The film: Japanese-born Sessue Hayakawa was the first Asian actor to become a major Hollywood star. He appeared in dozens of films from 1913-22 (when a rise in anti-Japanese sentiment in America forced him to relocate to France, where his career continued) and even started his own production company, Haworth, so that he could have complete control over his career.

For a time his popularity rivalled even that of Charlie Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino, whose career Hayakawa inadvertently kick-started when he turned down the lead role in The Sheik (1921), the film that made Valentino's name.

Few of Hayakawa's early films are still in existence - it's estimated that 75 per cent of American silent films have been lost to neglect and decay - but this new DVD release of one of his most popular productions, The Dragon Painter, at least offers a rare glimpse of Asia's only Hollywood matinee idol at work in his heyday.

Hayakawa (above right) plays a mentally unbalanced artist, who, in the mountains of Hakone (in fact Yosemite National Park, California), spends his every waking moment painting pictures of a dragon whom he believes embodies the spirit of his long-lost fiancee. Impressed by his brushwork, an ageing Tokyo artist schemes to take him on as an apprentice. To coax him from the mountains, the old man uses his daughter, whom Hayakawa is led to believe might be his missing love. More of interest as an historical document than great film entertainment, The Dragon Painter has its moments but does drag from time to time.

What makes this Milestone DVD package so desirable, at least for silent film fans, is the generous selection of extras that supplements what would otherwise be a film of quite limited appeal.

Hayakawa, who eventually received an Oscar nomination for his part in David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), retired from acting in 1966 and spent his final years practicing Zen Buddhism in Japan. He died in 1973 at the age of 84.

The extras: Hayakawa's second film, The Wrath of the Gods, was made just days after the catastrophic eruption of the volcano Sakura-jima near Kagoshima in 1914, and wove that disaster into a storyline about a cursed family whose daughters should never marry lest a nearby volcano erupt in anger.

At 57 minutes, it's slightly longer than The Dragon Painter and is included here as the main extra.

A short comedy clip featuring Hayakawa and the controversial Fatty Arbuckle (real name Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle) is also featured.

Other extras include a selection of dozens of early 20th-century photos of Japan taken by the eminent photographer Herbert Ponting and illustrations from the source novel, which is also included in its entirety in PDF format. Other printable CD-Rom features include a long essay entitled Hollywood's First Asian Cycle, a comprehensive press kit for The Dragon Painter and a shooting script for The Wrath of the Gods.