Shanghai Express · reception & legacy
1932 · Josef von Sternberg
How Shanghai Express has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
No reappraisal needed at the box office — it was one of the biggest hits of 1932 and a Best Picture nominee. What's shifted is the spotlight: modern viewers increasingly watch it for Anna May Wong, whose performance is now widely seen as the film's secret weapon.
What's debated
The perennial fan debate: does Anna May Wong quietly steal the film from Dietrich — and is this Hollywood-orientalist fantasy redeemed or complicated by having an actual Chinese American star in it?
Its footprint
Dietrich's 'It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily' is one of the most quoted lines of the pre-Code era, and the image of her wreathed in feathers and cigarette smoke is shorthand for 1930s Hollywood glamour itself.
Where it stands
Core cinephile canon — the crown jewel of the seven Sternberg–Dietrich collaborations, kept alive on Letterboxd by the Criterion box set and by Anna May Wong's ongoing rediscovery.