I remember when I read C.Y. Lee’s novel, The Flower Drum Song, for the first time. Ironically, I did so out of intrigue for the original musical and movie by Rodgers and Hammerstein. If any of you may recall from my review of the novel, I enjoyed it a great deal for diving headfirst into the customs of Asian Americans in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the late 50s and early 60s, and it was considered a revelation.
After completing it as a novel, C.Y. Lee was approached with two propositions in light of its success. One, he could’ve handed the rights of the book over and had it be made into a feature-length movie, which would have been a dramatic and faithful adaptation of the story. With the other deal, the deal was for it to be turned into a stage show. C.Y. Lee still lived in Chinatown as he was given these deals and propositions, and he drunkenly and unknowingly chose to have the novel adapted into a stage show. When he woke up sober the following morning, his agent called him up and told him that it was the best decision he ever made.
Considering that Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical would eventually have been made into a movie, I think he hit it out of the park. Even under his intoxication, he made a wise choice because that guaranteed that he could have achieved both results with just one pick.
Now that I’ve become familiar with the original story, I finally checked out the movie adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical. And if this movie is anything like the original musical they penned, the result is a generally elegant, curious, and somewhat adept take on what was considerably one of the more groundbreaking Asian American novels of the mid-20th century.
However, you may have to look at how the novel played out to understand precisely how much of a stylistic deviation this movie and, more likely, the musical is from the book.
The story centers around a young Chinese woman named Mei Li, who traveled with her father, Dr. Han Li – called Old Man Li in the book – as an illegal immigrant to San Francisco. The idea was for them both to start a new life there, especially since all that Mei Li and her father brought were her flower drum song and their equipment and instruments to help perform street songs to make a living. But it turns out they came there under the obligation of Sammy Fong, the head of the Celestial Gardens, a nightclub in Chinatown. So, after setting the record straight about their negotiations, Sammy Fong sent Mei Li and her father off to live at a nearby establishment in Chinatown. And the establishment happened to be that of the Wang family.
And this is where Wang Ta, Wang San, Wang Chi-Yang, and his sister-in-law, Madame Liang – called Madame Tang in the book – come into play. As Wang Ta went about his usual business in San Francisco as Asian Americans usually do, Wang Chi-Yang went about his business acting as if the old-fashioned traditional ways he grew up with back home in China were still relevant and must be practiced no matter how different the customs in his new home may have been. Later on, they accepted Mei Li and her father in the household as their servants for the time being, but Mei Li caught the attention of Wang Ta, who was smitten by her and wanted to get to know her more.
The problem, of course, is that Wang Ta had many things going on at once, romantically speaking. One of the women he was dating was a local playgirl named Linda Low – called Linda Tung in the book – who, unbeknownst to Wang Ta, was the top dancer of the Celestial Gardens.
And this leads to the next big part of the story. After Sammy Fong successfully dropped Mei Li and her father off to the Wang household, he tried to get even with Linda Low about her unpredictable methods and behaviors regarding the conditions of the nightclub and even her relationship with him. Despite Sammy Fong being her employer, Linda Low was sick and tired of the conditions she had to undergo as a nightclub dancer and went back and forth from being bitter with him to running back to him.
However, while she’s been doing that, she’s been going through many different phases all at once, too, such as, of course, her going out with Wang Ta and also making up lies about her having a brother who was a naval officer, a ruse that she would eventually have had to make into a reality by roping in one of her fellow friends into the Wang household’s next party. And if that’s not enough, Wang Ta’s life was also complicated romantically when it concerned his other close friend, seamstress Helen Chao, who had feelings for him but was too shy and unsure how to admit it as such to him.
So with all this going on, how was Wang Ta going to manage his romantic life? What would Linda Low have eventually decided on regarding her business position and romantic pursuits? And would Mei Li and her father ever have had a chance to gain a fresh new start in San Francisco without being caught in the middle of their more hazardous experiences or blowing their cover as illegal immigrants?
