Dr. Fu Manchu
is a fictional character first featured in a series of novels by English author Sax Rohmer during the first half of the 20th century. The character was also featured extensively in cinema, television, radio, comic strips and comic books for over 90 years, and has become an archetype of the evil criminal genius while inspiring the Fu Manchu moustache.
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FU MANCHU TICKETS
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Characters
Fu Manchu
“
| Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, ... one giant intellect, with all the resources of science past and present ... Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man. –The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu
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A
master criminal, Fu Manchu's murderous plots are marked by the extensive use of arcane methods; he disdains guns or explosives, preferring
dacoits,
Thuggee, and members of other secret societies as his agents armed with knives, or using "
pythons and
hamadryads...
fungi and my tiny allies, the
bacilli... my black spiders" and other peculiar animals or natural chemical weapons.
According to
Cay Van Ash (a friend and biographer of Sax Rohmer, who wrote his own authorized pastiches
Ten Years Beyond Baker Street
and
The Fires of Fu Manchu
) "Fu Manchu" was a title of honor, which meant "the Warlike
Manchu." It was thought that the character had been a member of the Imperial family who backed the losing side in the
Boxer Rebellion. In the earliest books, Fu Manchu is an assassin sent on missions by the Si-Fan, but he quickly rises to become head of that dreaded secret society. At first, the Si-Fan's goal is to throw the Europeans out of Asia; later, the group attempts to intervene more generally in world politics, while funding itself by more ordinary crime. Dr. Fu Manchu has extended his already considerable lifespan by use of the
elixir vitae, a formula he spent decades trying to perfect. When
China is conquered by the
Communists, Fu Manchu fights to restore the China of old.
It has been argued that Fu Manchu was based on or influenced by Dr. Yen How, the oriental villain in
M. P. Shiel's novels, and
Li Shoon from
H. Irving Hancock's stories.
Kâramanèh
Prominent among his agents was the "seductively lovely" Kâramanèh. Her real name is unknown. She was sold to the Si-Fan by Egyptian slave traders while still a child. Kara falls in love with the editor of the first three books in the series, Dr. Petrie. She rescues Petrie and Nayland Smith many times. Eventually the couple are united and she wins her freedom. They marry and have a daughter, Fleurette who figures in later novels. Author
Lin Carter later created a son for Dr. Petrie and Kara, but this is not considered canonical.
“
| Many there are, I doubt not, who will regard the Eastern girl with horror. I ask their forgiveness in that I regarded her quite differently. No man having seen her could have condemned her unheard. Many, having looked into her lovely eyes, had they found there what I found, must have forgiven her almost any crime. –The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu
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Fah lo Suee
Fu Manchu's daughter, Fah lo Suee, is a devious mastermind in her own right, plotting to take control of the Si-Fan from her father and making things difficult for him. Her real name is unknown; Fah lo Suee was a term of endearment from her childhood. She is introduced anonymously in the third book in the series and plays a larger role in several later entries. She rebelled against her father and sided with his enemies (within and outside of the Si-Fan) on several occasions. She was known for a time as Koreani after being brainwashed by her father, but her memory was later restored. She is infamous for taking on false identities, like her father. Among them are Madame Ingomar and Queen Mamaloi. The daughter of Fu Manchu has been played by numerous actresses over the years from
Anna May Wong to
Myrna Loy to
Tsai Chin among others. Her name has been altered for the big screen several times.
Commissioner Sir Denis Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie
Opposing Fu Manchu in the early stories are
Commissioner Sir Denis Nayland Smith and Dr Petrie. They are in the
Holmes and
Watson tradition, with Dr Petrie narrating the stories while Nayland Smith carries the fight, combating Fu Manchu more by dogged determination than intellectual brilliance (except in extremis). Nayland Smith and Fu Manchu share a grudging respect for one another, as each believes a man must keep his word even to an enemy.
Smith is an official of the
British government with a
roving commission
which allows him to exercise authority over any group that can help him in his mission. He resembles
Sherlock Holmes and
James Bond, both in their physical description, in their acerbic manner, and in their deductive geniuses. He has been criticized as being a
racist and
jingoistic character, especially in the early entries in the series, and gives voice to anti-
Asian sentiments.
Smith has been played by many actors of varying ages over the years.
