Best movie of this year hands down!

Thanks for the memories!

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Hong Kong 1910: A British skipper called Captain Jackson (Geoffrey Toone) is tipped off about the Red Dragon Tong secret society and organised crime syndicate, which terrorises Hong Kong society by an agent of an undercover group seeking to bring them to book. The agent (Burt Kwouk) is murdered by the Tongs in a ceremonial killing, and after Jackson's daughter Helena (Barbara Brown), also falls victim to them he seeks revenge. After overpowering and interrogating a Tong collector, Jackson wins the affection of the collector's slave Lee (Yvonne Monlaur) and he finds out where the Tong's leader, Chung King's (Christopher Lee), is. Jackson is overpowered and tortured and is only saved from certain death because an anti-Tong agent (Marne Maitland) intervenes in the nick of time. Jackson, however, remains a marked man and he finds out that even his superior at the East India Company, Harcourt (Brian Worth), is a Tong member. The Tongs plan to dispose of Jackson by a ceremonial killing on the docks, but will he and his allies in the anti-Tong group succeed in bringing the society's reign of terror over the city to an end?A substantial box office hit on its original release back in 1961 when it went out on a double bill with William Castle's Homicidal, but rarely seen nowadays. I found it quite a disappointment when I finally got to see it on the splendid Talking Pictures TV channel considering its awesome subject. The plot moves along at a fair lick and it is directed with pace but, alas, rather stolidly by Anthony Bushell. It has Hammer Films' customary eye for place and period detail thanks to the atmospheric lighting of the studio's veteran DP Arthur Grant and Bernard Robinson's magnificent sets, whom it must be said could really make silk purses out of sows ears. There are one or two eye catching shock moments including the torture scene in which Toone's Captain Jackson gets his bone marrow scraped and Burt Kwouk's demise as a result of a ceremonial killing: he fires a full clip into his assailant, but it does not succeed in stopping him until he has plunged a ceremonial hatchet into his neck killing his target. Apart from that the rest of the action is rather listlessly staged, it has to be said. Leading man Geoffrey Toone fails to convincingly convey the emotions, anger and passion in his frightfully British character's quest to avenge his daughter's death by finishing off the Red Dragon Tong society. In addition, his scenes with Yvonne Monlaur are rather dated and silly and will succeed in generating more giggles than pumping up emotions. The acting honours here go to Christopher Lee who offers a nice essay in evil as Chung King, which is really a prototype of one of his most celebrated roles as Sax Rohmer's oriental mastermind Fu Manchu. There are many familiar faces in the supporting cast to look out for including Marne Maitland, Roger Delgado and Charles Lloyd Pack.All in all, this obscure shocker from Hammer is a disappointment when one considers the potential of its subject matter and it certainly does not rank among the best of their 1960's output. Nonetheless, like most of Hammer's movies, it is highly watchable and enjoyable all the same.

Directed by Anthony Bushell who was more noted as an actor 'The Terror of the Tongs'is a lively story set in Hong Kong about a sea captain who goes against The Red Dragon Tong after his daughter is killed by the tong searching for an incriminating document. There is torture, murder, scantily clad girls and British actors trying unsuccessfully to be Chinese. What's not to like? The colourful sets and good photography add to the charm of it all.Christopher Lee plays Chung King (not Pe King?) and is actually much better than when he plays Dr. Fu Manchu. His demise is rather poignant. Geoffrey Toone is colourless as the hero Captain Sale. Support is given by always good to see actors like Marne Maitland (Beggar), Ewen Solon (Tang How), Roger Delgado (Tang Hao) and Richard Leech (Inspector Bob Dean.) The unmistakable Milton Reid plays a sadistic torturer. There are some suitable ethnic actors like the great Burt Kwouk and E(R)ic Young, the latter whom unimaginatively is called Confucious. Yvonne Monlaur (apparently born Yvonne Thérèse Marie Camille Bedat de Monlaur!) pretends to be Chinese by using the walking around in gorgeous silk dresses split up the side method. A little distracting.Not a waste of time by any means though it is a throwback to pulp fiction and Sax Rohmer, which is fine if you like that kind of thing.

This deservedly obscure warm-up for Christopher Lee for the role of Fu Manchu, set in Hong Kong in 1910, marked the first time he received top billing on a Hammer production, and follows in the footsteps of 'The Stranglers of Bombay' in detailing with relish the sadistic activities of a ruthless foreign cult able to act with impunity until a representative of the British Empire steps in to put a stop to it all.'Stranglers' had been made in black & white to lessen the impact of the bloodletting, but 'The Terror of the Tongs' was (in Britain at least) permitted glorious early 60's Eastmancolor, thus heightening the visual impact of The Red Dragon Tong's penchant for cutting off fingers and killing people with axes, while also looking a treat as photographed by Arthur Grant, designed by Bernard Robinson and costumed by Molly Arbuthnot; as do the various exotic young women slinking about the margins of the action in slit-sided qipaos, or less.The film's makers presumably knew what an authentic Chinaman looked like, because early in the film a young Burt Kwouk shares an important scene with hero Geoffrey Toone before being promptly killed off and replaced with British film regulars like dear old Charles Lloyd Pack and Harold Goodwin in the oriental speaking parts. (Where was Michael Ripper when they were shooting this?) The Calcutta-born Marne Maitland brings his usual polish to the role of an urbanely spoken beggar on crutches who proves to be more than he seems. Someone however must have drawn the line at attempting to pass Yvonne Monlaur (who died just a couple of weeks ago) as Chinese, since she's given a line explaining that she's "an 'alf-caste". Elsewhere, Jimmy Sangster's script juggles occasionally intelligent dialogue with frequently clumsy plotting.Director Anthony Bushell, after a long career as an actor (he had recently played Col. Breen in the original TV version of 'Quatermass and the Pit'), was at the time concentrating mainly on directing, but seems a strange choice for such a lurid subject. He certainly doesn't show any flair for staging action, and this proved his last feature film, after which he worked in television for a couple of more years.

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.