Surprisingly, there is so much going on at once for the movie to juggle. While many of them were familiar and carried over from C.Y. Lee’s original novel, it comes to a point where it left me wondering whether there even was such a thing as a protagonist in this take of Flower Drum Song. In the original novel, I remember that the protagonist was Wang Ta, even though the novel also paid attention more than once to Wang Chi-Yang and his assimilation into American society despite his stubborn adherence to the old-fashioned Chinese traditions, which his sons deemed as too behind the times and too restrictive compared to the freedom they were given as American citizens. In this movie, while Wang Chi-Yang’s confusions with American ideals were not paid much attention to, the film surprisingly goes back and forth between Wang Chi-Yang’s assimilation issues, Wang Ta’s romantic pursuits, Sammy Fong’s handling of his nightclub and his love affairs with Linda Low, and Linda Low’s exhaustion of being the head dancer of her employer/fiancé’s nightclub and where her allegiances lay. It was pretty impressive to see so many different subplots playing simultaneously and with such equal effect in correlation with each other.
The only other time I remember such subplots working together to equal effect from Rodgers and Hammerstein might have been in South Pacific. In this musical, the focus flipped back and forth between Emile de Becque’s relationship with Nellie Forbush and Joseph Cable’s romance with Liat. At first, I thought it focused on Joseph Cable before shifting towards Emile.
However, in the case of the Flower Drum Song, it had multiple different subplots to juggle, which would have been a little hard to follow unless it paid close attention to each one and how they worked with each other. Fortunately, in this case, each one was given enough substance to provide them with the proper momentum to lunge forth at the appropriate speed and with enough of it to ensure that one doesn’t outpace the other. All the subplots worked in decent conjunction with each other.
While we’re still discussing this, I ought to point out what I noticed about the movie that differs significantly from the book. To begin with, I recall a few characters from the original novel that have not been carried over into the film and probably the musical.
First, Wang Ta had a fellow college friend named Chang, who was an expert at women, girls, and relationship advice, which came in handy for Wang Ta since he was reportedly lousy with how he handled his dates. By the time he got close enough to whoever he had dated, he felt ready to lunge at the opportunity to ask them to marry him every time without giving their relationship time to breathe. All in all, this character felt like a very suave and decent guy with some good advice, a likable personality, and enough of a free-spirited nature to take life as he experienced it and also help Wang Ta whenever he could. Ultimately, he ended up as a grocery clerk, which he admitted to having felt comfortable with despite having graduated with a college degree.
But the most significant characters from the original novel that did not so much as leave a single role whatsoever in this movie are Wang Chi-Yang’s servants, Liu Ma, and her husband, Liu Lung, who also traveled with him from China.
These characters wanted to maintain order and control in the household for Wang Chi-Yang’s benefit, just as they used to back in their Chinese homeland, even on American soil. And by the time Mei Li and her father arrived in the picture, one of the servants, Liu Ma, did not trust them at all, for they came to Wang Chi-Yang from the streets, seeking out someone who used to live at the residence that the Wang family now lived in. She became even more appalled when she discovered that they both came from a different part of China than they did, one that she distrusted the most.
Plus, Liu Lung was half deaf, so he constantly asked whatever was being said in front of him, and his wife scolded him for not picking up on it the first time. At first, it played out for comedic effect. But as the novel progressed, it trekked on dramatic terrain as Liu Ma, while dragging Liu Lung along, plotted to frame Mei-Li and her father and make them look like robbers by planting a lie that made it look like they tried to swipe Wang Chi-Yang’s prized heirloom from under his nose, which was a gold clock that used to belong to Wang Chi-Yang’s late wife.
However, here in the movie, the servants do not have a single role to play in the film, except for a quick cameo during a reprise of ‘A Hundred Million Miracles.’ They felt about as inconsequential to the movie’s plot as the youngest two of Tevye’s daughters did in Fiddler on the Roof.
But now, there’s one change made to Flower Drum Song’s story that I thought was much appreciated and might be an improvement over the original novel. And in my opinion, it would be Wang Ta’s balancing of his relationships.
In the original novel, it went like this. First, Wang Ta went out with Linda Tung for a short while when he made the mistake of asking her to marry him, in which case she dumped him on the spot. And he was later reminded by Chang about how she made up lies like what she told Wang Ta when they were looking out at the San Francisco skyline and that he was better off without her. It made Wang Ta feel like a fool for falling in love with her. After that, Ta went on to date Helen Chao, who also harbored feelings for him, but Wang Ta saw her as more of a sister figure to him, and Helen’s actions painted her in a more complicated and almost desperate light. It ended up taking a nasty turn when Wang Ta did the dumping when she asked him out, and it turned out to have been bad enough to have pushed Helen into suicide. Then, as soon as that was behind Wang Ta, only then did his entanglements with Mei Li and her father kick in; it was at that point that their stories started to merge. From there, that’s when all the drama ensued with their romantic affiliations, with Wang Chi-Yang and Madame Liang seeking out who they deemed the proper match for him – they didn’t think Mei Li was the one – and just what kind of complicated dynamics they conveyed because of what the Wang household, Mei Li, and her father brought to America with them.