Controversy
Even at the time of publication, there were objections to the
sinophobic "negative stereotyping" involved in the Fu Manchu character.
[1]
More recent admirers of the novels have claimed that Fu Manchu should not in fact be seen as specifically
Manchurian Chinese but as a pure creation, with no real-world reference at all. Scholars however, contend that the character is built upon a well-known structure of "racist and imperialist assumptions" about
Manchurian Chinese, and "catered to the racist and sensationalistic proclivities of his intended audience",
[2] though perhaps he should be viewed as a more nuanced portrayal than simply a soulless stereotype.
The sexuality of the character has also received attention, with several critics making the argument that he serves to "pervert" Chinese "masculine expression"
and is representative of an "assault" of "effeminate stereotypes" on Asian men, which has caused some conflict within feminist literary theory.
[3]
The author himself, while "bemused" at the furor, defended his character by saying that the portrait was "fundamentally truthful" because "criminality was often rampant among the Chinese", especially in
Limehouse.
Cultural impact
The character of Fu Manchu became a
stereotype often associated with the
Yellow Peril. Fu Manchu has inspired numerous other characters, and is the model for most villains in later "Yellow Peril" thrillers.
[4] Examples include
Pao Tcheou,
Ming the Merciless from
Flash Gordon
, Li Chang Yen from
The Big Four
,
James Bond adversary
Dr. No, Dr. Benton Quest's archenemy
Dr. Zin from the
Jonny Quest
television series, Dr. Yen-Lo from
The Manchurian Candidate
,
Lo-Pan from
Big Trouble in Little China
, Marvel comics foes the
Mandarin and the
Yellow Claw, DC Comics'
Ra's al Ghul,
Wo Fat from the CBS TV series
Hawaii Five-O
, and Ancient Wu from the video game
True Crime: Streets of LA
.
While not of
Chinese descent, "Egyptian" arch-villain "Kathulos" (then revealed to be a survived
Atlantean) of
Robert E. Howard's
Skull-Face
novella is blatantly inspired by Fu Manchu.
"Comrade Li" in
Peter George's
Commander-1
(1965) is essentially the same type of villain -- despite his name having only a thin veneer of
Communism or
Marxism, being rather a suave philosopher steeped in ancient Chinese learning whose cold-blooded machinations bring about a
nuclear holocaust in which nearly all humanity perishes (including China, which he sought to make great) and who eventually meets a suitable gruesome and ignominious end.
Fu Manchu is also one of the earliest known examples of a
supervillain, with
Professor Moriarty being among the few other precedents.
The style of facial hair associated with him in film adaptations has become known as the
Fu Manchu moustache, although Rohmer's writings described the character as possessing no such accoutrement.
Books
- The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu
(1913) (also known as The Insidious Dr Fu Manchu
). A combination of short stories originally published in magazines. The first of these was "The Zayat Kiss," which was published in The Storyteller
(1912).
- The Return of Dr Fu Manchu
(1916) (also known as The Devil Doctor
)
- The Hand of Fu Manchu
(1917) (also known as The Si-Fan Mysteries
)
- Daughter of Fu Manchu
(1931) narrated by Shan Greville rather than Dr. Petrie.
- The Mask of Fu Manchu
(1932) also narrated by Shan Greville.
- The Bride of Fu Manchu
(1933) narrated by Alan Sterling.
- The Trail of Fu Manchu
(1934) narrated in the third person.
- President Fu Manchu
(1936) narrated in the third person.
- The Drums of Fu Manchu
(1939) narrated by Bart Kerrigan.
- The Island of Fu Manchu
(1940) narrated by Bart Kerrigan.
- The Shadow of Fu Manchu
(1948) narrated in the third person.
- Re-Enter Fu Manchu
(1957) narrated in the third person.
- Emperor Fu Manchu
(1959) narrated by Tony McCay. Emperor Fu Manchu
was Rohmer's last novel.
After Rohmer's death came the following
Fu Manchu
books:
- The Wrath of Fu Manchu
(1973). A posthumous anthology containing the title novella, first published in 1952, and three later short stories: "The Eyes of Fu Manchu" (1957), "The Word of Fu Manchu" (1958), and "The Mind of Fu Manchu" (1959).
