-out late in the film at the train station is breathtaking for 1933 and pretty good for today), and it shows a director so confident in his craft that he could be ready for better things.
It is a 1933 Frank Capra film, about a love affair between a Christian missionary's fiancée and an educated Chinese warlord, a film which broke the taboo against depicting inter-racial relationships just prior to the introduction of the reactionary Hayes code in Hollywood.As a work of film craftsmanship and artistry it is just breath-taking - starting with the initial scenes of chaos in the midst of a bombing raid where Megan Davis (Barbara Stanwyk) makes her first impression on General Yen through a small act of kindness.
Nils Asther's performance as Yen is, at this point, heartbreaking.It has been commented that several Chinese in the Christian household at the beginning of the film appear in shadow and are depicted as sinister.
A young missionary finds herself swept into a world of Oriental intrigue & power, after being rescued' by a Chinese warlord.With THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN, Columbia Pictures & director Frank Capra created a small cinematic gem.
Capra's favorite actress, the dramatic flames she lights are an intriguing counterpoint to the repressed emotions of Asther's Yen.Loud, brash Walter Connolly, as the General's financial advisor, makes a good contrast to Asther; his plainspoken character often gives voice to what the others are thinking.
A young Richard Loo is her secret lover.Movie mavens will recognize Clara Blandick in the role of the feisty missionary hostess at the beginning of the film & Willie Fung as the rebel train engineer, both uncredited.*****************************While meant to be funny and introduce the plot, the opening scenes are a bit unfair to Western missionaries in China, portraying them as rather fatuous, repressed & gossipy.
That today the Underground Church' in China numbers many millions of Christian believers stands as a witness to the faithfulness of these good people.The era of the Chinese warlord - such as General Yen in the film - was brief but colorful and extremely violent.
The film was early Stanwyck but she was as good as ever and, coupled with Asther, they worked magic.The picture has been reviewed about 50 times now and everyone recaps the plot.
Well, it shouldn't surprise me since this film was banned in England for many years (reportedly for its miscegenation subject, a delicate matter for the British Empire in those years).This fantastic tale of a Chinese Warlord's (Nils Asther) infatuation with an American Woman (Stanwyck), who's engaged to a missionary, is charged with sensuality, erotic imagery and sexual tension (by early 1930s standards) between the two leading players.Asther gives an intense, credible portrayal and is simply mesmerizing as the Warlord, in spite of the fact that he was actually Swedish.
Toshia Mori is deliciously evil as Asther's double-crossing mistress.This film demonstrates that the Occidentals, at least up to that time, still did not fully appreciate and understand Oriental Cultures, dismissing its people as cruel and savage.Beautiful sets and décors..
A year before his major breakthrough film It Happened One Night director Frank Capra made this romantic tragedy that is filled with provocative topic and outstanding set design sensually photographed by master cinematographer Joseph Walker.Megan Davis (Barbara Stanwyck) arrives in China in the middle of a civil war to marry her missionary husband Dr. Robert Strike and then work alongside him.
Only Jones (Walter Connolly) the arms dealer is grounded in reality to the dire situation that faces them.Director Capra ably provides scenes of both chaos ( refugee evacuations, night battles ) and tranquility in the idyllic setting of Yen's compound palace where the General sets about seducing Megan with delicate charm while firing squads outside in the courtyard dispatch his enemy.
Capra also finds time to get some satiric shots in at Western superiority and hypocrisy but it is the sexual tension between the leads that is at the center of Yen.Megan's ambiguity is excellently conveyed by Stanwyck's actions and immature responses to the different world she finds herself.
I hope modern Scandanavians don't feel too humiliated by Nils Asther playing a Chinaman though (& v.v.) As a non practising Christian I didn't take offence at the criticism levelled at Christianity's manifold moral ambiguities - but enough of all that!A wonderful film to sink into every few years not only for the story but also the gleaming photography, the visual composition of the scene near the end where Yen is brewing the tea of the title is so achingly beautiful that it brings the tears to my eyes as I think about it!
Years ago I tried watching it off part-way through the film because I thought that the casting of Nils Asther as "General Yen" was ridiculous and rather insensitive since he looks about as Chinese as Nipsy Russell.
It certainly was a pretty film to look at and lovely cinematography sure helped as well.Second, while the movie has some silly stereotypes, in a way it is also very modern compared to other pictures of the day.
It dares to consider the possibility of interracial love (something banned when the new Production Code was put in place the following year) and despite initially come off as a demon, General Yen was quite decent and civilized in his own manner.
