The Toll of the Sea
The Toll of the Sea

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- 65/100 based on 862 votes

When young Lotus Flower sees an unconscious man floating in the water near the seashore, she quickly gets help for him. The man is Allen Carver, an American visiting China. Soon the two have fallen in love, and Carver promises to take her with him when he returns home. But Carver's friends discourage him from doing this, and he returns to the USA alone. By the time the two of them meet again, much has changed, and their reunion proves very trying for them both.... (Full plot summary below)

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Actors in The Toll of the Sea:

Beatrice Bentley
Kenneth Harlan
Anna May Wong
Priscilla Moran
Etta Lee
Ming Young

Full Plot Details

When young Lotus Flower sees an unconscious man floating in the water near the seashore, she quickly gets help for him. The man is Allen Carver, an American visiting China. Soon the two have fallen in love, and Carver promises to take her with him when he returns home. But Carver's friends discourage him from doing this, and he returns to the USA alone. By the time the two of them meet again, much has changed, and their reunion proves very trying for them both.

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Movie Reviews

User Review - 8/10 by Lylah KAnna May Wong is amazing. Totally heart-wrenching and interesting film techniques.
User Review - 8/10 by Michael TA movie that will rip your heart out and stomp on it. Anna May Wong does a fantastic job as Lotus Flower and the pioneering use of color photography (in 1922 no less) gives it a unique feel. Altered somewhat from the Puccini opera on which it was based, but still heart-breaking. Somehow the phrase, "he's just not that into you" doesn't seem to quite cut it.
User Review - 8/10 by Gordon IA Melodrama and the first Coloured Film about a Chinese Woman who falls in Love with an American Soldier she get pregnant from him and he tell that take her with him but he doesen't and she become Mother of a Boy Years later he come back with his Wife and they take the Boy with them a Critism on the White Supremacy Ideology of that Time
User Review - 8/10 by Ian RA great movie considering it was made 90 years ago. I have a lot of respect for Anna May Wong, who made it big on the big screen as the first Chinese/Asian female actress. I can tell the movie was made with great care to details and accuracy in portraying the Chinese, even compared with present day movies.
User Review - 8/10 by Joel AA beautiful & soulful tragedy about a beautiful Asain woman (Lotus Flower) who finds an American man who mysteriously has washed up at sea. Naturally she falls in love with him but sadly he must leave & in time forgets her, her story of loss is so touching & you really feel for her. This is actually a whole film in color which is an amazing achievement for 1922. This is a masterful that was only rediscovered in the mid 1980's. It's a must see silent that is much more than a common Melodrama.
User Review - 6/10 by Daniel KIt looks pretty spectacular for a 1922 two-color technicolor film. Anna May Wong is wonderful as well. Very interesting to see a non-white face as the main star of an early Hollywood blockbuster. It seems much more naturalistic and modern than other silent films. This definitely has something to do with the different makeup choices made due to the color filmstock. An interesting and touching story as well. I'm impressed.
User Review - 6/10 by Madeline MAnna May Wong is excellent and the photography is very interesting, although it's difficult to move past the racist tropes and stereotypes. They're...overpowering, to say the least.
User Review - 6/10 by Veronique K"the toll of the sea" is a historical gem for cinema for its avant-gardist usage of technicolor shooting, and it's literarily the first color movie ever..and it's also the debute for anny may wong as the major star in her acting career. practically this story is a revision of "madame butterfly", another interracial romance theme favored by the public in spite of its bigotry then, depicting its remorse and suppresed angst magnified by the inevitable tint of romanticism. the sceneries and the oriental set-design is phemonally striking. an american merchant rescued by a chinese gal along the fishing village, lonesome in an outlandish state, he romances her for the solace of companionship, so naturally it leads to the wed-lock of these two. but her existence is put into oblivion after he returns to his homeland. besides the sneering disaproval of his compatriots is not a pleasant thing to cope with...eventually he retreats into the bossom of his childhood sweetheart, the woman of his own kind. meanwhile this chinese woman still carries the torch of love in solicitude with the hybrid son he has left her, fantasizing her own american dream with the feeble naivete that she could evolve herself into the league of westernized ladies. then one day, this forgetful man comes the terms of scoring things right due to his caucasion wife's conscientious persuasion. so the hybridized seed could embrace his paternal land of america while his maternal chinese side is abandoned for good. supposedly, the movie takes a sympathetic but condescending perspect to the interracial romance, and there're sentimental indulgement, the neglectance of reality in it and certainly the oriental martyrdom. first of all, the notion of genuine interracial romance cannot exist in older days. mostly the reality of such interracial bond would be sexually desperate white soldiers sleeping with voluntary oriental prostitutes who crave for an immediate relief from poverty and a fast excess to america, women who desire to use men's guilibility for a way out. besides english was not a globalized language then so the whispers of love would be nonsense. so why it occurs a lot? men don't need a soul from women, and they just long for a oriental doll as sexual commodity. so all those tales of interracial romances in early ameircan cinema might just be men's self-aggrandizing fables to boast their superior manhood. the real sordidness wouldn't be shown on screen since no audience wanna self-willingly get disillusioned. second of all, wong character's yearning for america, such as dressing herself in the american lady is a of self-denial. in the movie, she even takes pride in having an american husband, the lady of a dignified gentleman, so how about her chinese family descendant? truthfully, anna mae herself is a thorough american despite her ethnic appearance, her oriental glamour is a stock sold as exotic interest for mass consumption. in ignorance of its inauthenticity, "the toll of the sea"could be masochistically romantic in a primitively feminie way. of course, anna mae is not to be blamed since that's the only type of roles available then in hollywood. the best value of "toll of the sea" would be its grandeur visual milestone in cinema.
User Review - 6/10 by TheMumblelover .A film that should be seen by silent cinematic enthusiastic people. Its a simple story of love but one could say it shows the 'American dream' seeps into a Chinese girl and she marries an American only for him to go back to America and marry an American girl she's left literarily holding the baby. A film about diverse cultures? Men only wanting one thing to get it you get married? Its a sad story a shame the ending was loss.
User Review - 6/10 by Greg WIf you're familiar with the Madame Butterfly story the film holds nothing new storywise but this is a fascinating document being one of the earliest films shot in the two strip color process.

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