Los misterios del barrio chino

SHADOW OF CHINATOWN is hardly the zenith of serials, but time has lent it a certain amount of charm as a period piece, showing a romanticized vision of a 1930s city and Chinatown, both of which would have been equally exotic to most of the serial's viewers at the time. It possesses a certain wisecracking humour, especially from Lugosi's henchman, lacking in all the later serials. The cast rise above the material, and some of the portrayals verge upon endearing; Lugosi is always a pleasure to watch, and you get a glimpse of his acting ability, his adeptness with nuances and subtleties, even when dealing with one-dimensional characters with over-the-top declarations. Say what you want about this serial, but it's on my view-annually list.

First off the main character in this movie is Chinatown of course,, what a magnificent area to visit if you ever get the chance like I did in 1994. 2nd Bela Lugosi's performance was immpecible, I love all of his little disguises. he specializes in hypnotizing people into deep trances and he is usually the only one who can bring them out of it,, he is hired by a local pretty Asian girl who wants to bring down the Chinese merchants in san Francisco,, he has a very strong distant for Eurasian,, and Chinese, and will stop and nothing to destroy all of them.. there is a young lady reporter, who is so annoying,, and get's into all sorts of trouble in this movie,, and constantly has to be saved the whole movie long from her being nosy,, and not following orders. excellent movie,, for the most part.

Eurasian Victor Poten decides to drive the Chinese merchants from their district in order to start his new race and eliminating any Asians or whites that stand in his way. Its up to Martin Andrews, author and expert on Chinese cultures (only thanks to his manservant Willy Fu) and reporter Joan Whiting to stop Poten's nefarious plot. This serial is absolutely forgettable with absolutely nothing to keep the viewer in any suspense to watch the next week's chapter or the serial throughout. The entire cast tries their best to make something out of this, but are overcome by the ineptness of the production crew. The only saving grace for this travesty is the banter between Herman Brix and Joan Barclay does make for some funny scenes. Rating, based on serials, 2.

I'm a big fan of the movie serials. I never watch even the best of them with the same critical eye as I do "real" movies. But even by those lowered standards, this film is a big bore-fest. People commenting on this list seem eager to use "worst movie of all time" to describe anything they happen to dislike, but I hesitate to use the phrase here, even though I am sorely tempted. I'm certain that there are other films that are worse than this, but I'm just as certain that I don't want to see them.

The movie is clunky and stereotypical, rather demeaning of Asians and women. That's actually par for the course for an action film of this vintage and is understandable even if not really forgivable. What is not really understandable is why an action thriller has only sporadic, stilted action, a cliffhanger has no real cliffhangers and something designed to bring you back to the theater week after week only makes you want to hurry ahead to the comedy. The plot--trying to keep the tourists out of Chinatown--is a ludicrous as the Monty-Pythonesque spike in the telephone gag used in the film. I saw the film on two DVDs; I bought the second part by accident and was confused a bit by it. I figured that starting at the beginning would help.

It didn't.

Try not to watch the film alone. It screams for MST3 treatment!

The version I just saw was almost unwatchable. It came as part of a pack of 50 sci-fi movies. I suspected, but did not know, it had been a serial until reading the reviews here.

Pacing was terrible, jumps were made that made no sense, and the overall quality of acting and sets was deplorable. Also, the copy of the print I saw was in terrible shape. But considering it's vintage, better may not be possible.

The high-point for me was Luana Walters. Wow, was she beautiful! It's a shame she didn't play the bad part up more instead of having a conscious. Oh well.

Bela Lugosi was such an enjoyable

All-in-all, an almost passable and interesting time-waster on a Sunday night.