Sessue Hayakawa

Sessue Hayakawa

Sessue Hayakawa (June 10, 1889 – November 23, 1973) was a Japanese and American Issei (Japanese immigrant) actor who starred in American, Japanese, French, German, and British films. Hayakawa was the first and one of the few Asian actors to find stardom in the United States as well as Europe. Between the mid-1910s and the late 1920s, he was as well known as actors Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks. He was one of the highest paid stars of his time; making $5,000 a week in 1915, and $2 million a year via his own production company during the 1920s. He starred in over 80 movies and has two films in the U.S. National Film Registry. His international stardom transitioned both silent films and talkies. Of his English-language films, Hayakawa is probably best known for his role as Colonel Saito in the film The Bridge on the River Kwai, for which he received a nomination for Academy Award Best Supporting Actor in 1957. He also appeared as the pirate leader in Disney's Swiss Family Robinson in 1960. In addition to his film acting career, Hayakawa was a theatre actor, film and theatre producer, film director, screenwriter, novelist, martial artist, and an ordained Zen master.   Description above from the Wikipedia article Sessue Hayakawa, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

  • Title: Sessue Hayakawa
  • Popularity: 3.822
  • Known For: Acting
  • Birthday: 1889-06-10
  • Place of Birth: Nanaura, Chiba, Japan
  • Homepage:
  • Also Known As: 早川雪洲, Kintarō Hayakawa, 早川 金太郎
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Sessue Hayakawa Movies

  • 1957
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    The Bridge on the River Kwai

    The Bridge on the River Kwai

    7.8 1957 HD

    The classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. British and American...

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  • 1955
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    House of Bamboo

    House of Bamboo

    6.1 1955 HD

    Eddie Kenner is given a special assignment by the Army to get the inside story on Sandy Dawson, a former GI who has formed a gang of fellow...

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  • 1916
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    The Honorable Friend

    The Honorable Friend

    1 1916 HD

    Makino works for Kayosho, a Japanese curio dealer in America. To reward Makino's dedication, Kayosho sends for Toki-ye, a picture bride. Upon...

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  • 1915
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    Temptation

    Temptation

    1 1915 HD

    Opera singer Renee Dupree is in love with struggling composer Julian who falls very seriously ill. She goes to impresario Mueller for the money...

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  • 1918
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    The City of Dim Faces

    The City of Dim Faces

    4 1918 HD

    Chinese merchant Wing Lung and Elizabeth Mendall, an American, marry and have a son named Jang Lung. Because Elizabeth wants Jang Lung to be raised...

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  • 1922
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    Screen Snapshots, Series 3, No. 12

    Screen Snapshots, Series 3, No. 12

    1 1922 HD

    Another entry in the popular one-reel series.

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  • 1960
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    Hell to Eternity

    Hell to Eternity

    6.6 1960 HD

    Based on the story about Guy Gabaldon, a Los Angeles Hispanic boy raised in the 1930s by a Japanese-American foster family. After Pearl Harbor, his...

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  • 1958
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    The Geisha Boy

    The Geisha Boy

    6.4 1958 HD

    Gilbert Wooley is a second-rate magician who is sent to entertain the troops in the pacific. During his time in Japan he becomes attached to a little...

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  • 1937
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    Forfaiture

    Forfaiture

    6.6 1937 HD

    Denise Moret joins her husband, Pierre, in Mongolia where he works as a civil engineer. One night she loose a lot of money on the roulette and...

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  • 1959
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    Green Mansions

    Green Mansions

    5.7 1959 HD

    A young Venezuelan idealist flees his native land to escape a revolution. Hoping to find peace, he goes to the mountains and the forests of the...

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  • 1960
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    Swiss Family Robinson

    Swiss Family Robinson

    6.8 1960 HD

    After being shipwrecked, the Robinson family is marooned on an island inhabited only by an impressive array of wildlife. In true pioneer spirit, they...

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  • 1949
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    Tokyo Joe

    Tokyo Joe

    6.1 1949 HD

    An American veteran returns to Tokyo to try to pick up the threads of his pre-World War II life there, but finds himself squeezed between criminals...