While trying to get some missionary orphans out of the way of war, she falls into the hands of Nils Asther playing the title role.Unlike Warner Oland in Shanghai Express or Akim Tamiroff in The General Died At Dawn, Asther is an intelligent and articulate man who expresses the Chinese view of life better than was seen on film until Curt Jurgens in The Inn Of Sixth Happiness.
In fact Walter Connolly who works for Asther in procuring arms for his troops is a far better observer of the Oriental mind than any of the missionary people.There is a subplot in The Bitter Tea Of General Yen very similar to The King And I.
One of Asther's many concubines is Toshia Mori who really loves one of his officers, Richard Loo. Asther reacts the same way Yul Brynner did when Tuptim found him so non-appealing, a question of vanity and pride more than of the heart.The interracial theme and the ideas way ahead of their time did not augur well for The Bitter Tea Of General Yen. I think it can be better appreciated by today's audience than the audience of 1933..
Her performance here is no exception to that rule.Straight off the ship in a pre-communist Shanghai, Megan Davis (played by Stanwyck) arrives in China to marry her missionary sweetheart and convert the heathen millions to Christianity.
The plot, although including some well-filmed action sequences, (if you look beyond some of the rather flimsy low budget sets) is largely a psychological one, playing out relentlessly to the bitter end.While the film stereotypes the Chinese, Mah-Li, (Yen's mistress), is played beautifully by the 21 year-old Japanese-American, Toshia Mori.
Indeed, Mori turns in arguably the best performance in the entire picture (although Stanwyck has a far harder role to play  which she does admirably.) Jones (Walter Connolly), as a mercenary American, in some respects pre-figures the Rick character in "Casablanca" some nine years later, sans (to all appearances anyhow) any moral scruples whatsoever.It looks like Stanwyck used a stand-in for the nude bath sequence, but this is no flesh-pot picture: everything's filmed in a restrained style.
Barbara Stanwyck and Nils Asther star in "The Bitter Tea of General Yen," a 1933 film also starring Walter Connelly and Toshia Mori.Stanwyck plays missionary Megan Davis who comes to China during their civil war in order to marry another missionary, Dr. Strike (Gavin Gordon).
Walter Connelly plays a different kind of character, a tough American siding with General Yen.Well worth seeing for its place in history as well as for Stanwyck and Asther..
Megan wants to be a good American, she starts, and ends by rescuing children, she uses the word 'child' when describing Mao-lin.The falling away of the conventional world of America, into a strange elaborate space, Megan is allowed to respond to her desire, and dressed up returns to Yen. The hanky motif is symbolic.
Instead, she falls in love with a sexy Chinese warlord, Nils Asther (as General Yen), who is winds up holding her prisoner.
Frank Capra's "The Bitter Tea of General Yen" isn't as offensive as it appears, on the surface; although, the story is, ultimately, unsatisfactory.Still, it's a fine looking production, with beautiful direction and photography (Joseph Walker).
And, supporting actress Toshia Mori (as Mah-Li) makes it a passionate threesome - when the three of them share a scene, on Asther's train, every movement sizzles.******* The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1/6/33) Frank Capra ~ Barbara Stanwyck, Nils Asther, Walter Connolly, Toshia Mori.
In strife-ridden Shanghai, American girl Barbara Stanwyck arrives to work as a missionary and marry her doctor-partner, but they are separated in the midst of the political chaos and she is kidnapped by an exotic Chinese General.
So Nils Asther (born in Denmark) was cast as General Yen. If you are a movie maniac, you might know about Richard Barthelmess in "Broken Blossoms (1919)".There is a very good chance that some films lovers might have missed this movie.
As a matter of fact its theme of interracial love already got handled in much older films so it's not like this movie is the first to handle it but nevertheless the movie feels like a breath of fresh air, when being compared to the usual love-story from the '30's.It seems like an odd thing that a Swedish, born in Denmark, actor portrays a Chinese actor but the make-up effects are convincing looking and the fact that Nils Asther is Swedish makes sure that the character has a typical distinctive accent that sounds also like a real Chinese person that is speaking in English.
The movie features a surprising amount of war sequences still and also some surprising action.Besides the surprisingly fine acting Nils Asther, the movie also features Barbara Stanwyck, who gives a real great and effective performance.
The only character I enjoyed was that of General Yen played by Swedish actor, Nils Asther, who gives us a wonderful campy performance..
Bitter Tea of General Yen, The (1933) *** (out of 4) Nice drama about an American missionary (Barbara Stanwyck) who travels to China in hopes of saving kids from a Civil War but she is soon held hostage by the evil General Yen (Nils Asther) who has a strange fondness for her.
Probably one of Stanwyck's lesser known films--is a rather peculiar, but interesting story of an American woman who becomes fascinated with the Chinese warlord (Asther) who kidnaps her.
