Fu Manchu
Dr.
Fu Manchu is a
fictional character, a
villain, often considered to be of
Chinese origin, featured in a series of novels by
Sax Rohmer.
- "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
Fu
Manchu has appeared as a villainous character in several motion pictures and cliffhanger serials over the years. 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), and
The Blood of Fu Manchu (
1968). His last major film appearance was
The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu (
1980).
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 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 stereotyping of the Chinese.
He reappears as a minor character (but still a villain) in the comic book series Master of Kung-fu, from Marvel Comics. He is the (unnamed) criminal lord of Victorian "Limehouse" in Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.