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  • 1915
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    The Cheat

    The Cheat

    5.992 1915 HD

    A venal, spoiled stockbroker's wife impulsively embezzles $10,000 from the charity she chairs and desperately turns to a Burmese ivory trader to...

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  • 1942
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    Patrouille blanche

    Patrouille blanche

    1 1942 HD

    An Oriental villain named Halloway is called in by wealthy oil interests who want to destroy a dam project for hydroelectric power that may threaten...

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  • 1943
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    Le Soleil de minuit

    Le Soleil de minuit

    1 1943 HD

    Going to take up his post in Moukden, the forest engineer finds in a trainer from the cabaret "the midnight sun" a Russian princess, Armide, whom he...

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  • 1943
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    Malaria

    Malaria

    1 1943 HD

    A colonial wife carries on an affair with a French officer, but the wife's native servant may have overheard their plan to leave Africa and return to...

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  • 1946
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    Le Cabaret du Grand Large

    Le Cabaret du Grand Large

    1 1946 HD

    Superintendent Thomas is investigating a cabaret owner with suspicious actions.

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  • 1947
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    Quartier chinois

    Quartier chinois

    1 1947 HD

    In a Far Eastern town, a settling of accounts between Western and Asian opium traffickers draws the attention of the police.

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  • 1920
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    The Devil's Claim

    The Devil's Claim

    1 1920 HD

    A Persian novelist living in New York throws aside the woman who loves him, and she gets an American woman to help get him back. Meanwhile, the...

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  • 1919
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    The Dragon Painter

    The Dragon Painter

    6.3 1919 HD

    A wild man and genius becomes a master painter's disciple, but loses his divine gift when he finds love.

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  • 1950
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    Three Came Home

    Three Came Home

    6.708 1950 HD

    Borneo, 1941, during World War II. When the Japanese occupy the island, American writer Agnes Newton Keith is separated from her husband and...

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  • 1931
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    Daughter of the Dragon

    Daughter of the Dragon

    5.1 1931 HD

    At her Chinese father's bidding, a woman goes to murder an enemy and meets a Scotland Yard detective.

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  • 1914
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    The Wrath of the Gods

    The Wrath of the Gods

    6.2 1914 HD

    An American sailor falls in love with a fisherman's daughter and convinces her that Jesus is more powerful than the gods who have cursed her.

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  • 1959
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    John Gunther's High Road

    John Gunther's High Road

    10 1959 HD

    John Gunther, a great traveler in many parts of the globe, presented on the American ABC channel the documentary program "John Gunther's High Road"...

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  • 1919
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    The Tong Man

    The Tong Man

    5.7 1919 HD

    An opium smuggler is marked for murder in this story of the Chinese Mafia.

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  • 2019
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    Yellowface: Asian Whitewashing and Racism in Hollywood

    Yellowface: Asian Whitewashing and Racism in Hollywood

    5.5 2019 HD

    A history of anti-Asian racism and yellowface in Hollywood after the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack.

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  • 1914
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    The Last of the Line

    The Last of the Line

    6.7 1914 HD

    Sioux leader Chief Gray Otter sends his son Tiah to the white man's school so that he can become a great leader. The son returns home drunk,...

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  • 1937
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    Yoshiwara

    Yoshiwara

    8 1937 HD

    Based on a novel by Maurice Dekobra, the film is set in the Yoshiwara, the red-light district of Tokyo, in the nineteenth century. It depicts a love...

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  • 1958
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    The Rise and Fall of a Jungle Giant

    The Rise and Fall of a Jungle Giant

    1 1958 HD

    A behind-the-scenes look at the building of the bridge in the film The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and the preparations for its destruction.

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  • 1914
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    The Typhoon

    The Typhoon

    1 1914 HD

    Tokoramo, a Japanese diplomat on a mission to Paris, begins a love affair with Helene, a chorus girl, who subsequently rejects her American...

