Featured, Home, TV Reviews

TV Review: “To Climb A Gold Mountain” Misses Opportunities

[yasr_overall_rating]
 

To Climb a Gold Mountain tells the true stories of four women from Asian descent who lived in America over the span of 160 years. Each woman fought in her own way to make a difference. Each woman represents a distinct theme of struggle and triumph, and ushers in another story leading up to the present time.

“To Climb a Gold Mountain” chronicles the arrival of Chinese women to the West Coast of America, specifically Chinatown in Los Angeles. It details the horrific, slave conditions these women endured, at times along with their male counterparts. It then moves swiftly through the 20th Century to show Chinese-American women who rose from these conditions to become prominent Americans, including Anna May Wong, America’s first Chinese-American film star, and Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, a woman educated in America who went on to become a beloved First Lady of China. Interviews include experts Scott Zesch, author of “The Chinatown War,” Lisa See, author of ‘On Gold Mountain,’ Hiroshi Motomura, Professor at Law for UCLA, and playwright of ‘The Chinese Massacre.’ as well as Chinese-American descendants Mary Louie and Lillian Chung Wong and Democrat Representative Judy Chu of California, the first Chinese-American woman elected to Congress.

The film spends much of its time explaining how the Chinese first arrived in America as a “Bachelor Society,” meaning only men made the journey. Chinese women arrived about a decade later and were treated as slaves, used for menial labor and prostitution. Conditions led to large breakouts of venereal and other diseases, including mental illness and high rates of suicide. Focus is given to three women of the past and one from the present. Sing Ye attempted escape three times, and was caught each time and returned to her master, a gang leader, before disappearing from history completely. Anna May Wong and Madame Chiang Kai-Shek get their due as well.

One of the most disturbing events chronicled is the “Night of Horror,” in which hundreds of Chinese men and women were beaten and many killed, their homes and businesses burned. A gunfight between rival Nongs (gangs) served as the catalyst for this event for one single reason-a white man tried to stop the fighting and was killed. The white community around Chinatown took this as a sign that their Chinese neighbors were too dangerous and needed to be moved out of the area.

Events like this led to the “Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882,” which halted Chinese immigration and denied citizenship to all Chinese. It was later replaced by the “Magnusen Act of 1943,” implemented to appease Chinese allies during WW II. Still, many restrictions remained in place, though a large number have been overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. Still, some restrictions remain in place today.

Director Alex M. Azmi has left a lot of unanswered questions on the table here. The end product seems cut to fit into a TV time frame, which is natural as it will screen on PBS across the nation. However well done, the focus on so many individuals misses parts of the overall story of discrimination that mirrors in some ways African-American discrimination. In addition, the focus on the slave conditions Chinese women endured for years remains devoid of any meaningful criticism of the Chinese Nongs, made up entirely of Chinese men, who perpetrated these crimes and forced their own women into prostitution and hard labor. When women escaped their horrific lives, these same men used the U.S. court system to recapture them and put them back to work. He makes excellent use of stock footage, re-enactments and old photographs, allowing the images to breath into the audience and enhance the storytelling immensely.

The script by David Fulmer carries the story along fairly well, but suffers the same shortcomings Azmi’s direction is under. There are a series of compelling stories sparsely told, while the overall epic is forgotten and told only in spurts. What we see of Chinese-American history works, but there is so much more story to tell. The script’s strength lies in its simplicity of narration and smooth use of interviews.

“To Climb a Gold Mountain” give us a part of American history long ignored by Hollywood and the filmmaking community in general. It holds the audience well and tells its story simply. However, when I finished watching, I felt I hadn’t heard a complete story, that there simply was more to say.

“To Climb a Gold Mountain” airs tonight on PBS-South Cal at 7:00pm

 
71LCNN+ZXVL._SL1500_

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments