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

best movie i've ever seen.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Amusing B movie starring Bela Lugosi as a Fu Manchu-wannabe named Mr. Wong. He wants to collect the twelve coins of Confucius to fulfill his destiny or some such. Irritating reporter Wallace Ford investigates. This is one of those movies made back in the "mysterious Orient" days. It's likely to offend many today but I think it's kind of fun, despite its static direction and poverty row trappings. Lugosi hams it up, not believable in the slightest as Chinese. That's part of the charm, though. His line reading is hilarious ("Wong has dared many things. He will continue to dare!"). By the way, this has nothing to do with the later Charlie Chan knockoff series featuring Boris Karloff as a detective named Mr. Wong, despite that series also being released by Monogram and most entries being directed by this film's director, William Nigh.

If you like only big budget 'A' movies that provide the director, set designers, technicians and actors all the advantages that money can buy to make a decent flick, you shouldn't watch B programmers. And the Mysterious Mr. Wong is a B pic without apologies from Monogram. The small Poverty Row studios whose budgets permitted then to make only B movies, rented everything from actors to sound stages so they had to make their movies cheaply and quickly. Anyone can made a $60 million dollar film--even a 30 million dollar flick in today's dollars, and if it turns out to be anything less than a good film, the people responsible haven't talent. On the other hand, it took solid craftspeople to turn out an entertaining 6-reel B movie in a week or two for chump change. (If you ever need a hint to distinguish between A budget and B budget movies, look for ceilings in the settings. Eliminating ceilings saved construction money and made lighting easier.) If I compare The Mysterious Mr. Wong with the better A movies, I give it a 6. If I compare it to the best of the B flicks, such as the Thin Man series (which earns a 9 from me), I'd award Mysterious Mr Wong an 8. Nina Howett banged out a script peppered with amusing dialogue, and the seemingly spontaneous Wallace Ford and Arline Judge do it up proud. Robert Emmett O'Connor always scores as the pudding-faced Irish cop with little in his noggin. Bela Lugosi, regardless of how ineptly he handled his career, remains one of the most striking and interesting performers ever on the screen---able to excel in operatic horror, comedy and drama roles. Versatile as he was, however, his acting talent didn't include a facility with accents. His Hungarian accent could only adapt to Central or Eastern Europeans characters. Still, his exotic quality triumphed over that sole limitation. William Nigh, one of the most competent B directors, keeps the pace crackling for all of the film's 65 minutes. Even the camera work is smart. Yes, the script is racist: the film's Chinese are inscrutable, untrustworthy and murderous (except the roles of Lotus Lee and her mother (?)) and Irish are thick-headed. But, as another reviewer noted, two young Chinese women turn their own back from Wallace Ford's character by replying in cultivated English to his condescending pidgin talk. The picture quality of the Alpha release is fine, but the sound is muddy.

