The Bitter Tea of General Yen is a 1933 American
Pre-Code drama film directed by
Frank Capra, and starring
Barbara Stanwyck, and featuring
Nils Asther and
Walter Connolly. Based on the 1930 novel
The Bitter Tea of General Yen by
Grace Zaring Stone, the film is about an American
missionary in
Shanghai during the
Chinese Civil War who gets caught in a battle while trying to save a group of orphans. Knocked unconscious, she is saved by a Chinese general warlord who brings her to his palace. When the general falls in love with the naive young woman, she fights her attraction to the powerful general and resists his flirtation, yet remains at his side when his fortune turns.