- Ten Years Beyond Baker Street: Sherlock Holmes Matches Wits with the Diabolical Dr. Fu Manchu
(1984). The first of two authorized pastiches by Cay van Ash, Sax Rohmer's former assistant and biographer. The novel is set in a gap in the narrative of Rohmer's third Fu Manchu novel, The Hand of Fu Manchu
(1917) and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes story, His Last Bow
(1917).
- The Fires of Fu Manchu
(1987). The second of two authorized pastiches by Cay van Ash. The novel is set in 1917 and falls between Rohmer's novels, The Hand of Fu Manchu
(1917) and Daughter of Fu Manchu
(1931). (A third Van Ash title The Seal of Fu Manchu
was never completed.) Both Van Ash pastiches are narrated by Dr. Petrie.
- The League of Dragons
was an unpublished, unauthorized novel involving a young Sherlock Holmes matching wits with Fu Manchu in the nineteenth century. The novel's author, George Alec Effinger labored for two decades to finish and publish the book. Excerpts have been published in the anthologies, Sherlock Holmes in Orbit
(1995) and My Sherlock Holmes
(2003). The Effinger pastiche is narrated by Conan Doyle's character Reginald Musgrave.
- The Terror of Fu Manchu
is the title of a new authorized Fu Manchu novel by William Patrick Maynard. It is set within a gap in the narrative of The Hand of Fu Manchu
(1917) and is narrated by Dr. Petrie. The novel was published in April 2009 by Black Coat Press. A second one is planned.
- The Immortal Dr. Fu Manchu
is the title of a new, authorized Fu Manchu novel by Richard Sand coming soon. It is a contemporary thriller that brings Fu Manchu into the modern era.
Fu Manchu also made appearances in the following non-
Fu Manchu
books:
- Anno Dracula
(1994). Fu Manchu appeared in a cameo as one of the criminal rulers of the London underworld. He is never referred to by his name in the novel. Rather, he is called only "the Devil Doctor." Written by Kim Newman.
- "Sex Slaves of the Dragon Tong", and "Part of the Game," short stories anthologized in the F. Paul Wilson collection Aftershocks and Others: 19 Oddities
(2009) feature Dr. Fu Manchu, without naming him. The first story also features Little Orphan Annie, Sandy, Daddy Warbucks, Punjab, and the Asp, also not named.
- Fu Manchu appears anonymously as "The Doctor" in several of August Derleth's Sherlock Holmes pastiches in his Solar Pons series. Derleth's successor, Basil Copper continued this tradition after Derleth's death.
- The name Fu Manchu is borrowed for the character of a Chinese ambassador in Kurt Vonnegut's Slapstick (novel)
(1976)
In other media
Film serials
Fu Manchu first appeared on the big screen in the 1923 British film serial
The Mystery of Dr. Fu Manchu
starring Harry Agar Lyons. Lyons returned to the role the next year in
The Further Mysteries of Fu Manchu.
Fu Manchu returned to the serial format in 1940 in Republic Pictures'
Drums of Fu Manchu
, a 15-episode serial considered to be one of the best the studio ever made. It was later edited and released as a feature film in 1943. Republic had wanted to do a second serial
Fu Manchu Strikes Back
, but the State Department persuaded them to refrain from doing so because China was a war-time ally against Japan.
Feature films
185px
In 1929 Fu made his American film debut in
The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu
starring
Warner Oland, best known for his portrayal of
Charlie Chan. Oland repeated the role in 1930's
The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu
and 1931's
Daughter of the Dragon.
Oland appeared in character in the 1931 musical,
Paramount on Parade
where the Devil Doctor was seen to murder both
Philo Vance and
Sherlock Holmes.
Nevertheless, the most famous early incarnation of the character was
The Mask of Fu Manchu
(1932) starring
Boris Karloff and
Myrna Loy. The film's tone has long been considered racist and offensive, but that only added to its cult status alongside its humor and
Grand Guignol sets and torture sequences. The film was suppressed for many years, but has since received critical re-evaluation and been released on DVD uncut.
