Beautiful, interesting, incredible cinema.

See what’s playing
Broken Blossoms
Broken Blossoms
7.6
/10
1,501 Ratings

BROKEN BLOSSOMS

Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl

Directed by D.W. Griffith
United States, 1919
Drama, Romance, Silent

Synopsis

When Chinese immigrant Cheng Huan moves to London to spread Buddhism, he is unprepared for the deplorable intolerance of its inner city. But Huan succumbs to his environment; his missionary dream turns into indifference, until he finds battered Lucy Burrows at his doorstep.

Synopsis

When Chinese immigrant Cheng Huan moves to London to spread Buddhism, he is unprepared for the deplorable intolerance of its inner city. But Huan succumbs to his environment; his missionary dream turns into indifference, until he finds battered Lucy Burrows at his doorstep.

Our take

After such extravagant (albeit problematic) epics as Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, pioneering filmmaker D.W. Griffith stripped things back with this most lyrical of silent films. It boasts an astonishingly vulnerable performance by the ground-breaking actress of the silent screen, Lillian Gish.