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  • 1966
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    The Daydreamer

    The Daydreamer

    4.8 1966 HD

    A young Hans Christian Andersen goes in search of knowledge in the Garden of Paradise in order to make his studies easier. Each time he falls asleep,...

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  • 1932
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    Running Hollywood

    Running Hollywood

    1 1932 HD

    Running Hollywood is a comedy short.

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  • 1914
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    The Death Mask

    The Death Mask

    2.5 1914 HD

    A Native American warrior travels to a faraway tribe to find and defend a woman that haunts his dreams.

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  • 1937
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    The Daughter of the Samurai

    The Daughter of the Samurai

    5.3 1937 HD

    Teruo gets caught up in a conflict between tradition and modernism after returning to Japan from Germany after having spent a number of years there...

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  • 1915
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    The Clue

    The Clue

    1 1915 HD

    Russian brothers Count Boris and Alexis Rabourdin obtain a Japanese coastline defense map and plan to sell it to German agents in London. In America,...

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  • 1950
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    The Motherland Far Far Away

    The Motherland Far Far Away

    1 1950 HD

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  • 1917
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    The Secret Game

    The Secret Game

    5.5 1917 HD

    In the office of Major Northfield, the quartermaster of the Pacific Coast, a leak has been discovered which may endanger the safety of American...

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  • 1918
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    His Birthright

    His Birthright

    5.2 1918 HD

    Yukio is illegal in the United States and is used by a gang of spies for their plans. Yukio must steal secret documents from an admiral. When he's...

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  • 1953
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    悲劇の将軍 山下奉文

    悲劇の将軍 山下奉文

    1 1953 HD

    When Japan entered into the great tragedy that was unforgettable, the general general of the history of the Ming Dynasty, hokudai Yamashita, left the...

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  • 1950
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    Les Miserables I: God and the Devil

    Les Miserables I: God and the Devil

    1 1950 HD

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  • 1950
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    Les Miserables II: Banner of Love and Freedom

    Les Miserables II: Banner of Love and Freedom

    1 1950 HD

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  • 1964
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    The Frozen Moment

    The Frozen Moment

    1 1964 HD

    Created for the "Esso World Theater" series of films in 1964, it features excerpts from "Bugaku," "Gagaku," "Noh, " and "Kabuki" scenes performed by...

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  • 1917
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    The Bottle Imp

    The Bottle Imp

    1 1917 HD

    Lopaka, a poor Hawaiian fisherman, falls in love with Kokua, a young girl of royal blood. Her father refuses to let him marry her, though, unless...

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  • 1942
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    Gambling Hell

    Gambling Hell

    6.4 1942 HD

    In Macao, where places of pleasure and arms trafficking are concentrated, a tragedy opposes an adventurer and his daughter whom he has brought up in...

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  • 1919
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    The Courageous Coward

    The Courageous Coward

    1 1919 HD

    Sessue Hayakawa was making the transition from Asian villain to sympathetic hero in this picture. The plot is a combination of racial stereotypes...

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  • 1919
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    The Man Beneath

    The Man Beneath

    6 1919 HD

    The renown Hindu scientist, Dr. Chindi Ashutor, who has conquered plague in India, visits Scotland and falls in love with Kate Erskine, whose sister...

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  • 1938
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    Tempête sur l'Asie

    Tempête sur l'Asie

    1 1938 HD

    An adventurer tries to seize oil deposits in Mongolia .

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  • 1917
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    The Call of the East

    The Call of the East

    1 1917 HD

    While visiting Alan, who works in Tokyo, she attends a festival with her Japanese maid while wearing a Japanese kimono. There she meets the wealthy...

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  • 1924
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    The Great Prince Shan

    The Great Prince Shan

    1 1924 HD

    An assassinated Lord's daughter refuses to marry a Chinese prince but agrees to be his mistress.

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  • 1953
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    47 Vendettas

    47 Vendettas

    1 1953 HD

    The legendary tale of the forty-seven samurai who seek vengeance against the man who caused their master's death.

