Powerful

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

The first film ("The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu") was barely watchable, and this follow-up is not much better. It's about 90% talk and 10% action. Warner Oland has screen charisma but his arch-nemesis, O.P. Heggie (playing Inspector Smith) has almost none, so their supposedly grand "battle of wits" is mostly just a tedious exchange of words. But the last 2 minutes ARE reasonably exciting - if you make it that far. *1/2 out of 4.

It's more of the same as the vengeful Fu Manchu makes a sudden return from the dead just as former ward Jean Arthur is about to marry Neil Hamilton. Nelly Sylvester the butler is back too with his stereotypical prattle. If you can get thru the funeral opening (where an Asian chorus wails like our of tune bees) without getting a headache, then you're set for managing to make it through the remainder of this sequel.More bad acting from the three stars and Evelyn Hall as an uppity society matron who confronts Fu Manchu out of shear stupidly. Oland's motives, fairly plausible in the first film, just become maddening here, and his acting far more mannered and labored. Arthur seems like a B actress in a serial and needed much more training to get to the top where she was better served in comedy. Hamilton is fairly spared embarrassment. Of character actors cast in obviously gay roles, William Austin is one of the most obnoxious. Add in O.P. Heggie for further over-acting which is up there with those delightfully silly Tod Slaughter British melodramas. The only thing Oland doesn't do is twirl his mustache.

Watched both the Mysterious Dr Fu Manchu and the Return of Dr Fu Manchu back to back online. The Return of Dr Fu Manchu picked up not far after where the first movie ended with the "funeral" of Dr Fu Manchu and subsequent 'rise' from the grave. It also had Jean Arthur and Neil Hamilton appropriately recovering from the incident and then making plans to get married. What happened during the ceremony set up the plot and action to move everything forward. The characters who survived the first film carried over into the second with the addition of new characters who neatly fit into the plot line. The suspense and tension was prevalent in this film more than the second and had a more ominous feel. Warner Oland, Neil Hamilton and Jean Arthur did wonderfully in their roles and were much more comfortable the second time around. The lowbrow humor provided by the William Austin character of Sylvester was more distracting than funny and took away from the suspenseful atmosphere. Interesting ending for the film, which did not preclude any further sequels with the cast. Worth a watch.

Early talkie features pre-Charlie Chan Warner Oland as maniac Fu Manchu, seeking revenge on murderers of wife and child. Primitive in technique, sound quality poor and camera nailed to the floor for long stretches, and definitely not Sax Rohmer's idea of the Devil Doctor, but still has atmosphere, good snappy ending and a few genuine chills along the way. Try not to gag at the comic relief.