Best movie ever!

A lot of fun.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

I just recently watched this film mainly I checked it out to see some early work of beauty Michelle Pfeiffer, yet aside from that this film has a pretty good connected plot and story true it's funny and a little far out still it blended suspense and feel good fun to make it an interesting watch. Plus "Charlie Chan: And the Curse of the Dragon Queen" has appearances from legends Angie Dickinson and Roddy McDowall.The theme and plot of the story is connected to the past it involves the curse and work of an evil mysterious Dragon Queen(Angie Dickinson)who brought about a murder on the Chan family. Only this curse has never died she and the curse has followed the Chan family to the city of San Francisco, California. Never fear enter the great detective himself Charlie Chan(Peter Ustinov)who arrives to match skill and wits with his old rival the Dragon Queen. It's critical the protection must be given to Chan's klutzy grandson Lee Chan Jr.(Richard Hatch)and his beautiful wife to be Cordelia(the beautiful Michelle Pfeiffer)as these two young lovers must be safe.Overall this film is full of laughs and along the way the chase is a feel good time and the beautiful Michelle even has a damsel in distress scene as she's tied up and gagged. Thru it all a secret murder mystery is revealed so the film has both style and substance. Nice little B movie film to watch it's fun and interesting.

I loved this film the first time I saw it. I am a big fan of Richard Hatch and Roddy Mcdowall. The rest of the cast is also great in their role. I enjoyed the music throughout the film. It was classical music at it's best. There is nothing more important to make a film flow than music. I also enjoyed the acting by all parties. Richard Hatch was perfect as the bumbling son and Michelle Pfeiffer was perfect as his bumbling girlfriend. I also think Peter Ustinov was perfect to play Chan. I also love Brian Keith, but the profanity he used was the only thing that I did not like. There was no need for it. I think the spoofing of the old films worked here and was not meant to degrade the old films, but pay tribute to them. There are so many funny bits in the film that I cannot understand how anyone could not be entertained by it. The final scene as they take away the murder is great. They add a final joke before the screen goes dark. I laugh every time I see it. I won't ruin it by giving it away. The joke is on the back of the police car after the car with Richard Hatch and Michelle Pfeiffer leaves. Their car sets up the joke for the second car.

This thing is no fun whatever.Too bad, because it had a lot going for it.First, there is the Charlie Chan legacy. It was something that walked with the movie-going public during that decade when our current notions of visual narrative evolved. It wasn't particularly influential except for the early notion that our on-screen eye differed from those around him in matters of cognition encoded visually by race. The explicit irony was the Chineseness of the man was deliberately bogus.Second there's the appearance of Peter Ustinov. For this bit, you have to know the absolute importance of the fictional Hercule Poirot in how film discovery evolved. Ustinov had just played Poirot in the to-then most high budget detective story filmed. So when we see him (or did when this was new) as a similarly portly, pretentious, internally cogitating detective, it matters.Third, someone involved was intelligent enough to set the thing properly. It begins with a faded black and white "old-style" Chan movie with our modern characters but a couple decades previously. The mystery shown bears on the one in our movie. Later, at the end of our movie, the action takes us to an old moviehouse in Chinatown where a Charlie Chan movie festival is being held. (No mention in our film that Chan has a film persona.) The trademarked end (copied from Poirot) where Chan gathers all the suspects and tells each one why they are the murderer, until revealing the real murderer (after a separately scripted false alarm) — this happens in the scenery loft of the theater where a Chan film is playing below.Naturally the chase to catch the murderer takes each character in front of the giant screen where the audience applauds them.But its the truest of parodies. Usually parodies put new life into old form by adding a new layer of reference. Its a mistake to think that the "new life" would be funny, or more entertaining in any way. This is true parody: it took something that was dead and added enzymes to the decomposition.There's one joke I appreciated. The Chan films are generally pretty vile in how they handle race. One trick is to set the bottom racially so that Chan can drift at the top in some cerebral racial advantage. That meant that the black driver was nearly subhuman. Stupid, ignoble. The driver here is a black man also. Poised, attractive, articulate. We learn some noble things about him at the end.Oh, another small matter of interest. It has a very young Michelle Pfeiffer, very pretty — before she had all that work done on her face.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Although the script abounds with funny lines, the overall effect of this film is as though someone (Producer? Director? Studio?) took a deft Charlie Chan send up and stamped heavily on it, adding elements clearly inserted for commercial appeal rather than inherent value. These elements do their best to destroy what would have otherwise been an enjoyable hour and a half. As it stands, you'll want to see it for some stellar performances, and because you don't want to miss young Michelle Pfeiffer in one of her earliest roles. She lights up the screen.Peter Ustinov does his spiffy Warner Oland impression, and a talented cast does its best with the sparkly script but on-again-off-again plot.