Shadow of Chinatown

Originally, "Shadow of Chinatown" was a four hour plus serial and was then condensed to the length of a full-length film...much, much shorter at only 71 minutes. Now you would THINK this would make the film fast- paced and interesting...and you'd be thinking wrong! It still manages to be sluggish and dull...and probably not worth your time. Imagine how bad it would be watching the UNCUT serial version!

The Dragon Lady wants to ruin the local Chinese-American merchants in order to get rich. So, she hires the crazy Eurasian chemist/inventor, Poten (Bela Lugosi) to do his evil best and create a tong war.

The film is filled with faux Chinese folks who are obviously just American actors made up to look kinda Chinese. This was sadly the norm at the time but doesn't help the film at all. It also is full of terrible acting...so bad that leading man(?) Herman Brix ('Bruce Bennett') is far less wooden than the rest. Overall, a difficult to watch and impossible to enjoy film. You could EASILY do better!!