Line #29 Film/BrokenBlossoms


1	[[quoteright:247:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/brokenblossomsposter_zps27ab417d_2411.jpg]]
2
3	-> ''We may believe there are no Battling Burrows, striking the helpless with brutal whip - but do we not ourselves use the whip of unkind words and deeds? So, perhaps, Battling may even carry a message of warning.''
4
5	''Broken Blossoms or the Yellow Man and the Girl'' is a 1919 film directed by Creator/DWGriffith and starring Creator/LillianGish, a tale of love between a Chinese man and an English girl, and very different from the far better-known ''Film/{{The Birth of a Nation\|1915}}''. It's also notable as the first film released by Creator/UnitedArtists.
6
7	Cheng Huan (Richard Barthelmess), a young Chinese man leaves his native homeland for the shores of England, as a missionary hoping to spread the teachings of Buddha. However, London quickly chews him up and spits him back out again, and he finds himself running a shop and drifting through opium dens. However, a chance meeting with the young Lucy Burrows (Gish), the abused daughter of well known boxer Battling Burrows (Donald Crisp), leads the two of them to fall in love. But when her father finds out, their love quickly turns into tragedy.
8
9	This film is in the public domain and can be viewed in its entirety at [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNzYWG5FTmk Youtube]] (there are also purple-colored, yellow-colored or sepia-colored versions there).
10	----
11	!!Tropes:
12
13	* AbusiveParents: Battling Burrows, who abuses Lucy both verbally and physically, [[spoiler:and eventually [[OffingTheOffspring kills her]]]].
14	* ActualPacifist: Originally, Cheng is one. He tries to stop two sailors from fighting, quoting TheGoldenRule.
15	* AgeLift: In the original short story, Lucy was twelve. For the film, her age has been upped to fifteen.
16	* AlcoholicParent: Battling Burrows.
17	* AlliterativeName: Battling Burrows.
18	* AlliterativeTitle: ''Broken Blossoms''.
19	* AlmostKiss: Twice, Cheng leans in to kiss Lucy, but seeing her draw back refrains.
20	* AxeBeforeEntering: After a desperate Lucy tries to hide from her father by locking herself in the closet, he chops the door down with a hatchet. The scene where a terrified Lucy bounces off the walls of the closet is one of the most memorable of Lillian Gish's career.
21	* BloodFromTheMouth: Lucy [[spoiler:after her last, fatal beating at the hands of Battling Burrows.]]
22	* BreakTheCutie: Cheng and Lucy.
23	* BrokenBird: Poor, poor Lucy.
24	* BrokenSmile: Lucy forces herself to smile like this several times, [[spoiler:including while dying.]]
25	* TheCavalry: Cheng tries to be this, [[spoiler:but arrives too late.]]
26	* TheChainOfHarm: Battling Burrows's manager berates him for his drinking and whoring. Since Burrows can't take his anger out on him, he "saves it for a weaker object" - Lucy.
27	* ChastityCouple: Cheng's love is "a pure and holy thing" (a line straight from the original text). [[EnforcedTrope Enforced]] in the film, since, even though Cheng is played by a white actor in yellowface, an interracial makeout session would have been too much for most people to take in 1919 America. And Lucy is only 15, after all. He does try to kiss her, but when she pulls back he stops. The original text, where Lucy is twelve, explains that while that's not too young to marry in China, Cheng has had lots of girlfriends but always looked for "his world's one flower," and Lucy was it; he revered her perfection. "All that is known is that his love was a pure and holy thing. Of that we may be sure, for his worst enemies have said it."
28	* DownerEnding: Cheng [[spoiler:fails to rescue Lucy from Battling Burrows, who beats her to death. Abandoning his pacifist beliefs, Cheng shoots Burrows, then commits suicide.]]
29	* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Cheng at the end.]]
30	* DrowningMySorrows: Cheng visits {{opium den}}s because he's depressed.
31	* EitherOrTitle: ''Broken Blossoms or the Yellow Man and the Girl''
32	* EnterStageWindow: How Cheng gets into Battling's apartment when he is trying to rescue Lucy.
33	* TheFilmOfTheBook: Based on the Thomas Burke short story "The Chink and the Child".
34	* FingerForcedSmile: When Lucy is ordered to smile by her father, she pushes up the corners of her mouth with her fingers. Her life is so miserable that she never had a reason to smile for real.
35	* FunetikAksent: The intertitles are written this way when quoting the Cockney characters
36	* TheGoldenRule: At the beginning of the movie, Cheng quotes this as a precept of the Buddha's to two white men who are fighting. It's just good-natured brawling, but Cheng doesn't have that concept and is now "more than ever convinced that the great nations across the sea need the lessons of the gentle Buddha."
37	--> Do not give blows for blows. The Buddha says: 'What thou dost not want others to do to thee, do thou not to others.'
38	* GoOutWithASmile: After being beaten up by her father, Lucy tries to force herself to smile one last time. Upon death, however, her smile relaxes and she dies with her eyes open.
39	* MayDecemberRomance: More like May-September, as Cheng is still a young man.
40	* MightyWhiteyAndMellowYellow: [[GenderInvertedTrope Gender-inverted]], even though Cheng is played by a white actor.
41	* MissingMom: Lucy's mother, who simply handed her over to Battling Burrows as an infant, and never came back.
42	* TheMissionary: Cheng tries to be a Buddhist missionary in England, but he fails. Nobody listens to him, and he becomes just another Chinese shopkeeper.
43	* MurderSuicide: [[spoiler: Cheng kills Lucy’s father Battling Burrows, and then himself, having failed to prevent Burrows from ''beating his own daughter to death''.]]
44	* OffingTheOffspring: [[spoiler:Burrows beats Lucy to death]].
45	* OpiumDen: Cheng starts spending time in these after things go bad in London.
46	* StalkerWithACrush: Cheng, though he's harmless.
47	* ATasteOfTheLash: Battling Burrows regularly beats Lucy with a whip.
48	* TearsOfFear: Played for terrifying drama as Lucy sobs with fear as her monstrous father breaks down the door to the closet she's hiding in. He proceeds to beat her to death.
49	* WideEyedIdealist: Cheng starts out as one, but he's quickly broken down by the world.
50	* {{Yellowface}}: The Chinese characters are played by white actors.
51	* YellowPeril: Subverted, in that Cheng is a decent and honorable person, and the villain of the film is the white Battling Burrows.
52

Context Film / BrokenBlossoms