Ages ago, so the story goes, Confucius gave 12 coins to his disciples and vowed that anyone who came into possession of all 12 would rule the province of Keelat (wherever THAT is!). Many centuries later 10 of the 12 coins have fallen into the possession of Mr. Wong (Bela Lugosi) who will stop at nothing, including murder, to get the other 2. Therein, my dear readers, lies our plot.Local newspaper reporter Jason Barton (Wallace Ford) hears about the killings in San Francisco's Chinatown and decides to investigate; or rather he is TOLD to investigate by his editor. Barton tracks the killer to the seemingly innocent shop of Ly See the herb dealer (also Bela) who tries to put him on the wrong trail but after several attempts on his life, Barton realises all roads lead back to the humble Ly See. Could he be more than what he seems? Perhaps!It would be easy to dismiss this film as anti-Asian and racist but let us consider when it was made. In 1935 many Americans feared what came to be known as The Yellow Peril. They feared that China would take over the USA by sheer force of numbers since China's population well outnumbered that of the US. Furthermore the movie reflects the attitudes of Americans AT THAT TIME toward the Chinese. You need only watch a few minutes of SHANGHAI EXPRESS (1932) or THE MASK OF FU MANCHU (also 1932) to be convinced that Hollywood believed all Asians to be inferior. The dialog in this movie is no exception. When first informed of a killing in Chainatown Ford's character remarks "What do I care about a dead laundryman?". Even MacGillicuddy the friendly cop on the beat down in Chinatown (J. Farrell MacDonald) says things like "Them Chinamen is jabberin' like a room full o' monkeys." and when informed of another death says "Better dead ones than live ones." Sadly this was the attitude of many Americans at the time and this movie, like several others, merely reflects that attitude.Meanwhile it is a rather good mystery with lots of plots that would do a 12 chapter cliffhanger good with believable villains, good heroes and a plot which never strays too far from believability. Of course Bela's accent is no more Chinese than it was Mexican, Greek, French, German or any other role he had to play in those days but it does lead a touch of exotic authenticity to his role. Obviously turning down the role in FRANKENSTEIN was already beginning to haunt him since Universal loaned him out for this low budget film.Wallace Ford is quite good as the wisecracking reporter. He fills in the spot left vacant by Lee Tracy after his . . . er . . . "incident" on a Hollywood street and Ford had a niche which he would return to many times in his career.So is MYSTERIOUS MR. WONG bad? No! Is it a fun film? Yes. Is it worth seeing? Yes! It is 65 minutes well invested in your education into film history and you will not regret it.Oh, and does Bela's character ever get all 12 coins of Confucius? Now come on, you don't really think I was going to say, did you? Find out for yourself!

Bela Lugosi switches cinematic gears in 1934's "The Mysterious Mr. Wong"; it was just a few years earlier in which he portrayed the iconic "Dracula" (1931), followed by a turn as voodoo practitioner Murder Legendre in 1932's "White Zombie". Here he gets to star in a dual role, first as the title character Fu Wong, on a quest to retrieve the twelve legendary coins of Confucius, and secondly as herb shop owner Li See in an alter ego to conceal his true identity.As corpses begin to mount in L.A.'s Chinatown district, newspaper reporter Jason Barton (Wallace Ford) begins a series of investigative articles. Barton brings comic relief to the film, particularly in his relationship with pretty switchboard operator Peg (Arline Judge), but he's not above peppering his remarks with racial insults, so prevalent in genre films of the era. When informed of yet another murder in Chinatown, Barton comments - "Aw what do I care about another laundryman..." Bela Lugosi turns in both a sinister and humorous performance at the same time as Fu Wong. He can mercilessly dispatch one of his own henchman when he brings bad news, but it's comical to watch Wong's reaction to the sound of a gong in his own home, as if he were startled by it every time it chimes.There's a street scene when Fu Wong, in broad daylight shoots Chinese Professor Chan Fu (Luke Chan). As a crowd gathers to see what happened, no one is alert to where the shot may have come from, while Wong observes what's going on as if he were invisible.When Barton finally convinces Peg to have dinner with him, it's in a Chinese restaurant. As Peg reads her fortune advising of great danger, a mysterious hand appears to give Barton the fabled twelfth coin of Confucius. The hand belongs to a character unknown to the audience, who happened to be at a Chinese laundry at the same time as Fu Wong, on the trail of a message in Barton's possession. Written on a laundry ticket, the Chinese script reads - "Golden Coin of Confucius is concealed in the yellow bowl". It was Wong's errant gunshot that shattered the vase containing the coin, but his curiosity wasn't peaked enough to examine the damaged jar.It's stuff like this along with the lack of character and story development that hamper the movie. When Fu Wong meets his fate from a policeman's bullet in the story's finale, the scene closes on Barton and Peg all set to resume their romance. But what about the twelfth coin of power? It was deposited by Barton in a statue in one of Wong's underground passages. No attempt was made in the film to tie up this loose end, which in present day might have shouted out sequel.Given the erratic nature of the story, I would still recommend it for fans of the genre, along with those of Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto. But don't be confused by the title, "The Mysterious Mr. Wong" has no connection to the series of films also from Monogram which in a few years would star Boris Karloff as Oriental Detective James Lee Wong in a series of five films, even though all were directed by William Nigh. One more film in the series, "Phantom of Chinatown" would offer Keye Luke as a young Mr. Wong in a flashback story.