YMMV / Java Head

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Taou Yuen's suicide at the end could be as a result of nearly getting caught strangling Nettie and panicking. Or else she realised what she came close to doing and couldn't live with herself for even considering such a thing.
• Angst? What Angst?: Gerrit doesn't show any remorse for driving his wife to suicide.
• Ass Pull: The ending of the film has Taou Yuen - a character shown to be completely kind, generous and dignified - attempting to strangle an innocent woman and then killing herself when she's caught. While her and Gerrit's incompatibility is part of the story, her sudden Face–Heel Turn into a Dragon Lady most certainly is not.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: A tame example. The film is known among Anna May Wong fans as the only one of her roles where she got to kiss a white co-star. She had done so for Piccadilly (also made in the UK) as well but the censors ordered it removed. The kiss was allowed here, as the characters were actually married.
• Broken Aesop: The movie seems like it's giving An Aesop about respecting different cultures and traditions, which is utterly broken by having Taou Yuen first try to kill Nettie and then suicide in order to facilitate a 'happy' ending for Gerrit and Nettie.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: It's hard to be happy when you see Gerrit and Nettie sailing away together at the end - considering Gerrit drove his first wife to suicide and doesn't seem the least bit sorry about it.
• Fair for Its Day: Despite the ending, Taou Yuen is treated quite honorably for a 1930s film. She speaks perfect English, is not exoticised and functions as a character beyond the Satellite Love Interest. The scandalized reactions of the family are more about the suddenness of the marriage, and the characters that hate the wife being Chinese are shown to be narrow-minded. There's also the scene where she and her sister-in-law are involved in a runaway carriage. The sister-in-law (white and English) screams hysterically, while Taou Yuen keeps her head and tries to calm her down - ostensibly knowing they shouldn't panic the horses even more.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Elizabeth Allan as the Romantic Runner-Up sadly parallels how she'd later be passed over for leading roles in Goodbye, Mr. Chips and The Citadel - and a failed lawsuit against MGM led to her ending up as a character actress in the UK.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • The vicar greeting Taou Yuen openly and upon hearing that she studies Confucianism, excitedly asking if they can discuss it together at some point.
  • Laurel instantly taking to Taou Yuen, and later happily saying how lucky she is to have a Chinese aunt.
• Iron Woobie: Taou Yuen has to take a lot of shit from the locals in her new home, and is essentially alone. However all she wants to do is be a good wife. Then she discovers her husband loves another woman.
• Just Here for Godzilla: The stunning Gorgeous Period Dress that Taou Yuen sports in most scenes are enough of an attraction for some Anna May Wong fans.
• Moe: Little Laurel is just so sweet and adorable - especially with how happy she is to have a Chinese aunt.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Edmund Gwenn's best known role would come a decade later in Miracle on 34th Street.
  • John Loder would have a notable role in How Green Was My Valley, and other supporting roles in Hollywood in the 40s.
  • Elizabeth Allan later became a frequent panelist on the game show What's My Line? and was even named Britain's Top Female TV Personality of 1952.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Gerrit loses a lot of sympathy after he rebukes Taou Yuen for her traditions of mourning being "barbaric" - and she's left looking sad that he has disrespected her culture. He never apologises for this, nor for driving his wife to suicide.
• Values Dissonance:
  • At the time, the marriage being interracial was what the family would be so shocked about. These days however, they'd have good reason to be shocked not just by the suddenness of it; but since Gerritt didn't even tell them until he literally brings his new wife into their house.
  • A sequence has Gerrit looking around the bedroom to see various items from China all over the place. It's accompanied by dramatic music and ominous lighting as if the viewer is meant to feel uneasy at all this foreign stuff. This is likely a holdover from the book - which was set in Puritan Salem.
  • Some reviews have noted that China itself is portrayed as a corrupting influence on Edward, given his opium addiction and attraction to Taou Yuen.
  • And there's also the end itself. Where the non-white love interest has to die to make way for the Official Couple. There's also Deliberate Values Dissonance, given the film's 19th century setting; Gerrit took Taou Yuen's virtue, meaning he would be unwilling to divorce her if they were incompatible (Chinese culture by contrast would have allowed them to divorce because of mutual incompatibility). So the only way for Gerrit and Nettie to end up together by the standards of the day was Taou Yuen's death.