It is only natural to move forward!

May 4th Movement
Tiananmen Gathering 1919;
a turning point in Chinese history.

It seems biological warfare does not just mean sending anthrax spores or releasing serine gas at a railway station. It had evolved to something quite specific to the intended victim.

Like in the latest James Bond offering, like how Spectre had perfected the art of individualising weapons against its enemies, some conspiracy theorists believe that the emergence of the Wuhan virus is one step closer towards this end. The constant mutation of this RNA virus at such neck-breaking speed all through alpha to zeta variants in a matter of years further cements their arguments.

When the western world decided that facial recognition software does not work well, in came the Chinese with a technologically functional system so advanced that it puts shame on the Western stereotype that 'all Chinese faces look alike'!

The condescending look of the world (read West) probably reached its zenith after the 1919 Versailles Treaty. After dismantling the Chinese dynasty and fighting an uphill battle with opium addiction, the Treaty sealed the last nail on the coffin at a time of turmoil. Even though China was aligned with the Allied Forces, she got a raw deal. She had the area around the Shandong peninsula, German holdings before WW1, assigned to their mortal enemy, Japan.

The time after that was of great upheaval; the age-old Confucius styled civil service entrance examinations were revamped, the May Fourth Movement, political and cultural revolution and finally Communist China came to being to restore China's past glory. At every turn, the world viewed China hawkishly as a despotic, third-world godless country that does not respect human dignity.

So when the world foolishly thought that China could be cajoled to perform the Western world's menial and laborious chores, China jumped at the opportunity. Slowly, on the sly, it improved its human capital.

Zheng Ho, the 1400s

After a century of slumber, the dragon has awoken. The ugly duckling has turned into a swan. Suddenly their brilliance shines the world over. If the club of space-venturing countries thought going to the moon was unproductive, China shocked everyone by approaching the moon from the dark side.

The fear of 'Yellow Peril' is ignited once again by people who tend to be negatively affected by the rise of the sleeping dragon. Will they repeat their previous feat in the early 15th century when their fleets explored the four corners of the world, including the New World, almost a good 90-over years before the European looters?

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5000 years of civilisation given due recognition?

Shang-Chi and The Legend of Ten Rings (2021)

Gone are the times when Hollywood made movies that overtly mocked cultures other than Western ones. Typically Indians and Chinese were portrayed as bumbling fools. Their cultures were made to look ridiculous, and their followers were mere bufoons. Perhaps they still do that but, alas, in a more subtle way. Just try to remember Amrish Puri as a Kaali worshipper enjoying human eyeballs as a delicacy and the faithful and spineless follower of Fu-Manchu plunging to their deaths in Hollywood's Fu-Manchu series.

For that matter, even the Russians and German were made to look like headless chickens running aimlessly in espionage sagas and combat movies.

Shang-Chi was a character introduced by Marvel in 1973 to spice up the series and satiate the appetite of comic fans the world over. Shang-Chi was presented as a long lost son of Fu-Manchu, who had been training in Tibet. In the earlier films, his daughter Lin Tang was characterised as his evil sidekick, doing the groundwork for Fu-Manchu's megalomaniac ambitions.

In concordance to Marvel and Hollywood's agenda to pander to screams of the woke generation and offer so-called 'olive branch' to the minority and marginalised groups, the filmmakers have decided to make a Chinese superhero. However, the legend of Fu-Manchu reminds the world of the bygone idea of Sax Rohmer and writers of his era with the awful idea of 'Yellow Peril'. East Asia was portrayed as a threat to the western world, and Fu-Manchu was singled out as a caricature of a one-man mission to kill all white men and women to bring China back to its ancient glory. In 1932, the Chinese Embassy had expressed its objection to MGM's 'The Mask of Fu Manchu'.

China is such a big market for movies that Hollywood can ill afford to offend. The reminder of an offensive villain would not augur well with the Chinese market and for Chinese diplomacy.

In different versions of the comic series, Shang-Chi's father had been others - Zheng Zu and Mandarin. In this 2021 film version, the screenwriters have cleverly downtoned the evil quotient of these villains to create a composite character called Wen Wu. This works just well for Marvel had not obtained rights over the characters of Fu-Manchu and his nemeses. Incidentally, Mandarin was seen as Iron Man's arch-enemy. His 'Ten Ring' was an alien finding. 

The earlier ten rings were finger worn.
Tony Leung as WenWu

Shaun, a parking valet, leads a quiet life with his colleague Katy in San Francisco. All that comes to a halt when some bad dudes turn up on a bus he was travelling and create a hell ride on the undulating streets of San Francisco, reminiscent of the movie 'Speed'. The baddies are out for his pendant. Fearing that they would go for his sister, Xialing, Shaun (@Shang-Chi) speeds to Macau to meet her.

Malaysian input

That starts the dark family secret, the truth about his missing father, the story behind his mother's death and the legendary fight to stop the forces of evil from reigning Earth. In their own way, the film tries to apologise to the Chinese diaspora about Mandarin's past in Iron Man 3. An impersonator, Trevor Slattery, admits to having portrayed Mandarin and bad stereotyping behind him.

The final outcome is a story rich with ancient Chinese wisdom pregnant with much oriental mysticism. With the advancement of computer graphics and digital enhancement, what churns out is a tale that puts China and Chinese culture back on the map of its ancient glory. It is much like what Admiral Zheng Ho did to the Ming Dynasty in the 15th century when he sailed the high seas to explore till the New World, maybe.

(P.S. Malaysia has two representatives in the movie, Ronny Chieng and Michelle Yeoh)

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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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