Lady from Chungking (1942)

Anna May Wong: Kwan Mei

Quotes 

• Lt. Shimoto : Cleverness does not seem to be your only virtue. This is not a coolie hand.

  Kwan Mei : The Lieutenant is right. I am not a coolie.

  Lt. Shimoto : Now if you were only of noble birth, you see, my dear, General Kaimura likes the companionship of intelligent women, especially cultured women. Have you been here long?

  Kwan Mei : Not long.

  Lt. Shimoto : Well, a little scrubbing around the neck and, uh, ear, and even a General might see possibilities.

• Chen : She will tell the Japs.

  Kwan Mei : She can be trusted.

  Chen : How do you know?

  Kwan Mei : A woman's intuition.

• Lavara : You're guerrillas, all of you. Why, Kaimura, would cut every throat in this room.

  Chen : Including yours.

  Lavara : Oh, not mine. I have to sing.

  Kwan Mei : All throats look alike to the Japs.

• Kwan Mei : Now, no more tears. Tears are only for joy.

• Kwan Mei : They're all right. Don't you worry.

  Pat O'Rourke : Okay, if you say so, Lotus Blossom.

  Kwan Mei : Lotus Blossom? That's a very pretty name.

  Pat O'Rourke : Yeah. Yeah, I had a girl in Brooklyn I called Lotus Blossom. Her real name was Maeve O'Houlihan. Yeah, I called her Lotus Blossom on account that she liked Chop Suey.

• Pat O'Rourke : Gee, I wish the boys back in Brooklyn could see me now.

  Kwan Mei : Brooklyn?

  Pat O'Rourke : Yeah, in the home of the Dodgers.

  Kwan Mei : Dodgers? What are they? What do they do?

  Pat O'Rourke : Do? They play baseball. You know, that's one of President Roosevelt's Four Freedoms. Gee, I can see it now. It's in the ninth inning, see, and the scores all tied up...

• Kwan Mei : Is my left hand not to know what my right hand is doing? You, General, are now my right hand, and I must know and understand both hands.

• Gen. Kaimura : There is a fragile but durable beauty in you, Madam. Great Wall, yes, I see it each time I - I look at you, durable, lasting, as though you, like the Great Wall, have lived for centuries and will live on for centuries more. But it will not be so. The Great Wall shall crumble into dust! And from the dust will arise a new China.

  Kwan Mei : General!

  Gen. Kaimura : I will hold Asia and half the world in my hand like a bunch of grapes - to be ripened by the sun of heaven!

• Kwan Mei : How are you?

  Pat O'Rourke : Right in the pink.

• Lavara : Look, I might have had a tough life, but I'm still going to hang onto it.

  Kwan Mei : Your life and my life mean nothing. It's the future generation that counts now.

  Lavara : This is the only generation I'm interested in.

• Kwan Mei : I have important information for you. Oh, I see doubt in all your faces. I see the thought in your eyes - that I am a traitor. Somehow I cannot blame you. I saw Mochow's father die, murdered, and I saw the fathers of two more comrades, shot. Though I did not show the pain in my face, it was in my heart. Truly, I live at the hotel. I wear lovely clothes, but there is a reason. It was the only way to find out the plan of that - butcher.

• Gen. Kaimura : How do you know all this?

  Kwan Mei : I am Madam Kwan Mei.

• Gen. Kaimura : Japanese planes!

  Kwan Mei : No, Flying Tigers.

  Gen. Kaimura : Let them come. They will be culled from the skies like dead flies.

• [last lines] 

  Kwan Mei : You cannot kill me. You cannot kill China. Not even a million deaths could crush the soul of China, for the soul of China will be eternal. When I die, a million will take my place, and nothing can stop them, neither hunger, nor torture, nor the firing squad. We shall live on until the enemy is driven back over scorched land and hurled into the sea. That time will come soon, for the armies of decency and liberty are on the march. China's destiny is victory. It will live because human freedom will not perish. Out of the ashes of ruin and old hatreds, the force of peace will prevail until the world is again sane and beautiful.