A distasteful, violent muck of a thriller, this returns to the days of the "Dr. Fu Manchu" movies with its one dimensional vision of "Orientals" as evil murderous torturers. You can forgive the memories of the Warner Oland and Boris Karloff portrayals of Fu Manchu because they come from an era where society was unaware of the offense made by Caucasians playing other races in stereotypical fashion and with mean-spirited evil or idiotic, buffoon like characterizations. While Asians did not get slammed as much as blacks and Hispanics, when their portrayals did show up with white actors in outlandish make-up playing them, it seemed even more over the top with their characterizations turning the Asian characters into monsters, not human beings. When Peter Sellers played his various made-up characters, audiences for the most part laughed because he played it for comedy. However, in the characterization of "The Red Dragon", here played by Christopher Lee, Asians had every right to take offense, as there is nothing redeemable about his character.
Garish color photography gives the disturbing portrayal of Lee's Chung King an almost devilish presence that is difficult to stomach. The attacks on Tong victims with a hatchet are garishly bloody, and even an innocent young girl is brutally murdered because of the Tong's search for secret documents that were hidden for her father (Geoffrey Toone) to find. Ironically, the messenger who also gets a horrific death scene is Burt Kwouck, best known as Peter Seller's valet in the "Pink Panther" series. I half expected him to scream in his Japanese accent, "Inspector Clouseau", but he played the role very serious even though he didn't look any different. The film is truly distasteful on almost every level, and if it is indeed classified as a "horror film", that is mainly because the true horror comes from its upsetting premise. While the Hammer horror films were usually pretty chilling, this one just ends up being a head scratcher because it utilizes themes which I had hoped disappeared with the end of the certain discriminations and the onslaught of common sense and political sensitivity to other races. As it is, I could barely make it through this without becoming completely disgusted.
Garish color photography gives the disturbing portrayal of Lee's Chung King an almost devilish presence that is difficult to stomach. The attacks on Tong victims with a hatchet are garishly bloody, and even an innocent young girl is brutally murdered because of the Tong's search for secret documents that were hidden for her father (Geoffrey Toone) to find. Ironically, the messenger who also gets a horrific death scene is Burt Kwouck, best known as Peter Seller's valet in the "Pink Panther" series. I half expected him to scream in his Japanese accent, "Inspector Clouseau", but he played the role very serious even though he didn't look any different. The film is truly distasteful on almost every level, and if it is indeed classified as a "horror film", that is mainly because the true horror comes from its upsetting premise. While the Hammer horror films were usually pretty chilling, this one just ends up being a head scratcher because it utilizes themes which I had hoped disappeared with the end of the certain discriminations and the onslaught of common sense and political sensitivity to other races. As it is, I could barely make it through this without becoming completely disgusted.