Beautifully shot romance fantasy starring the great Sessue Hayakawa.

A short film about a genius artist and his love that has passed on. It has Hayasawa from Swiss Family Robinson that I just love. It is beautiful. Saw it on TCM.

Beautifully filmed and a rare chance to see Hayakawa in his glory days.

Even the greatest of silent film enthusiasts will be hard pressed to recommend it...

Sessue Hayakawa did not want to make stereotypical Asian character-looking movies turned out by Hollywood in the silent era. He decided to make his own company, shoot authentically looking Japanese settings and customs without stereotypes, and "The Dragon Painter" is one of those films that plays as a love story, accessible to an American audience, but then again, not quite Japanese. It is definitely worth seeing for its historical value of real Japanese-American cinema, something that is still very rare to these days.

This is truly a great silent film hayakawa is extraordinary the cinematography and art direction is sensational in this film....itz amazing they shot film in yosemite valley california and pulled it off like it was fuedal japan.....such a beautiful film 2 watch!!

"The Dragon Painter" is a mesmerizing and tragically moving silent film about the obsessiveness and singlemindedness of artists, whose work often requires sacrifice.(Oh and be careful what you ask for. You might just get it.) Take Kano Indara(Edward Peil), for example. He is nearing the end of his days, wealthy in Tokyo, but sad that he does not have an heir to continue his work and unable to find a worthy successor, despite having a grown daughter, Ume-Ko(Tsuru Aoki). One day, his friend Uchida(Toyo Fujita), a surveyor, has a run in with Tatsu(Sessue Hayakawa), a supremely talented, if possibly mentally unbalanced painter who is convinced that his one true lady love has been trapped in the form of a dragon for the past thousand years and feels compelled to paint her day and night. Kino Indara is impressed with his artwork and invites him to his home, using his daughter as bait.

An artist gets married and promptly loses his motivation to paint in this tale of balancing the twin obsessions of love and art.

Interesting story about a talented artist who loses his talent when he gets married. She then fakes her death and his talent comes back. Now thats love!