Sessue Hayakawa Trailers
Yellowface: Asian Whitewashing and Racism in Hollywood TrailerWhy Be Good?: Sexuality & Censorship in Early Cinema TrailerSwiss Family Robinson: Adventure in the Making Trailer
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.
Most Popular Sessue Hayakawa Trailers
Total trailers found: 82
01 July 1955
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 servicemen and Japanese locals.
14 December 1919
An opium smuggler is marked for murder in this story of the Chinese Mafia.
24 September 1931
At her Chinese father's bidding, a woman goes to murder an enemy and meets a Scotland Yard detective.
02 November 1958
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 orphan boy.
01 June 1966
A young Hans Christian Andersen goes in search of knowledge in the Garden of Paradise in order to make his studies easier.
25 March 1917
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 Lopaka can bring him two feather cloaks from a rare bird.
07 September 1959
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" from September 7, 1959 to October 1, 1960, namely 30 episodes.
20 March 1919
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 married in secret.
11 October 1957
The classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors.
19 March 1959
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 Amazon.
22 August 1920
Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa is cast as an ancient Egyptian donkey boy in An Arabian Knight. The humble Hayakawa rescues high-born Lillian Hall from lascivious pasha Fred Jones.
08 June 1914
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.
23 June 1937
Based on a novel by Maurice Dekobra, the film is set in the Yoshiwara, the red-light district of Tokyo, in the nineteenth century.
10 October 1914
Tokoramo, a Japanese diplomat on a mission to Paris, begins a love affair with Helene, a chorus girl, who subsequently rejects her American fiancé, Richard Bernisky.
07 May 2002
A look behind the scenes at Walt Disney’s Swiss Family Robinson (1960)
13 October 2019
A history of anti-Asian racism and yellowface in Hollywood after the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack.
21 December 1960
After being shipwrecked, the Robinson family is marooned on an island inhabited only by an impressive array of wildlife.
12 July 1917
Sato (Sessue Hayakawa) faithfully works for importer James Thornton (James Neill). When the old man dies, he leaves his daughter Mildred (Vivian Martin) in Sato's care.
01 January 1958
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.
27 August 1916
Makino works for Kayosho, a Japanese curio dealer in America. To reward Makino's dedication, Kayosho sends for Toki-ye, a picture bride.
23 May 2007
Before the G, PG and R ratings system there was the Production Code, and before that there was, well, nothing.
06 May 1918
Japanese leading man Sessue Hayakawa stars as John A. Ghengle, the Oxford-educated son of an Arab chieftain.
30 January 1921
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 son relieves his unhappiness.
27 January 1932
Running Hollywood is a comedy short.
01 May 1924
An assassinated Lord's daughter refuses to marry a Chinese prince but agrees to be his mistress.
11 April 1942
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 ignorance of his profession.
19 November 1931
With the advent of sound, the world's leading screen idol, Douglas Fairbanks, experienced a downturn in his fortunes.
05 November 1922
Another entry in the popular one-reel series.
04 February 1937
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 studying.
30 June 1943
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 Europe together.
05 July 1919
The renown Hindu scientist, Dr. Chindi Ashutor, who has conquered plague in India, visits Scotland and falls in love with Kate Erskine, whose sister Mary is engaged to Ashutor's college friend, James Bassett.
19 March 1922
The Vermilion Pencil is a 1922 American silent drama film directed by Norman Dawn, and produced and distributed by Robertson–Cole.
24 December 1914
Sioux leader Chief Gray Otter sends his son Tiah to the white man's school so that he can become a great leader.
18 February 1918
Hawaiian prince Tom Garvin (Sessue Hayakawa) receives an American college education and falls in love with Enid Benton (Florence Vidor).
08 July 1915
Russian brothers Count Boris and Alexis Rabourdin obtain a Japanese coastline defense map and plan to sell it to German agents in London.
03 December 1917
In the office of Major Northfield, the quartermaster of the Pacific Coast, a leak has been discovered which may endanger the safety of American transports that are secretly carrying troops across the Pacific.
20 February 1950
Borneo, 1941, during World War II. When the Japanese occupy the island, American writer Agnes Newton Keith is separated from her husband and imprisoned with her son in a prison camp run by the enigmatic Colonel Suga.
05 February 1914
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 revolution in the late '60's.
20 October 1918
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.
25 September 1914
A Native American warrior travels to a faraway tribe to find and defend a woman that haunts his dreams.
07 March 1947
In a Far Eastern town, a settling of accounts between Western and Asian opium traffickers draws the attention of the police.
31 March 1953
The legendary tale of the forty-seven samurai who seek vengeance against the man who caused their master's death.
31 March 1919
Sessue Hayakawa was making the transition from Asian villain to sympathetic hero in this picture. The plot is a combination of racial stereotypes that were common in the U.
15 July 1918
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 as a Christian, Wing Lung locks her in the cellar and she becomes insane.
15 October 1917
While visiting Alan, who works in Tokyo, she attends a festival with her Japanese maid while wearing a Japanese kimono.
24 July 1920
In a day and age when interracial marriages were considered taboo, film star Sessue Hayakawa rarely got the girl in his pictures.
22 May 1921
Japanese architect Yoda is hired as groundskeeper for retired criminal Benson Burleigh.
22 February 1921
Intimate views of the movie stars of the Silent Era, at work and play; featuring Sessue Hayakawa, Lillian Gish and others.
09 March 1964
Created for the "Esso World Theater" series of films in 1964, it features excerpts from "Bugaku," "Gagaku," "Noh, " and "Kabuki" scenes performed by the well-known dancers, musicians and actors and actresses.
15 November 1922
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 stars.
26 October 1949
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 and the authorities.
04 October 1919
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, is a playboy.
30 June 1943
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 once loved.
01 July 1924
A disguised servant of a dying Japanese prince saves articles of succession from a rival faction.
15 December 1915
Opera singer Renee Dupree is in love with struggling composer Julian who falls very seriously ill. She goes to impresario Mueller for the money Julian needs but is saved from sacrificing her virtue when a jealous lover kills Mueller.
30 October 1921
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.
25 October 1924
Hideo, an antiques dealer in Tokyo, is accused of killing his best friend. In a dramatic court-room hearing, the truth will be revealed.
