The Terror of the Tongs 
                                             
Director: Anthony Bushell
Year: 1961
Rating: 6.0
Hong Kong 1910

A bustling, growing city - but hidden deep amongst its teeming thousands was an organization that thrived on vice, terror and corruption.

THE RED DRAGON TONG



Back to the old days of yellow face. Mounds of it. Clearly, there was a Chinese shortage in England when this was produced. This one has all the tropes - the white man who delivers Hong Kong from the Tong, the Asian woman who loves him and has to sacrifice for him, the terrified Chinese civilians, the devious unmerciful Tong. All in one neat package. This is also where Christopher Lee got his training for his later Fu Manchu roles. A thin moustache, squeeze the eyes a bit, the formal Mandarin outfit, a cruel sneer and you have Fu Manchu. In all but name. I expect Hammer didn't want to pay to use the name. Or to go to Hong Kong as this is all shot on a stage at Bray Studios. Still, this is rather stupid fun and as good as some of those Fu Manchu films of the 1960s. Apparently, the British censorship board cut out al lot of the gore which would have added to the trashy nature of the film.



The film begins with the Tong confronting a Chinese man on the street and cutting off his fingers with a hatchet for not showing them enough respect. Everyone else closes their door faster than a speeding bullet. Their use of hatchet's led to the term hatchet man. Later in history, the well-known Axe Gang took up the use of this weapon as seen in Kung Fu Hustle. They were a real gang founded in 1921. Their next victim is an undercover anti-Tong member played by the great Burt Kwouk. This is after he tells the Captain of the ship he has sailed on about the Tong. The Captain (Geoffrey Toone) doesn't believe it. "I have lived in Hong Kong for fifteen years and the Tong is a myth." A typical ex-pat who knows nothing but what he picks up at the British Club between scotch and sodas. "Good Lord man, Hong Kong is run by England".



Kwouk leaves a list of names who work in the Tong in a book he gives to the Captain for his daughter. Nice move Kwouk. That gets the daughter killed but in truth she was so annoying that it was a relief. The Captain goes looking for revenge by going up to random Chinese and demanding to know where the Red Dragon are and punching them when they say they don't know. Eventually, the Red Dragon comes for him. One of their slave women runs away and ends up in the Captain's house and falls in love with him. He keeps telling her she has to leave which along with everything else he does made me question his judgement. Because she is played by Yvonne Monlaur, a hunka dunka female in her cheongsams. And what could be more authentic than a French actress with a French accent playing an ex-Chinese mistress to a Tong member after being sold to him. "Such things go on in Hong Kong?!" exclaims the Captain. The head of the Tong is Chung King (which was an American brand of canned Chinese food), played by Lee. He isn't really that bad a fellow when he isn't ordering people to be killed or tortured by scraping their bones or having fingers hacked off. It's just a job. Someone has to do it.