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  • 1921
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    Screen Snapshots (Series 1, No. 20)

    Screen Snapshots (Series 1, No. 20)

    1 1921 HD

    Intimate views of the movie stars of the Silent Era, at work and play; featuring Sessue Hayakawa, Lillian Gish and others.

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  • 1916
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    The Victoria Cross

    The Victoria Cross

    1 1916 HD

    Maj. Ralph Seton is a British army officer stationed in Cawnpore, India, when the Sepoy Rebellion--a mutiny of Indian soldiers in the Brtitish army...

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  • 1923
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    The Battle

    The Battle

    1 1923 HD

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  • 1967
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    Lover's Duet

    Lover's Duet

    1 1967 HD

    A melodrama about a talented singer who finally makes her debut. A remake of the 1939 film of the same name.

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  • 1961
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    The Big Wave

    The Big Wave

    1 1961 HD

    Yukio, a farm boy, and Toru, a fisherboy, live in a small Japanese village that is periodically threatened by a volcano on one side and tidal waves...

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  • 1918
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    The Temple Of Dusk

    The Temple Of Dusk

    1 1918 HD

    Japanese poet Akira living in Tokyo, loves American Ruth Vale, who was placed in the care of Akira's father when her missionary parents died. Ruth...

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  • 1915
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    The Secret Sin

    The Secret Sin

    1 1915 HD

    Blanche Sweet has a dual role in this picture -- she plays twin sisters, Edith, a sweet, normal young girl, and Grace, who is a drug fiend. They live...

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  • 1921
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    Where Lights Are Low

    Where Lights Are Low

    5 1921 HD

    The Chinese prince T'Su Wong Shih loves Quan Yin, the daughter of a gardener, but his uncle wants him to marry a girl of his own class. Leaving to...

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  • 1921
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    The First Born

    The First Born

    1 1921 HD

    Loey Tsing, the first love of Chan Wang, is sold into slavery by her father. Although Chan marries another, he still loves Loey; only the birth of a...

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  • 1920
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    An Arabian Knight

    An Arabian Knight

    1 1920 HD

    Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa is cast as an ancient Egyptian donkey boy in An Arabian Knight. The humble Hayakawa rescues high-born Lillian Hall...

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  • 1919
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    Bonds of Honor

    Bonds of Honor

    1 1919 HD

    In this picture, Sessue Hayakawa is in a dual role, playing twin brothers. One of them, Yamashiro is serious and hardworking, while the other, Sadao,...

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  • 1917
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    Forbidden Paths

    Forbidden Paths

    1 1917 HD

    Sato (Sessue Hayakawa) faithfully works for importer James Thornton (James Neill). When the old man dies, he leaves his daughter Mildred (Vivian...

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  • 1918
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    Hidden Pearls

    Hidden Pearls

    1 1918 HD

    Hawaiian prince Tom Garvin (Sessue Hayakawa) receives an American college education and falls in love with Enid Benton (Florence Vidor).

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  • 1918
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    The Honor of His House

    The Honor of His House

    1 1918 HD

    Marooned on a desert island, Dr. Robert Farlow and wealthy toxicologist Count Ito Onato both fall in love with Lora, a beautiful Japanese-American...

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  • 1920
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    Li Ting Lang

    Li Ting Lang

    1 1920 HD

    In a day and age when interracial marriages were considered taboo, film star Sessue Hayakawa rarely got the girl in his pictures. The issue of...

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  • 1921
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    The Swamp

    The Swamp

    1 1921 HD

    Mary and her son Buster live in a single room in the slums of the city, having been deserted by their husband and father, wealthy Spencer Wellington....

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  • 1918
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    The White Man's Law

    The White Man's Law

    1 1918 HD

    Japanese leading man Sessue Hayakawa stars as John A. Ghengle, the Oxford-educated son of an Arab chieftain. Entering into a business partnership...

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  • 1921
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    Black Roses

    Black Roses

    1 1921 HD

    Japanese architect Yoda is hired as groundskeeper for retired criminal Benson Burleigh.

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  • 1914
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    O Mimi san

    O Mimi san

    1 1914 HD

    A silent melodrama from the very first series of American films to use a Japanese cast. The scenes of the story are laid in Japan during the last...