During a powerful rainstorm, Megan Davis (Barbara Stanwyck) meets General Yen (Nils Asther) briefly after her rickshaw driver is run down by his automobile.
Walter Connolly as Jones is a sufficient oily profiteer who cares only for his master: money!Frank Capra, one of America's greatest directors, is noted for well- crafted movies and impeccable set designs (note Yen's palace), even with lower budgets.
A young Barbara Stanwyck is the fiancé of an American missionary who is rescued from Chinese Civil War violence by the notorious warlord General Yen (Nils Asther, extraordinary).
The Bitter Tea Of General Yen is directed by Frank Capra, is based on a story by Grace Zaring Stone and stars Nils Asther, Barbara Stanwyck, Toshia Mori and Walter Connolly.This is one of Frank Capra's best films with beautiful photography and costumes and magnificent performances from the two lead actors.
The film is quite daring for it's time in that it tackles the subject of interracial relationships and looks at how foreign cultures were perceived by westerners at that time.Young missionary Megan Davis(Barbara Stanwyck)arrives in China during the civil war to marry Dr.Robert Strife(Gavin Gordon),one night during a fight at a train station she meets the feared Chinese General Yen(Nils Asther).
"The Miracle Woman" and the witty "Platinum Blonde" were sparkling vehicles for Barbara Stanwyck and Jean Harlow, but it is "The Bitter Tea of General Yen" that remains Capra's finest film This is an exotic romance in which Stanwyck's prim American missionary is held hostage by a sinister but seductive Chinese warlord Its story of a converter converted is not only erotic  a startling dream sequence reveals the woman's hesitant, nervous awakening to her physical desires but a complex, tragic investigation of culture clash.
Read at your own risk!Anyone expecting to see something shocking from this pre-code film - The Bitter Tea of General Yen - is going to be disappointed.
They become separated (great crowd scenes) and Stanwyck is rescued...or is it kidnapped...by warlord General Yen (Nils Asther, a European actor).
Frank Capra made an artistic masterpiece in The Bitter Tea of General Yen, but it didn't make money.
The American missionary Megan Davis (Barbara Stanwyck) arrives in Shanghai during the Chinese Civil War to marry the missionary Dr. Robert Strife (Gavin Gordon).
The cruel General Yen falls in love for the naive and pure Megan and accepts her request to spare the life of Mah-Li against the will of his financial adviser Jones (Walter Connoly).
The Bitter Tea of General Yen. I didn't actually know it was from director Frank Capra (It's a Wonderful Life) till I actually started watching it, it featured in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, that is why I watched.
Set during the Chinese Civil War, American missionary Megan Davis (Double Indemnity's Barbara Stanwyck) arrives in Shanghai to marry Dr. Robert 'Bob' Strike (Gavin Gordon), but they postpone the wedding to rescue orphans from an orphanage burning in the battlefield.
The group are separated in the chaos, and Megan faints, waking in the palace of the man who saved/kidnapped her, warlord General Yen (Nils Asther).
***SPOILERS*** Forbidden and eventually tragic love affair between the beautiful American missionary Magen Davis, Barbara Stanwych, and the brutal bandit General Yen, Nils Asther, that wasn't meant, according to the popular opinions of that time, to be yet still against all odds happened!Magen going to war-torn China to work with her fiancée Dr. Robert "Bob"Strike, Gavin Gordon, in Shanghai is separated from him during a pitched gun battle between General Yen's man and those rebel forces out to get him.
Like most of Capra's films, Barbara Stanwyck (playing Megan Davis) comes to China as a missionary with her husband, Dr. Robert Strike (played by Gavin Gordon) with good intentions, with the hope of helping the people.
But, in the process of rescuing orphaned children from a literal war zone, she is knocked unconscious and "saved" by General Yen (played by Nils Asther in yellowface, which is hard to see in the black-and-white film).
THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN may very well be Frank Capra's first great film - out of many.
This is a story that was ahead of it's time in dealing with human relationships and racial prejudice, and it has a wonderful performance by Nils Asther as a Chinese warlord; it is his best work, and perhaps his last good role.
The racism is even more blatant in the creation of a taboo sexual tension between the worldly, powerful, and menacing General Yen (Nils Asther) and the young, pale, virginal white girl Megan Davis (Barbara Stanwyck).
I was never quite sure while watching this film whether this was supposed to be a love story between a ruthless Chinese bandit (played by the underrated Swedish actor Nils Asther) and an American missionary (played poignantly by Barbara Stanwyck), or whether it was a film made to ridicule Christians and Christianity by mocking everything they hold dear.