How does the movie play around with this?
Wang Ta started by going out with Linda Low, but he was also looked at lovingly by Helen Chao from a distance, even if he was not aware of it at the time and saw her as a close friend. And then, Wang Ta first laid eyes on Mei Li as she and her father settled into the Wang household while all of that was going on.
In my opinion, it provides more of a dramatic intrigue concerning his relationships. When you have all three relationships going on at once, rather than one at a time, it adds a sense of excitement and tension as Wang Ta tried to navigate his way through all the tangled webs in which he got himself stuck romantically.
It did lead to some conflicting situations out and about, including Helen Chao suspecting Linda Low of not being truthful about who she loved or dated, especially when it concerned Wang Ta. And in the novel, Wang Ta discovered Linda’s profession as a nightclub dancer early on amid their romantic budding, which resulted in him catching on to her deception and forgoing their relationship. In the film, Wang Ta, his family, Mei Li, and her father all sat together in the Celestial Gardens nightclub on Chinese New Year, and it was then that he discovered Linda Low’s profession when he noticed her mid-performance. The jig was up between Wang Ta and Linda Low by this point, and it led to the next significant instance that occurred with Wang Ta and his relationships.
What happened was Wang Ta, exhausted and drunk from the festivities, not to mention distraught over the truth about Linda Low, settled down in Helen Chao’s apartment. Next thing you know, Mei Li arrived and asked Helen Chao to help mend Wang Chi-Yang’s outfit. I’ll elaborate on that in a bit. And it was at that moment when Mei Li noticed Wang Ta’s outfit and shoes scattered all over the apartment, leaving her to assume that he went out with Helen Chao behind her back. And this is one of the moments that drove a wedge between Wang Ta and Mei Li, and that prompted her to voluntarily move out of the Wang household and bring her father with her, as opposed to simply being kicked out by the Wang household after being framed for robbery in the original novel. As for the rest of the story on Mei Li’s end, what she went through was entirely made up for the musical and movie, for she was automatically betrothed to Sammy Fong despite him having feelings for Linda Low, resulting in, in my opinion, a pretty humorous musical number of him trying to talk her out of marrying him, called ‘Don’t Marry Me.’
But getting back to Wang Ta’s complicated dynamics with girls, it had many great scenarios that felt suitable for Flower Drum Song as a musical and a film, and it worked very splendidly here.
Now, there are three things in the movie that I believe perfectly captured what occurred in the book, with two of them concerning Wang Chi-Yang.
One is how Chi-Yang handled his money. In the movie, he kept all his money and savings hidden in the box underneath his bed. So, he decided to take some cash with him as he went about his business in San Francisco. But when he was robbed at gunpoint and on his own front doorstep, he complained about being robbed and demanded that he have some guards in the Wang household to keep the front door on further lockdown. It led to Madame Liang scolding him for his carelessness and reminding him how important it is to keep the money in a bank rather than underneath his bed. Later, it led to a funny scene where he was shown the ropes about how the bank and its alarm systems work. Out of curiosity, Chi-Yang accidentally pushed the button that set off the alarm and closed the gates. But even then, this was enough to convince him that if he were to drop his money off into the bank, he’d be in good hands.
Two, there was one instance where he was given an expensive outfit for special occasions, but he was not a fan of the outfit, potentially because of the fabric it was made from. Later on, he admitted that he burnt a hole in the outfit when smoking his water pipe and suggested throwing it away because of it. Although, judging from his distaste for the outfit, it seems like he burnt the hole in the outfit on purpose. And this would eventually lead to Mei Li dropping the outfit off to Helen Chao to get it fixed and get the ball rolling with her confusion over Wang Ta’s romantic affairs.
And the third one, and the most striking of them all, centers around Wang Ta’s younger brother, Wang San. Reflecting how he was introduced in the novel, Wang San came in dressed up in a San Francisco Giants baseball outfit and speaking in English and slang that Master Wang found utterly bewildering and confusing. If you remember from my review of the book, out of all the members in the Wang family, Wang San assimilated the farthest into American culture, practicing the country’s national pastimes and even speaking in a different tongue and a different type of English than is considered normal, even in America. It left Wang Chi-Yang concerned about him throwing away his Chinese background as he did so.
