Abstract: This article investigates the distribution and consumption of Way Down East (directed by D. W. Griffith, 1920) in Chinese cities in the 1920s in an attempt to explore the impact of foreign films on early Chinese filmmaking in particular and Chinese society in general. Way Down East highlights a young woman’s trials and tribulations caused by male tyranny and deception. Such melodrama films by D. W. Griffith struck a chord in China in the 1920s, when the concerns of women and the loss of family values after the May Fourth movement found expression in film. Ideologically, the embracing of Way Down East in China, particularly among progressive intellectuals, testifies to an anti-May Fourth conservatism. Chinese intellectuals were inspired by Way Down East to deny Chinese women’s subjectivity as new women who could control their own destinies. Technically, the popularity of D. W. Griffith’s films in China gave rise to the prevalence of cinematic melodrama in 1920s China.

Key words: D. W. Griffith, Melodrama, Way Down East, Conservatism, Feminism