Despite Hayakawa’s stardom, his parts were limited because of his race. “Public acceptance of me in romantic roles was a blow of sorts against racial intolerance,” Hayakawa wrote in his memoir, “even though I lost the girl in the last reel.” He was frequently cast as the evil “Oriental,” roles that played into pernicious stereotypes about the Japanese.

This did not go unnoticed by his countrymen back home in Japan, or by local Japanese Americans who protested The Cheat’s negative depiction of Japanese people. The Rafu Shimpo, a Japanese newspaper in Los Angeles, reported an increase in anti-Japanese assaults following the release of the film.

In Japan, the media labeled Hayakawa a “traitor” and “a cooperator in anti-Japanese propaganda films.” Such complaints eventually led to the re-release of the film in 1918 to change Hayakawa’s character’s nationality from Japanese to Burmese, along with revised intertitles.

“Often typecast as the villainous forbidden lover, in 1918 Hayakawa started his own production company Haworth Pictures Corporation in order to have more control over his roles,” explains Cathy Matos, a private Hayakawa collector. He also made history doing so. “Haworth was Hollywood’s first Asian-owned production company, and produced 23 films that were largely star vehicles for Hayakawa.”

His popularity at the box office peaked in 1919, however, and Haworth was short-lived. In 1920, Hayakawa reduced production by half. Meanwhile, his control over the company and his image began to wane as distribution partner Robertson-Cole took an increased interest in running the outfit. Within a few years, he would resign and leave Hollywood amidst rising anti-Japanese sentiment, traveling first to New York to try his hand at theater, and later France to make several films.