Even with all the deviations that came about from the narrative, of course, how does that affect the characters? How are they like in the movie?
First off, there’s not much I can report regarding Wang Ta outside of him going to college, navigating his love life and his position as a Chinese-American, and trying to work his way through all the hurdles thrown his way regarding his romantic affairs. You could argue that it would have made him look clumsy in how he handled his romantic relationships. But even then, he realized how slightly foolish he was with his relationships. Once he did, he would have attempted to lunge into the situation and make things right, especially with Mei Li as they grew closer together.
Mei Li seemed like a sensible woman with massive aspirations for herself and her father, for she wanted to sneak aboard a ship bound for San Francisco with the hopes of achieving something better for themselves as they got comfortable there, starting in Chinatown. Of course, this did leave open the possibility of them being ousted as illegal immigrants, for they all still had to settle down in some way or another in San Francisco, especially since they were sent over to Sammy Fong out of a marriage proposal arrangement. But by the time she first laid her eyes on Wang Ta, that’s when she wanted to make as decent an impression as she could have on him, especially since she and her father were allowed to stay in the Wang household as servants. So you can say that there was a slight romantic pursuit apparent in Mei Li as she settled in San Francisco with her father, even though it was also evident that she hoped to achieve something greater for herself and her father as immigrants usually would have upon making it to the USA.
Her father, Dr. Han Li, barely did anything to stand out except for the fact that he just tagged along with Mei Li to settle down in the USA with her, provided the announcements for their newest flower drum song, and spoke common sense, either to Mei Li or in general.
Wang Chi-Yang expressed his hardcore traditionalist values from China as he got comfortable in San Francisco. Unlike in the novel, the movie never specified how long he, his sister-in-law, their sons, and their servants lived in San Francisco. All I picked up on in this movie is that he wanted to maintain what he believed to be the proper methods of Chinese traditional expressions and activities, even if some of them conflicted with what was considered common sense in the USA as well as what made more sense than how Wang Chi-Yang usually practiced it or how he believed it’s supposed to be practiced.
That’s why his sister-in-law, Madame Liang, was a far more down-to-earth type of woman. Just like Wang Chi-Yang, She was devoted to their family values and Chinese traditions. But she was also sensible enough to know just how things worked in the USA compared to back in China and tried to navigate Wang Chi-Yang down the same path whenever he dealt with circumstances that were beyond his understanding and which she knew how to remedy. Of course, it almost made her almost seem as irrelevant to the story as Mei Li’s father, and all it did was paint her as the more opportunistic and sensible half to Wang Chi-Yang’s stubborn and traditional half.
Sammy Fong, the head of the Celestial Gardens in Chinatown, seemed like a committed man with a knack for showcasing some phenomenal and glorious-looking show numbers for his audiences, even if most of them concerned the central star, his top employee and supposed fiancé, Linda Low. Whenever he had to rank his friends over his commitment to her while also dealing with Mei Li and her father’s conditions as not only illegal immigrants but also Mei Li’s condition as his bride-to-be, he tried his best to navigate his way through whatever murky waters may have arisen from those entanglements until he knew where his footing lay.
And that leaves us with Linda Low. In the novel, she appeared only as the first of the three dates that Wang Ta had in the book, and she was a supposedly improper date because of her lying habits. Here, she was given a much bigger, more expanded role in the movie and the musical than in the book. Here, she lied her head away and made up stories about herself and her family business. But at the same time, the movie also showed that she was the leading dancer at a local nightclub that Sammy Fong ran in Chinatown and that she was frustrated with the conditions she dealt with about her being the main star of the nightclub shows, especially with how she thought Sammy Fong treated her both as her employer and as her supposed fiancé. And because she still had a habit of wanting to go out with as many guys as she could’ve tracked down to exercise her wooing and playgirl tendencies all over them, there were times when it displayed how there was only so long she could’ve put up her facade before some of the men whom she dated caught on to her facades and discovered the real her, including Wang Ta. So when this happened, it put characters like Linda Low on edge as it tested her willingness to stay committed to one person or another, and it tested Wang Ta’s commitment to his relationships as well as who he considered a more righteous match for him.
So, while the characters in this movie were a bit light in spots, they all still served as intriguing demonstrations of Asian Americans settling in a new country like the USA and achieving new possibilities and a new start in life, especially concerning romantic affairs.
Now, how about the acting? How does that play out?
