The Mask of Fu Manchu

Fu Manchu is just the wildly insensitive precursor to super villains of my own youth like Freddy, Jason or punctuation;.'

Evidently the Chinese of all people (rather, orientalist stereotypes thereof) are interested in bringing Ghengis Khan back to life - in order to "wipe out your whole accursed white race" no less. It's hard to decide whether a movie like this is charmingly naive or inexcusably silly. With the riveting Karloff as the "hideous yellow monster" Fu Manchu, and quite endearingly quaint effects and art design, one does lament that the text and rest of the cast are not just a little bit more intelligent.

Faithful to the spirit of the Sax Rohmer novels, and in many ways better than most of them, with some genuinely creepy cliffhanger moments. Karloff is sadly wasted in the title role, but Myrna Loy generates some intrigue in what must have been one of her most thankless roles.

This is a very silly, racist film, but also a stylish one, and Karloff and Loy--in her early exotic phase--are appropriately creepy.

Schlocky fun, but even Karloff can't make it more than that. The silly racism gets tiresome, and the acting outside Karloff and Loy is mediocre at best.

Dull and tiresome racist paranoia.

kinda too bad to enjoy, but there are a couple of nice images

Totally forgettable if not for the set designs and overall hokeyness.

It's often difficult to grade movies this old - even when they don't present such an ugly image of another race. Sensibility & what's considered fresh changes. Given that, this presumably might have been above average at the time - a full-length version of the period's pulpy adventure serials w/ plenty of Batman 66-style traps to escape from. Now the 1st half seems dull & only interesting as historical curiosity; & Karloff's Fu Manchu may be offensive, but the film sags when he's not around.

76.000

Huh.

Wonderful madness. Ridiculous and cheesy. But with enough adventure and craziness to make it becomes a entertaining piece of old school horror. Lovely sets like the entrance to the Khan's tomb and plenty of action and creepy stuff with Boris Karloff as Fu Manchu who was a evil son of a bitch. I especially liked the bell torture sequence. Lewis Stone brought the quality to the acting and there was enough good characters to fill out the rest of the story. A picture that put a smile on my face!

An especially enjoyable pulp crime with Myrna Loy giving a surprisingly lurid performance as a sadist.