A direct sequel to the previous year's Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu: In
his efforts to kill the descendants of all those responsible for the death
of his wife and child, Fu Manchu (Warner Oland) has been killed before he
could kill the last on his list, Dr. Petrie (Neil Hamilton). In a big
ceremony overseen by the police under Sir Nayland Smith (O.P. Heggie), Fu
Manchu is buried - but wait, he is still alive and manages to escape his
own funeral. He soon breaks into the Petrie-household and kidnaps Petrie's
fiancée Lia (Jean Arthur), just to lure Petrie to him, because he figures
an Englishman would always rush to his girl's rescue. So he leaves traces
behind as to where he has taken her. But ultimately, not Doctor Petrie but
Fu Manchu's arch nemesis Nayland Smith walks into his trap, and Smith
proves to be so good at negotiating that Fu Manchu eventually promises to
set him and Lia free - just when the police storms the building and he has
to make a hasty escape, taking Lia with him as his life insurance. Fu
Manchu soon gets his hands on the real Petrie and forces him to perform
surgery on him since he was injured when escaping the police. Since Fu
Manchu holds Lia, Petrie can't but comply. Smith soon catches up with Fu
Manchu to arrest him, but this time Fu Manchu has the upper hand because
he has stolen Lia's soul and only he can restore it. After another round
of negotiations, Smith promises to let Fu Manchu go if he returns Lia's
soul, leaves the country and never returns again ... but then Fu Manchu
makes an attempt to blow Petrie up with a hand grenade, and Smith throws
Fu Manchu out of the window with the grenade, which blows him up ... well,
or maybe not, a sequel was just around the corner. An early
talky that demonstrates all the problems that early talkies tended to
have, due to technical limitations: They were just too static and talky -
whic h of course had to do with cumbersome sound equipment coupled with
yet inexperienced crews. So there is very little action in this film, even
though the plot almost demands some, just many scenes of characters
negotiating while holding poses so as to keep the right distance to the
microphone. All of this gets tired before very long, especially since
director Rowland V.Lee doesn't show any directorial verve in other scenes
to distract from the staticness of the dialogue scenes. In fact, The
Return of Dr. Fu Manchu seems to be a step down in quality (and
versatility in handling the sound equipment) from the previous year's Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu,
shot with largely the same cast and crew. Plus, Warner Oland comes across
as much paler in The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu as well. Now I'm sure
this must hold some curiosity value to Fu Manchu-enthusiasts,
but otherwise it's of rather limited interest.
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