Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen

This is the perfect example of how not to make a Charlie Chan film--or any film for that matter! It was meant as a comedy--but it's not funny. The mystery is lame. The acting is awful. A good cast wasted by a terrible script! Peter Ustinov is better than this and should have said "No!" to this one. A big waste of time and money. Only for absolute Chan fanatics and then only so they can say , "Yeah. I saw it." To paraphrase from a much better Chan film, "Bad film like dead fish--can not stand test of time!" See any of the 20th Century Fox Chan films from the 30's and early 40's instead.

I guess because of the fact that back in the day Charlie Chan, Earl Derr Biggers famous Chinese detective from the Honolulu PD was played by Occidentals like Warner Oland, Sidney Toler, and Roland Winters it was OK to have Peter Ustinov do a spoof. Maybe it could have worked in other hands with a better script and better direction, but we've kind of grown past that kind of mimicry.

Charlie's come over to San Francisco from retirement in Honolulu for his grandson's wedding. Turns out that Lee Chan the number one son married a nice Jewish girl. His grandson however was raised by his Jewish grandmother Lee Grant who super doted on him. Now Richard Hatch as the grandson wants to follow in his grandfather's footsteps and become a detective. He's also marrying a nice Jewish girl in Michelle Pfeiffer.

Hatch maybe Charlie Chan's grandson, but he acts more like Inspector Clouseau in training. And there've been some random murders or seemingly random murders and looking good for it is Charlie Chan's arch nemesis the Dragon Queen played here by Angie Dickinson.

Hatch investigates, but of course it's Ustinov who solves it. Some others in the cast are Roddy McDowall as the butler and Rachel Roberts as the maid to Lee Grant. Best in this cast is Brian Keith a rather thick police chief who can't quite grasp the subtleties of Ustinov's mind and aphorisms.

This might have worked better if Ustinov spoofed his own character Hercule Poirot. But having us westerners play easterners just does not go over that well any more.

This is not a great movie, yet my wife and I laughed ourselves into pain. The great Peter Ustinov spins his previous role in oriental parody from "One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing"; Richard Hatch creates the most incompetent bumbler in decades of motion picture bumblers with some hilarious slapstick results; Lee Grant is a gorgeous grandmother; Roddy McDowell is the supercilious butler in a motorized wheelchair; and Michelle Pfeiffer is a ditzy Goldie Hawn clone - as well as being luminously beautiful and excellent at playing a brainless idealist just perfectly designed for the klutzy Lee Chan Jr. It is designed for fans of Charlie Chan, and it is a parody, but a loving one. The topical references are side-splitting; it helps to be old enough to have been an adult in 1981. The references to other movies abound, some subtle some obvious. The visual humour is on the level of slaps with a halibut but fun nonetheless. I gather the movie was a critical and box office flop. Even I missed it back then but I find it a guilty pleasure to disagree with almost everyone else on earth (except my wife, and that is what counts for more!): I enjoyed this idiotic little movie. And the dog deserved an Oscar.

Ok. One of my all time favorite movies. Silly, pointless, aged stereotypes but just silliness from start to finish. Don't go in expecting a cinema masterpiece, just enjoy!

During the 1930s Charlie Chan films were extremely popular with Asian American audiences; by the 1980s a later generation derided them for their use of Caucasian actors Warner Oland and Sidney Tolar in the title role. CHARLIE CHAN AND THE CURSE OF THE DRAGON QUEEN attempts to play to both sides of the coin, acting as both homage and parody of the original films. Not surprisingly, when released in 1981 it pleased neither.

Set in San Francisco, DRAGON QUEEN finds Chan called out of retirement in Hawaii to uncover a serial killer whose trademark is "bizarre deaths;" he is assisted by his grandson, a bumbling Lee Chan Jr. who proves as much hindrance as help. Like most films that do not fulfill their promise, the problem begins with the script: it never really references the Chan films in any significant way, nor does it ever develop the fangs required of an effective parody. Nor are the two leads well suited to their roles: both Peter Ustinov and Angie Dickinson are wildly out of place as Chan and the Dragon Queen, utterly unfunny in every imaginable way.

The saving grace of the film is in the supporting players. Perhaps the single most successful performer is Lee Grant in the role of Jimmy Jr.'s maternal and very Jewish grandmother. Grant aside, the always memorable Roddy McDowell and the brilliant Rachel Roberts jolt their every scene to life; Brian Keith plays against type as a hysterical and wildly profane police officer; and Richard Hatch is surprisingly good as Chan's bumbling grandson. Michelle Pfeiffer, in one of her earliest roles, is thrown in for good measure--and while the script gives her little to do beyond look pretty and giggle she does both extremely well.

Even so, this is not enough to save the film, which slowly but surely dissolves into a morass of very obvious slapstick humor; when all is said and done, the end result is rather like THE GOOD EARTH MEETS THE PINK PANTHER. It has moments, but it is more awkward than amusing. Four stars for the efforts of Lee Grant, Roddy McDowell, Rachel Roberts and company, but--and in the words of the original screen Chan--most viewers should say "Thank you so much!" and pass along another way.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer