This early Williamson film is, for its time, quite advanced as it displays a rather exciting drama (with some violence to boot!) and apparently uses 4 scenes. You don't see a lot of that in 1900 films! (The reason I say 'apparently' is because a fragment of Williamson's film survives. Actually two fragmented versions do: One shows the attack part while the other displays a fragment of each of the 4 scenes. The attack fragment is on Kino's "Movies Begin" set).
I don't know much about the Boxer Rebellion, but it appears the film is about a missionary's home being attacked, but luckily some sailors (well, they looked like sailors!) come to rescue the home. There's shooting and bloodshed and several corpses lying around and for 1900 this one's quite sophisticated. Most films in 1900 were very dull and were only a minute; this short film originally ran 4 minutes, for its time that was long!
If you want to see this one check out the version on YouTube, because that's the one that shows parts of all 4 scenes, so that one gives us an idea of how the original was.
I don't know much about the Boxer Rebellion, but it appears the film is about a missionary's home being attacked, but luckily some sailors (well, they looked like sailors!) come to rescue the home. There's shooting and bloodshed and several corpses lying around and for 1900 this one's quite sophisticated. Most films in 1900 were very dull and were only a minute; this short film originally ran 4 minutes, for its time that was long!
If you want to see this one check out the version on YouTube, because that's the one that shows parts of all 4 scenes, so that one gives us an idea of how the original was.