Well, first, let’s talk about one of the film’s most prominent milestones. While the original novel was celebrated as an early breakthrough in Asian American literature, this film was heralded as an even more potent breakthrough in thrusting Asian people, and not just Asian Americans, into the limelight. With the interracial relationships in South Pacific, the primarily Asian supporting cast in The King and I, and this time, the first nearly all-Asian cast in Flower Drum Song, Rodgers and Hammerstein surprisingly also wowed me over with how they’ve been the voice of a generally underappreciated nationality that many people back then may have dismissed as either conniving, sneaky, sly, or just plain goofy.
Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, whichever ethnicity it is, all the actors who partook in this movie breathed nothing but pure life and cultural essences into this picture. And I’m honestly not disturbed by the idea of it being a variety of different Asian ethnicities because this movie and its story took place in Chinatown. Let’s face it, there’s bound to be Asian people of every ethnicity from every corner mingling about in this side of town anyway, especially in Japantown, Koreatown, whatever. What’s even more remarkable is that this film went ahead and achieved it around the time when Asian stereotypes were still commonplace.
And here’s where it gets genuinely trippy. The movie came out around the same time as Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which had its fair share of detractors because of Mickey Rooney’s portrayal of Mr. Yuniyoshi, which is dismissed these days as Yellowface. And when did Flower Drum Song come out? A mere month after Breakfast at Tiffany’s made a splash. That’s right, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, with its controversial reputation for casting Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi, and Flower Drum Song, which broke new ground with its casting, acting, and musical capabilities, were just around a month apart in their release.
Considering how many American films primarily pertained to what was considered proper American values at the time without acknowledging the other races that came in for the same purpose, this was nothing short of a huge breakthrough.
Now, as for the individual actors, there are plenty that I can think of who left their mark by displaying their roles with eminent promise, commitment, and flair. I’ll highlight them soon, but just like with The King and I, some actors who starred in their roles here returned from their originating roles in the original musical.
Starting with James Shigeta as Wang Ta, he was a generally modest actor who conveyed Wang Ta with enough maturity and confidence in him to highlight how capable he was as a Chinese-American living in San Francisco’s Chinatown. But on certain occasions, like when he felt like he was made a fool of for being acquainted with Linda Low as a love interest, it hit me how he was still young and navigating his way through his love life. In the original book, Wang Ta was considered a bit of a playboy who had a pretty lousy track record of maintaining consistent relationships with whomever he dated, whether it was Linda Low or Helen, before finally running into Mei Li. Even when his character regularly made mistakes as far as his relationship commitments were concerned, his performance demonstrated that he was still committed to making some things about it work, even if he did not know that he was doing something the wrong way, not just for his family, but also for what and who he pursued. So he made it all work the way he did.
The actor playing his brother, Wang San, was Patrick Adiarte, who already left a mark in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s history as Prince Chulalongkorn in The King and I. Adiarte’s character was a rambunctious young boy who got settled into the American ways fast to the point where he was looked at as the one member of the family who was on the verge of forsaking his Chinese background for what he considered satiable American values. He may have sounded a little more mature and knowledgeable of certain goings-on throughout San Francisco than his age would suggest. Still, he sported such a level of pride and cockiness to him, but in an endearing way, that it made him always come across as a bit of a knockout whenever he showed up on the screen.
And I will admit, every time I saw his friends from ‘The Other Generation,’ I looked at them wishing that more attention had been devoted to them in the movie…unless there was more attention devoted to them in the musical, and I didn’t know it.
I also admire the actress who played Mei Li, Miyoshi Umeki. She played her with evident sensitivities, which only added to her vulnerability as she and her father settled in San Francisco’s Chinatown as illegal immigrants. Part of it may seem a little too simplistic and one-note, considering that’s how I looked at her performance throughout most of the movie. But her expressions and comprehension of what her character faced during her settlement in San Francisco were still enough to clue me into how she was reacting to all the sights and sounds around her. It was also said that Umeki was fascinated with America when she played the role of Mei Li. So whatever wide-eyed enthusiasm Mei Li expressed about San Francisco, the actress may have felt in equal measure upon her firsthand experiences in America. What added to the strength of Umeki’s performance is that she has played Mei Li ever since Flower Drum Song’s inception as a musical, and this makes evident both the actress and her character’s complexions.