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  • 1924
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    Sen Yan’s Devotion

    Sen Yan’s Devotion

    1 1924 HD

    A disguised servant of a dying Japanese prince saves articles of succession from a rival faction.

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  • 2007
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    Why Be Good?: Sexuality & Censorship in Early Cinema

    Why Be Good?: Sexuality & Censorship in Early Cinema

    4.9 2007 HD

    Before the G, PG and R ratings system there was the Production Code, and before that there was, well, nothing. This eye-opening documentary examines...

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  • 1924
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    I Have Killed

    I Have Killed

    1 1924 HD

    Hideo, an antiques dealer in Tokyo, is accused of killing his best friend. In a dramatic court-room hearing, the truth will be revealed.

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  • 1931
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    Around the World with Douglas Fairbanks

    Around the World with Douglas Fairbanks

    1 1931 HD

    With the advent of sound, the world's leading screen idol, Douglas Fairbanks, experienced a downturn in his fortunes. His thin, reedy voice was not...

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  • 1919
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    A Heart in Pawn

    A Heart in Pawn

    1 1919 HD

    Toyama wants to go to college in America but his alcoholic father won't supply the funds. He gets the money to go, however, from Sada, whom he has...

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  • 1918
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    The Bravest Way

    The Bravest Way

    1 1918 HD

    Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa was one of the most popular leading men in American silent films-this despite the fact that orientals were...

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  • 1918
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    Banzai

    Banzai

    1 1918 HD

    A Liberty Bond fundraising short.

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  • 1922
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    The Vermilion Pencil

    The Vermilion Pencil

    1 1922 HD

    The Vermilion Pencil is a 1922 American silent drama film directed by Norman Dawn, and produced and distributed by Robertson–Cole. It is based...

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  • 1922
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    Night Life in Hollywood

    Night Life in Hollywood

    1 1922 HD

    A picture depicting the engrossing adventures of a small town youth in Hollywood and showing the intimate home life of some of the screen's greatest...

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  • 1915
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    After Five

    After Five

    1 1915 HD

    Thinking that he has lost both his money and his beloved Nora's in a bad investment young New Yorker Ted Ewing arranges for his own murder. Suddenly...

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  • 2002
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    Swiss Family Robinson: Adventure in the Making

    Swiss Family Robinson: Adventure in the Making

    1 2002 HD

    A look behind the scenes at Walt Disney’s Swiss Family Robinson (1960)

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  • 1960
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    Escape to Paradise/Water Birds

    Escape to Paradise/Water Birds

    1 1960 HD

    A behind-the-scenes show on the filming of Swiss Family Robinson on the West Indian island of Tobago. Then the True Life Adventure Water Birds.

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  • 1916
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    The Soul of Kura San

    The Soul of Kura San

    1 1916 HD

    When his fiancée commits suicide after being used by an American artist, a Japanese art dealer seeks to get vengeance by seducing the artist's...

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  • 1917
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    Each to His Kind

    Each to His Kind

    1 1917 HD

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  • 1923
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    The Battle

    The Battle

    1 1923 HD

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  • 1918
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    His Birthright

    His Birthright

    5.2 1918 HD

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  • 1918
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    His Birthright

    His Birthright

    5.2 1918 HD

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  • 1921
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    Where Lights Are Low

    Where Lights Are Low

    5 1921 HD

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  • 1921
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    The First Born

    The First Born

    1 1921 HD

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  • 1921
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    The Swamp

    The Swamp

    1 1921 HD

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  • 1921
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    Black Roses

    Black Roses

    1 1921 HD

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  • 1965
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    Taikouki

    Taikouki

    1 1965 HD

    Based on the life of Hideyoshi Toyotomi (February 2, 1537 – September 18, 1598) a Sengoku period daimyo who unified Japan.

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  • 2020
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    Asian Americans

    Asian Americans

    1 2020 HD

    This five-part series traces the story of Asian Americans, spanning 150 years of immigration, racial politics, international relations, and cultural...

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