Shadows

Wow! If you had any doubts at all, any - about Lon Chaney's skills as an actor, then Shadows should make a believer out of you as Lon gives one of his very best performances as a meek, hobbling Chinese cripple who does laundry in a small fishing village. Yen Sin is a very complex character for a film so early as he is kind and Christian in reality but to most of the village he is seen as a non-believing heathen and an Oriental. Prejudice flys all over this film as those that demand Yen Sin convert openly defy the very principles they want to force on him, and Yen Sin sees no reason to convert because of this very reason. He sees people for what they truly are - at least that is what I got out of it. Chaney's performance rises way above the source material here as the main story is not about Yen Sin, but rather about a young, principled minister marrying a woman whose husband was recently declared dead at sea. But wait! Just like any good melodrama, some one is very unhappy and secretly loves the young woman. Is it her husband who really was not dead at all? Maybe it was the minister's deacon and best friend? Perhaps is was Yen Sin himself, or maybe the little fat boy that had befriended Yen Sin because he gave him his Lychee nuts? Tune in to find out!