The enduring legend of Fu Manchu
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 3 November 2021
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The evil criminal mastermind Fu Manchu was a recurring character in Hollywood films for decades. He epitomised racist stereotypes about China and the Chinese which shaped popular thinking in the West. Vincent Dowd has been talking to writer Sir Christopher Frayling and academic Amy Matthewson about his long-lasting influence.
Photo: Christopher Lee as Fu Manchu in film The Vengeance of Fu Manchu. 1967.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. This is the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:45.8 | I'm Vincent Dowd. |
| 0:47.4 | The Chinese Criminal Mastermind, Dr. Fu Manchu, first appeared in print in 1913. The series of books which followed were best-sellers. |
| 0:57.8 | On the page and in the cinema, the intensely brilliant, though devious, Fuou Manchu helped shape the popular image of China in the West. |
| 1:09.0 | You have been tried and condemned of crimes almost without number. Death to Full Man Chules. |
| 1:17.0 | He may now appear a rather clicheed kind of villain with his long mustache and pigtail and old-fashioned |
| 1:25.0 | Oriental garb but for at least 40 years cinema audiences found Fou Manchu irresistible. |
| 1:31.6 | His cruel call callous, brilliant, and the most evil and dangerous man in the world. |
| 1:38.6 | His creator was Arthur Ward. |
| 1:40.8 | Born in Birmingham, Ward started out writing for the music hall. His career as a novelist took off after he adopted the pen name Saxe-Roma, meaning in old English he claimed freelance. |
| 1:54.0 | Fumanchu is his only creation remembered today. |
| 1:58.0 | Once and once only hitherto had I seen the Mandarin Fumanchu. |
| 2:06.0 | He had impressed me then as one of the most gigantic forces ever embodied in human form. |
| 2:11.8 | His eyes which were green as the eyes of a leopard fixed me with a glance so piercing that it extended my powers to the full to sustain it. |
| 2:20.3 | No man with any experience of humanity could have doubted that he stood in the presence of a supermind. |
| 2:27.0 | Cultural historians, Sir Christopher Freling, has written a book about the Fou Manchu phenomenon. |
| 2:35.0 | They hit a nerve. |
... |
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