Juanita Hall, who also returned to the movie from the original musical – not to mention left her mark in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s history herself as Bloody Mary from South Pacific – soared as Wang Chi-Yang’s sister-in-law, Madame Liang. I admire how stubborn she was with her common sense and how open-minded she was about practicing things in America while still upholding what she valued the most in her old Chinese lifestyle. Of course, this leads to one of the most intriguing parts of the casting in the movie and also one of the more unusual instances of interracial roles that I’ve yet seen. Sometimes, I’m aware of white actors playing black characters, which resulted in Blackface, or, on rare occasions, black actors playing white actors, which is called Whiteface. In the case of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, you have actors like Mickey Rooney playing Mr. Yunioshi, a case of Yellowface. But to see Juanita Hall, born of African-American and Irish-American blood, playing an Asian American was unheard of and unusual. But I shouldn’t let that detract me from acknowledging that she still conveyed her role with just as much dedication and commitment as she did to her role back on Broadway.
The actress playing Linda Low, Nancy Kwan, played her with some conniving tendencies, but also with enough conflicted elements to her character to help me buy into how Linda Low’s at war with herself with what she took pleasure out of at the moment versus what and who she wanted over all else. Sometimes, she played her while conveying her wily and seductive aspects to her character. But other times, she perfectly expressed her frustrations and simultaneous confusion over the dilemmas in front of her as she attempted to make some sense of the conditions in which she was stuck. Whenever she danced as part of her musical numbers or nightclub shows, she looked most alluring and barely missed a beat.
The actor playing Sammy Fong, Jack Soo, played him as a decent, sensible guy who was aware of whatever situations happened between him and Linda Low and when things became a little kerflooey. Also, he ran the nightclub with as much of a straight face as possible, especially concerning his complicated business/romantic relationship with Linda Low. Whenever he had to wrap his head around Mei Li and her father settling in San Francisco, he still maintained his modesties as he attempted to make his way and launch his ways into uncertain terrain, especially when it looked like he was about to lose his way with Linda Low. Given what kind of character he played and his position, it would have been so easy to play him with a level of stinginess or underhandedness to make it look like he’s a corrupt executive. But he didn’t go there, and even though Jack Soo played a different role in this movie than in the musical, he still managed to play his role with enough decency to heighten his more sensible antics as Sammy Fong.
But of all the actors in the movie, I think my favorite performance might have to be Benson Fong playing Wang Chi-Yang.
When I pictured him in the novel, I always thought of him as an old yet plump guy with a consistent cough and a loud voice. But as he was in the movie, Benson Fong played him with enough modesties to convince me that he was an elderly Chinese man with enough experience to heighten his sense of wisdom, or at least, whatever he could’ve expressed of it when he wasn’t busy worrying about the clashes between Chinese and American customs. Yes, he still had his cough, and yes, he still expressed his moments of stubbornness to him. But he played him so naturally and with so little ill will towards him that I looked at him like he was just a regular father maintaining a different type of household on American soil. I like how he played him as naturally as possible without making him look like a bad guy. There were even times throughout the movie when he expressed more modesty to convey how, for all his stubborn antics, he was not entirely like that, especially when he expressed his concern for his sons, his family, Mei Li, her father, and whatever went on with any of them.
Of course, this would not be a Rodgers and Hammerstein film without the musical score and the songs.
Considering that this is Rodgers and Hammerstein, I already knew they would be good. As far as I know, almost anything they created turned into pure gold. And while I noticed a slight flightiness with the overall compositions and the songs in this movie, they still did not disappoint.
So let’s dive into those next, shall we?
One of the first songs in the movie that stuck out to me is ‘The Other Generation,’ which slipped back and forth between Wang Chi-Yang and Madame Liang, and back to Wang San and two kids who joined him, who, again, I’m wagering were friends of his who watched him play his ball games. Their juxtaposition conveyed the same message but with different interpretations. And the song did so expertly on Master Wang’s end with regards to the young current generation and their negligence for valuable life lessons while Wang San sang the portions that conveyed his generation’s confusion and frustrations with the old generation’s reluctance to accept or try whatever was new to them. Even though the last half of the song belonged to Wang San, the implications and message were still there. And even if the song didn’t stick out musically, the message and juxtapositions were still enough to leave a noticeable impact on the music in the movie.
While this song may feel a little odd culturally, I found the song ‘Chop Suey’ quite admirable. Whereas ‘The Other Generation’ complained about the differences and clashes between different generations and their ideals, this song celebrates the idea of mixing different cultures, hence the Chop Suey metaphor, to form a potential community between each other, such as is the case with San Francisco’s Chinatown. While the subtext here may feel a little off-putting, and the tone may seem a little too stereotypical to some viewers, I still find the song catchy, with relatable themes about community and fellowship and some excellent choreography at the end. There’s a sense that underneath its shallow surface, deep down, it is a mere celebration of the intermingling of different customs as a part of achieving a harmonious balance.
