Anna May-Wong. Photographs copyright Carl Van Vechten

The Regent Street Cinema will screen German director Richard Eichberg’s 1928 silent classic Song  (94 mins) in which Anna May Wong plays the lead. Song, which is Wong’s rarely-shown first European feature, and the first in a line of films by Eichberg for British International Pictures, is a real cross-cultural curio. Set in a constructed multicultural melting pot somewhere east of the Bosphorus, it features the Hollywood icon as  Song, who falls for a surly cabaret knife thrower with a suspicious past named Jack. Song’s loyalties are tested and her life thrown into peril when Jack is blinded in a criminal scam.

Silent film pianist Stephen Horne will provide live accompaniment throughout the film, harking back to the original tradition. Silent films were never truly ‘silent’ but rather musicians accompanied the film, often on the piano, and at the height of silent cinema, most musicians in America were employed in cinemas.

To book tickets for the Regent Street event click here.

On 29 October at 18.45 at Asia House, Film scholar and Asia House Film Festival artistic director Jasper Sharp presented an illustrated overview of the life and work of Anna May Wong, the first Chinese-American movie star and the first Asian American actress to gain international recognition. For more information click here.