Fu Manchu
Categories: Villains | Chinese American history | Wold Newton Family Members
- This article is about the fictional literature character. For the distinctive moustache of which this character is an eponym, see Fu Manchu moustache. For the California rock band, see Fu Manchu (band).
Dr. Fu Manchu is a fictional character, a villain of Chinese origin, first featured in a series of novels by Birmingham author, Sax Rohmer.
Dr. Fu Manchu
- "Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long, magnetic eyes of the true cat-green. Invest him with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in 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
A master criminal Fu Manchu works for the overthrow of Western civilization or the "White race." His murderous plots are marked by the extensive use of apparently Asian methods, he disdains guns or explosives prefering dacoits, phansigars, 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. Amongst his agents the most prominent is the "seductively lovely" Karamaneh.
Opposing Fu Manchu are Commissioner Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie. They are not a traditional detective fiction pairing, both being in a Dr. Watson mould, combating Fu Manchu by doggedness and determination rather than any intellectual brilliance (except in extremis), they tend to uncover traps by walking into them and are disdained by their enemy - "Mr. Smith, you are an incompetent meddler - I despise you! Dr. Petrie, you are a fool - I am sorry for you!"
In the novels, it was not clear what ethnicity Fu Manchu was. Most of the victims of Fu Manchu's crimes were Chinese, and based on the description of his facial features, such as the color of his eyes, Fu Manchu was clearly not of Chinese ethnicity, though he did come from the Far East. When adapted by Hollywood for film, however, Fu Manchu was transformed into a Chinese character. The character has remained controversial, being charged by some as an example of Western racism and stereotyping of the Chinese.
TV, serials, and feature films
Fu Manchu has appeared as a villainous character in several motion pictures and cliffhanger serials over the years, and even a television series, The Adventures of Fu Manchu (1956). There were a number made around 1930 including The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu (1929) and The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu (1930). The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), featuring Boris Karloff, is considered the best of those produced in the 1930s. The name was revived in a series starring Christopher Lee in the 1960s with The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), The Brides of Fu Manchu (1966), The Vengeance of Fu Manchu (1967), The Brain of Fu Manchu (1968), and finally The Castle of Fu Manchu (1969). His last major film appearance was The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu, a 1980 parody starring Peter Sellers as Fu.
External links
- The Page of Fu Manchu
- The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer
- The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmerde:Dr. Fu Manchu