Other than an obscure, unauthorized 1946 Spanish film
El Otro Fu Manchu
, Fu was absent from the big sceen for about twenty five years, until producer
Harry Alan Towers and his company, Towers of London, began a series starring
Christopher Lee in 1965. Towers and Lee would make one Fu Manchu film per year through the end of the decade:
The Face of Fu Manchu
(1965),
The Brides of Fu Manchu
(1966),
The Vengeance of Fu Manchu
(1967),
The Blood of Fu Manchu
(1968), and finally
The Castle of Fu Manchu
(1969)
His last authorized film appearance was
The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu
, a 1980
spoof starring
Peter Sellers as
both
Fu Manchu and Nayland Smith. The film, taking place in contemporary times bore little connection to any prior film or the original books. However Peter Sellers' characterisation of Fu Manchu and Nayland Smith were aged as the characters of the Harry Alan Towers films set in the late 1920s would have been, and seems to fit in with the Towers series. In the film, Fu Manchu claims he was known as "Fred" at public school, a reference to the aforementioned "Fred Fu Manchu" from the Goon Show.
Jess Franco, who had directed
The Blood of Fu Manchu
and
The Castle of Fu Manchu
, also directed the second of three Towers films based on Rohmer's
Sumuru character,
The Girl from Rio
and an unauthorized 1986 Spanish film about Fu Manchu's daughter,
Esclavas del Crimen
.
185px as Fu Manchu in a faux trailer for
Werewolf Women of the SS
Nicolas Cage cameos as Fu Manchu in
Rob Zombie's
faux trailer Werewolf Women of the SS
, which is part of the 2007 film
Grindhouse
.
Harry Alan Towers has several times announced unsuccessful plans to revive the character since the early 1970s, most recently at Cannes in 2007.
Television
Fu Manchu was first brought to television in NBC's 1952 short film
The Zayat Kiss
starring
John Carradine. It was intended to be a series of mystery films starring the character, but only an unsold pilot was produced.
From 3 September 1956 till 26 November 1956, Hollywood Television Service (a subsidiary of
Republic Pictures) produced a 13-episode syndicated programme,
The Adventures of Fu Manchu
starring
Glen Gordon as Dr Fu Manchu,
Lester Matthews as Sir Dennis Nayland Smith,
Clark Howat as Dr John Petrie,
Carla Balenda as Betty Leonard,
Laurette Luez as Karamaneh (Fu Manchu's woman servant) and
John George as Kolb (his dwarf flunkey). The shows would start off with a chess game, telling us that the white pieces were good/life and the black pieces bad/death, that the Devil was said to play chess for men's souls and so does Fu Manchu who is evil incarnate. At the end of each episode, after Nayland Smith and Petrie had foiled Fu Manchu's latest fiendish scheme, he would signify that it was over by breaking a black chess piece. It was directed by noted serial director
Franklin Adreon as well as
William Witney. Unlike the Holmes/Watson type relationship of the films, the series featured Smith as a law enforcement officer and Petrie using his medical knowledge to complement each other.
In 1990, Spanish television broadcast the spoof,
The Daughter of Fu Manchu featuring
Paul Naschy as the Devil Doctor.
Music
The stoner rock band
Fu Manchu (band) was named after him.
Jamaican reggae pioneer
Desmond Dekker recorded a song titled "Fu Man Chu" in 1968 with the chorus, "This is the face of Fu Manchu."
Frank Black (of the
Pixies) recorded a song called "Fu Manchu" in 1993.
In the song,
We Want Freedom, by
Dead Prez, Fu Manchu is referred to in the 2nd verse as a man who 'dominated the land and accumulated wealth'.
Fu Manchu was the name of a bull, mentioned in
Tim McGraw's song
Live Like You Were Dying
Fu Manchu was also mentioned in Travis Tritt's song "It's a Great Day to Be Alive".
British band Ash include Fu Manchu in the lyrics to their song "Kung Fu"
British band
The Wildhearts include Fu Manchu on their list of admired villains in the song
"Rooting For The Bad Guy"
.
Village Green Preservation Society
on the
similarly titled album by
The Kinks mentions Fu Manchu, alongside other fictional villains,
Moriarty and
Dracula, in its list of things to preserve, "Help save Fu Manchu, Moriarty and Dracula".
Hip Hop group
The Fugees briefly mention Fu Manchu in the song "Vocab", from the album
Blunted on Reality.
Montréal French speaking rock singer Robert Charlebois composed a song entitled "Fu Man Chu (Chus d'dans)" in 1972, in which he refers to the Fu Man Chu and Gene Autry black and white movies of the 1950-1960s. Through the story of Bill, the hero, the song highlights the main events of the second half of the 20th Century, starting with Bill initially dreaming about being attached to a railway track when the train is coming, then his posting abroad to war (presumably Vietnam) and finally ends with Lady Trenton losing her virginity to Bill, whom she saved from the villains after his trip to the milky way.
