To Whom It May Concern: Ka Shen's Journey (2010)

With just two films, WORLD OF SUZIE WONG and FLOWER DRUM SONG, today perhaps the name Nancy Kwan seems an exotic footnote to sixties cinema, "Oh yes, that Chinese actress". But this riveting and touching documentary on Ka Shen Kwan, better known as Nancy Kwan, is an engrossing document chronicling a near remarkable life. The film opens with Kwan attending a new ballet of SUZIE WONG in Hong Kong and as she watches the performance, her story is told. Born of an interracial (Chinese father, English mother) marriage in the 1930s when such unions were frowned upon, abandoned by her mother who went back to England, a flight to China when the Japanese invade Hong Kong to avoid her father's execution, trained as a ballet dancer, plucked out of obscurity and given the leading role opposite William Holden in a major Hollywood film becoming the first Asian leading lady and Hollywood star, a floundering career when Hollywood was unable to continue to provide roles for Asian actresses, a failed marriage and the birth of a son, her only child. The film is divided into three parts: her childhood and early life in Hong Kong and England, the Hollywood years and breaking racial barriers and the problems of Asian actresses working in Hollywood (France Nuyen, Joan Chen and Vivian Wu are interviewed) and the final and most heartbreaking segment, losing her only child to AIDS. A testament to the perseverance, courage and commitment and an extraordinary journey of one Ka Shen. If you get an opportunity to watch this documentary, don't miss it. You'll not regret it.