The Bitter Tea of General Yen

Set in war-torn Shanghai, this visually stunning melodrama opens as Megan, the fiancée of a missionary, arrives in China for their marriage. Their plans are interrupted by civil war and Megan finds herself caught in a riot after visiting an orphanage. General Yen, a ruthless Chinese warlord, rescues and whisks her away to safety in his palace. Megan soon suspects she is not his guest but his prisoner yet she begins to feel a strange attraction to her captor. The once controversial topic of interracial romance between a Caucasian woman and a Chinese man earned this film some notoriety upon its release but Capra considered it a "strangely poetic romance" which was a risky art film for its era.