Radio
Fu Manchu earliest radio appearances were on the
Collier Hour
1927-31 on the
Blue Network. This was a radio programme designed to promote
Collier's
magazine and presented weekly dramatizations of the current issues stories and serials. Fu was voiced by Arthur Hughes. A self titled show on CBS followed in 1932-33. John C. Daly, and later
Harold Huber, played Fu.
Additionally, there were "pirate" broadcast from the Continent into Britain, from Radio Luxembourg and Radio Lyons in 1936 through 1937. Frank Cochrane voiced Fu Manchu. The BBC produced a competing series,
The Peculiar Case of the Poppy Club
starting in 1939. That same year
The Shadow of Fu Manchu
aired in the United States as a thrice weekly serial dramatizing the early novels. The series starred
Gale Gordon as Dr. James Petrie, and Bruno Lang as Fu Manchu. (As a side note: both Gordon and Lang worked together three years earlier on the radio series "The Interplanetary Adventures of Flash Gordon", with Gordon as Flash and Lang cast as the Ming The Merciless.)
The last Fu Manchu radio series
The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu
aired in 1944 on NBC.
A character with the name "
Fred
Fu Manchu" appeared as a
famous Chinese bamboo saxophonist
as part of
The Goon Show, a 1950's British radio comedy programme. He appeared in his very own episode, "" in 1955 (announced as "Fred Fu-Manchu and his Bamboo Saxophone"), as well as making minor appearances in other episodes (including "", "The Siege of Fort Night" and ""(as "
Doctor Fred Fu Manchu: oriental tattooist
")).
[5] The character was invented and performed by
Spike Milligan, who used the character to mock British xenophobia and self-satisfaction, the traits summoning the original Fu Manchu into existence, and not as a slur against Asians.
[6]
In commercials for
Nissan of North Olmsted, Employee Larry Chupa is referred to as Larry "Fu Manchu" Pa.
Comic strips
Fu was first brought to newspaper comic strips in a black and white daily strip drawn by Leo O'Mealia and ran from 1931 to 1933. The strips were adaptations of the first two Fu Manchu novels and part of the third. They were copyrighted by "Sax Rohmer and The Bell Syndicate, Inc".
Comic books
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Fu Manchu made his first comic book appearance in
Detective Comics
# 17, and continued, as one feature among many in the anthology series, until #28. These were reprints of the earlier Leo O'Mealia strips. Original Fu stories in comics had to wait for
Avon's one-shot
The Mask of Dr. Fu Manchu
in 1951. A similar British one-shot
The Island of Fu Manchu
was published in 1956.
In the 1970s, Fu Manchu appeared as the father of the character
Shang-Chi in the series
Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu.
However
Marvel Comics lost the rights to the character in the 1980s, so in later appearances, Fu Manchu is never named, only referred to as Shang-Chi's 'father,' and never shown out of shadow. In a recent
Black Panther storyline, he is referred to as "Mr. Han", apparently a play on the name of the main villain in
Enter the Dragon
.
Fu Manchu appeared as a villain in the
first volume of
Alan Moore's
comic book series
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
, but was referred to only as "the Doctor" or "the Devil Doctor" as the character is not in the public domain in Europe.
Fu Manchu and his daughter are the inspiration for the character Hark and his daughter Anna Hark in the comic book series
Planetary
as well as
Ming the Merciless and
Princess Aura in
Alex Raymond's
Flash Gordon series. Fu Manchu was also the inspiration for
Ra's al Ghul in
Batman and
The Mandarin and the
Yellow Claw in his own four issue Atlas (Marvel) Comics series as well as
Marvel Comics'
Nick Fury and
Iron Man series.
In the first edition of Docteur Mystery, Fu Manchu is a leader of a cult that tries to ressurect a giant dragon to take over Europe.
References
- The Gothic other: racial and social constructions in the literary imagination
- Re/collecting Early Asian America: Essays in Cultural History (Asian American History and Culture)
- Conflicts in feminism
- Violet Books: Yellow Peril
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goon_Show_cast_members_and_characters#Fu_Manchu
- Blood of Fu Manchu