And who can forget the ‘international’ song, ‘Gliding Through My Memory?’ If you thought watching Juanita Hall play an Asian American was trippy, watching all the Asian Americans donning different outfits and playing different nationalities feels even more surreal. But the charm that goes with the song makes it so that the display comes with a more resounding landing.
Helen Chao’s song, ‘Love, Look Away,’ started as a very tender exposition song about her hopes and dreams with Wang Ta. It began with her stepping out into her apartment balcony, and later on, it evolved into a full-scale ballet sequence as she danced with her imaginary interpretation of Wang Ta, as well as a few other men who potentially represented who she considered romantic rivals yearning for her attention. The ballet was massive and elegant, and I could tell it all occurred in her imagination. The entire presentation throughout the song reflected that, as the settings surrounding the ballet sequence gave a pretty crystalline appearance, not unlike the scenes of Heaven in Carousel. Much like what some of the most visually dazzling of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical numbers expressed in their cinematic adaptations, they conveyed the ballet-like aspects of the numbers. Once you see it in action, you would feel that this is the film version of a staged play.
Speaking of ballet sequences, I’ve find ‘Sunday,‘ sung by Linda Low and Sammy Fong, most curious. In this song, Linda Low fantasized about what she and Sammy Fong could’ve done together as husband and wife. The following ballet sequence was the two of them laughing in 60s decor apartments as they danced around with their ideas of children, potential neighbors, visitors, and even recreations of commonplace characters from TV, like cowboys and Indians, as they all intermingled under the rhythms and beats of the song and, of course, throughout the stylized modern settings of San Francisco. Once the TV characters leaped out of the screen, they maintained their black-and-white appearance as they rummaged throughout the film, which I thought was pretty well done. Whatever techniques were used on the characters during this musical number, I’ll wager that they were the same ones used on Hayley Mills when she played the twin sisters in The Parent Trap around that same time.
On top of that, this stuck out to me because this was one of the more surreal visual interpretations I’ve ever seen put together in a Rodgers and Hammerstein production. Whenever I think of them, I always think of them engaging in musical numbers in stories set around the mid-19th to the early 20th century, at the latest. But in this case, they were conveying events and circumstances in a fantastical recreation of modern-day San Francisco, which I’ll describe more about shortly. Needless to say, the correlations going on in this number were surreal, imaginative, and quite fun to watch.
But that’s nothing compared to the #1 song that Linda Low is associated with, ’I Enjoy Being a Girl.’
This musical number put in the forefront Linda Low’s pride as a playgirl and how she was willing to prove to other men and herself that she was the girl to fall head over heels in love with as she strutted about and admired her looks as she prepared for her date with Wang Ta. It utilized some modest ballet movements as Nancy Kwan danced about throughout a bedroom that frankly looked like something out of Vogue magazine. Watching her reflections don different outfits as part of Linda’s fantasies about her chances with men is also amusing.
While some people may look at this and question it from a feminist point of view, the song still worked well enough because of what it unveiled about Linda Low’s character. The way I see it, watching Linda Low admire herself and her reflections through the number is probably female narcissism at its most stylish and classy.
And that leaves us with the main song in the movie, ’A Hundred Million Miracles,’ which feels like the most composed, if you will, song in the entire film. It’s just a simple, elegant tune of all the beauties and elegance of the world around you, all set to Mei Li’s flower drum and her father’s gong.
Listening to it and how it played out left me feeling like it lived up to the term ’flower drum song.’ Why? Because it captured the collective joys that come with someplace as exotic as San Francisco’s Chinatown, just like how this movie was exotic, and it captured them with the simplest and most modest tunes. It’s little wonder that this serves as the main theme song in the musical and the film because it displays what types of serendipitous circumstances may occur, whether it’s with the characters or even with the audiences, that would bewitch them with what may crop up to them.
I felt this way after listening to this musical number, and I enjoyed it for that reason.
Getting back to Flower Drum Song’s modern portrayals, what I admire about it outside of its hardcore representation of Asian American actors in the early 60s was its interpretation of modern-day America, especially by Rodgers and Hammerstein standards. I found it most intriguing to watch what kind of pastimes would have been conveyed as only Rodgers and Hammerstein would have conveyed it, and how that would have reflected how America was looked at back in the day, especially as it was way beyond World War II, but also just years away from slipping back into chaos with the Vietnam War.
