Waste of time

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

However grateful I am that there does exist a copy of the script and this recreation (on the third installment of Charlie Chan DVDs) I can't say much great about this one. Using mostly stills and ill cast "actors", this one entry doesn't strike me as a particularly good one, Earl Derr Biggers contributions or not. It is probably more faithful to the books and having struggled through reading those, I can tell you that I much prefer the celluloid Chan to the literary ones.What really struck me as odd was that the actor doing the Warner Oland role sounded as though he was trying to sound like Sidney Toler whom I always found to be an inferior Chan with his "chopstick" delivery of lines and obvious makeup.Still, it's kinda cool to have some sort of version existing at all.