In Shanghai, an American girl who helps run an opium ring meets an American agent disguised as a mining engineer. The two fall in love, and she has to determine where her loyalties lie.
Direction
Browning's lurid eye for moral rot in pretty packages.
Acting
Priscilla Dean's face does what dialogue never could.
Director
Tod Browning
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This was Browning's last film before *The Unholy Three* and his legendary run with Lon Chaney—he was already obsessed with disguises and moral freaks.
Priscilla Dean was Universal's biggest star in the late 1910s; by 1923 her career was already crumbling, making Cassie's downfall hit different.
US