On top of that, the shots of San Francisco remind me a bit of how Thailand was portrayed in The King and I. From the very few moments I looked closely at it, I relished San Francisco in all its modern-day majesty while also admiring how the city looked from a 2020s perspective. There’s just something about what San Francisco was like in the mid-20th century that always seemed fascinating. Even the local neighborhoods of Chinatown and other portions of San Francisco were very intriguing to look at, too, if for no other reason than to judge them from how they were like back in the late 50s and early 60s. I don’t know how much of it was shot in San Francisco or if any of it was made up for the movie, such as from a Los Angeles stage or something. But it still displayed an impressive look into general San Francisco culture, especially as all the Asian natives, both immigrating and local, came to grips with what American customs they had to adjust themselves to and how much of it they felt comfortable letting mix with the traditions they carried with them from their originating hometowns throughout Asia. And for all the heightened elegance throughout the movie, I got that general impression every time I saw the characters prowl about San Francisco throughout the film.
However, for all its terrific outings, I have one problem with the movie.
At one point in the movie, Mei Ling, after a series of complications, watched a movie that also talked about an illegal immigrant expressing her lovesickness for someone. The following day, she was about to be wed to Sammy Fong, and Wang Ta was about to be wed on that same occasion to Linda Low. Out of inspiration from the movie she saw the previous night, Mei Li decided to break off her wedding vows with Fong by announcing herself as an illegal immigrant, which Fong’s mother did not approve of. And only then did Mei Li reunite with Wang Ta, as did Linda Low with Sammy Fong. Unlike some of Rogers and Hammerstein’s other musicals, where the main couple reigned supreme while the other couple’s attempts at a relationship crumbled, this movie allowed both couples to have their happy ending.
While that’s all nice and good, though, I feel like this movie, or rather the characters, took the idea of Mei Ling and her father being illegal Chinese immigrants a little too well. And it’s not just because illegal immigration is a hot-button topic nowadays. Let’s talk about how it occurred in the book.
As sickening as it was to experience all the drama that unfolded between Mei Li, her father, and Wang Chi-Yang’s servants at the end of the original novel about them being beggars and thieves, it still sent a clear message: the idea that Mei Li and her father were poor and have come from China to America through less than conventional means is a big deal and that they must be accounted for in terms of their acceptance as American citizens.
SPOILERS END
This movie is no masterpiece, but it is a very cohesive, solid, slick musical that made quite a splash when it came out, and rightfully so. It pushed the envelope in terms of ethnic representation in cinema and arguably on stage, though some people went as far as to say that the movie pushed forth on it more so than the stage version, surprisingly. In so doing, it did the novel justice by providing a more in-depth, open, and expository look into the lives of Asian Americans as they tried to maintain the traditions they carried with them from back in Asia while also assimilating into America with the hopes of achieving more significant opportunities with them.
The actors feel sensible with their performances. The casting was ahead of its time. The songs carry no less of the classic melodic riches that we’d expect from Rodgers and Hammerstein. The direction felt elegant. The shots were pretty. Its modern-day representations at the time were intriguing to watch. And even the musical and the movie’s deviations from the novel felt quite creative and distinct. It was nice to see that several years down the line, several other films would have followed Flower Drum Song’s footsteps and provided their own takes on the Asian experience of the old vs. the new, such as The Joy Luck Club and Crazy Rich Asians. Much like Flower Drum Song, they all provided unique, entertaining, and potentially thought-provoking expositions of Asian American culture and just how much of what they wanted to leave behind in the past they still carried with them and what they wanted to bring with them into America is potentially being neglected in their persistence to hold on to what they feared could have been lost in transition.
Strap on in and listen to the pleasant little tunes to be heard out of this film. It might leave you in a surprisingly entranced state of mind.
My Rating
A-
Additional Thoughts
The primary nationality of the cast isn’t all there is to comment about the movie’s cast’s long-term contributions. Among the actors who made his first on-screen appearance here – no, really – was James Hong, who would’ve been recognized as an icon in Asian-oriented cinema and television. He starred as one of the waiters of the Celestial Gardens who greeted Mei Li and her father as they first set foot in the nightclub and were being led to Sammy Fong.
Works Cited
Lee, C.Y., & Hwang, D.H. (2002). Introduction. In The Flower Drum Song. Introduction, Penguin Books.
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