Search - The Tong-Man on DVD

Only for Hayakawa fans,

L. J. Gray | New York, NY USA | 01/09/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

"If you are a fan of Sessue Hayakawa, this early movie is very well worth having, especially with urban location shooting, including rooftops.
If you could not care less about Hayakawa, this movie is not rewarding enough to purchase, and contributes very little to a library of cinema.

I have every Hayakawa movie available on DVD, and my personal favorite is The Cheat, from 1919.

Which edition of The Tong Man should you buy is the question.

For me top priority is given to the visual quality.

The visual quality of this edition is surprisingly very acceptable,
and the story STILL makes sense, and flows well
WITH
It's BIG BIG fault.
This edition has 10 minutes of it's original 58 minute running time missing!
Yes, it still has the "famous" scene of a man being hit in the face with a hatchet.
Actually, it is never glaringly obvious that the movie is missing so much footage.
Another fault is the poor repetitive music sound track. Although it is not hideous, just think "very bad".
This is pretty much standard for low budgeted silent movie editions, which do not have a new music score composed for the movie.
Not one piece of Chinese music is used. Instead they thrown in a waltz, etc.
They do a poor job of matching the scene structure and the pace, degrading the movie.
Still, it is not bad enough to ruin the viewing experience, as it almost does.
I have found only one other edition of this movie, which I have not viewed.
It is from "Grapevine Cinema", AND they claim it is the full 58 minutes long.
However, it may have an image quality which is very inferior to this edition,
as some of their movies have very poor visual quality, way below my own minimum standards.
However, if the image quality matches this edition, it is most probably the Tong Man of choice."