MCLC: Fan Bingbing as Anna May Wong

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Fan Bingbing as Anna May Wong
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Source: Angry Asian Man (7/29/14):
http://blog.angryasianman.com/2014/07/fan-bingbing-in-talks-to-star-in-anna
.html

FAN BINGBING IN TALKS TO STAR IN ANNA MAY WONG BIOPIC
Based on the life and career of the first Chinese American movie star

Some interesting movie news... Chinese actress/singer Fan Bingbing, most
recently seen as the mutant Blink in X-Men: Days of Future Past, is
reportedly in talks to star in a biopic about legendary screen icon Anna
May Wong, the first Chinese American movie star.

According to Variety, Shanghai-based Fundamental Films is developing
Dragon Lady, based on the life and career of the Asian American silent era
star. Jonathan Keasey and Brant Boivin are writing the script, which will
recall Wong's poverty-stricken upbringing in downtown Los Angeles and her
rise to fame in Hollywood.

Wong rose to fame with her role in 1924’s “Thief of Bagdad” with Douglas
Fairbanks, but her career was plagued by offers to play negative
stereotypes of Chinese females and was limited by American
anti-miscegenation laws that prevented her from sharing an on-screen kiss
with a person of another race. She appeared in “Daughter of the Dragon,”
“Daughter of Shanghai,” and, with Marlene Dietrich, in Josef von
Sternberg’s “Shanghai Express.”

Wong grew up in a poor neighborhood in downtown Los Angeles. She has a
star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and is depicted in the the Four Ladies
of Hollywood statues at La Brea and Sunset along with Dolores del Río,
Dorothy Dandridge and Mae West.

It's interesting that it's going to take Chinese producers and a Chinese
star to bring this story to the screen, considering that so much of Anna
May Wong's career was marked by frustration over the limited roles
available to her as an Asian American actress in Hollywood. Some things
really haven't changed.