Obey Fu Manchu Or Every Living Thing Will Die!

The Face of Fu Manchu (1965)
Director: Don Sharp

A film like this, made in the 21st century, would be wrong by all accounts. Words like cultural appropriation and stereotyping would be hurled to shoot this film into oblivion. Many of its dialogue can be construed as offensive or downright racist. But then, in the 60s, when this film was released, it was pretty okay. In fact, it was such a hit that it earned four subsequent sequels.

The character Fu-Manchu is the brainchild of an English novelist, Sax Rohmer (Arthur Henry "Sarfield' Ward 1883-1959). His first short story in 1912 with the character took such a liking on either side of the Atlantic that it spurred follow-up novels, plays and even a movie in 1923 titled The Mystery of Fu-Manchu.

The average Englishman in the early 20th century UK had probably no contact with an Oriental person. They had probably read about the industrious Japanese and their effort towards modernisation via the Meiji Dynasty. This was perhaps not the case in the USA or continental Europe, especially Russia. Chinese and Japanese immigrants have been working on the Pacific coast and were subjected to the same mistreatment as the blacks. The Russians had been perpetually fighting with the Japanese for imperial ambitions over Manchuria and Korea. The British were sympathetic towards the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese wars.

Sax Rohmer

For the imperialists and expansionists amongst the British, the Far East was a lucrative avenue for business and wealth. Their entry into China was resisted by the Chinese dynasty's closed-door policy. The colonialists justify their involvement in the Opium Wars by vilifying the Chinese as a mystic race with evil exuding from their every orifice. The anti-foreigners and anti-Christian stance of the Boxer Rebellion further cemented the idea the Chinese were terrible. Maybe the Europeans had not forgotten the cruelties Genghiz Khan and Atilla of the Oriental race. The sentiments to paint the Chinese as bad was skyrocketing by the late 19th and early 20th century. Hence, characters like Fu-Manchu and the looming fabled Yellow Peril seem justified. The 1905 Japanese win over the Russians seems to defend their claim that that anti-White yellow race was out to rule the world. Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II was honoured to have coined the term 'Yellow Peril' (Gelbe Gefahr) to encourage Imperial German interests and justify European colonialism in China.

A racist cartoon of The Yellow Terror in all His Glory
(1899) depicts an anti-colonial Qing DynastyChinese
man standing over a fallen white woman who
represents the Western world. (Wiki)

The xenophobic outlook towards the Chinese and other Orientals never went away. The central involvement of the Japanese in the Second World War and the embrace of Communist by China made the Great White powers somewhat sceptical of them. I guess now with China's threat to the US hegemony of world affairs puts them back in the wrong light. Even the Australians who had overt anti-Chinese clauses in their White Australia have resorted to labelling China and CCP as the Southern Continent's number one enemy of the State.

The yellow peril has had many faces, but Fu Manchu epitomised them for mass culture. A hugely popular icon, he even has a full facial hair is named after him - Fu-Manchu moustache, a wiry well-oiled moustache that almost touches the chin.

'The Face of Fu Manchu' is a predictable offering that mimics many supervillains often seen on the silver screen with megalomaniacal ambitions of world domination. Like the baddies of James Bond, Fu Manchu is an evil genius with tonnes of knowledge into the mystical world of hypnotism and herbalism, escapes execution in China only to appear around River Thames. With his convoluted plan to weaponise Tibetian poppyseed to poison all lifeforms around London, he kidnaps a chemistry Professor to extract the toxic concoction.

In come Dr Fu Manchu's nemeses, Dr Petrie and Nayland Smith of the Scotland Yard, to thwart his plan.

Fu Manchu

Two points piqued my interest here. Firstly, it is the catchy 'Younghusband' documents. Such a document actually existed. As in most British expeditions where surveyance is used as a guise to the British imperial ambitions, it compiled British exploration of Tibet, probably an economic assessment of conquest of that land.

Secondly, it is Fu Manchu's daughter, Lin Tang. She is Fu Manchu's faithful sidekick. Shang-Chi only appears in 1973's edition of Marvel's comics. He is said to be Fu Manchu's son, but due to the non-renewal of rights and probably portrayal of a Chinese character in a bad light, Shang-Chi's father is depicted as Xu Wenwu. Shang-Chi's sister is Xu Xialing (not Lin Tang!). It would just go contrary to the producer's idea of including minority groups as superheroes to tap the lucrative Chinese market, would it not?

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