I think you can tell from this poster that Hammer's The Terror of the Tongs (1961) is not politically correct or culturally sensitive. No, this tale of the Tongs set in 1910 Hong Kong is a retro blast with Christopher Lee playing an Asian villain a few years before he played Fu Manchu. And, to his credit, he doesn't affect a silly accent while wearing that make-up.
Lee's Chung King speaks perfect English and remains less offensive than Fu Manchu by a tiny degree.
Chung King is the leader of the Tongs and a local casino owner -- I think -- and he has allies in both the local Chinese community and among the British in Hong Kong. Those loyalties are secondary to his loyalty to the Tong.
Seems the Tongs kill their foes using a sacred red hatchet.
The Tongs burst into the home of local British officer Captain Jackson Sale and kill the guy's daughter in the process of retrieving some piece of paper the girl's got in her possession. The paper came from a ship in the harbour where the Tongs also attacked a member of the crew. The captain seems more concerned with tracking down the Tongs than he does his daughter's death.
The lack of grief is a bit weird but, as the film is only 76-minutes long, there's not a lot of time for that sort of thing.
The captain sets about shaking down the locals to learn more about the Tongs and he crosses paths with local (?) girl, Lee (Yvonne Monlaur, from Hammer classic, The Brides of Dracula [1960]), and the French actress doesn't even try to hide her French accent! It's an odd touch to see the lovely starlet in her Oriental garb and make-up but still speaking in her French purr.
Well, she is playing some sort of half-Chinese woman so there is a reason for her accent. Sort of.
So Captain Sale gets himself captured after Chung King's men slip the guy a mickey in Chung King's casino -- where there's a bellydancer (!). It's here that Christopher Lee kicks into Fu Manchu mode and the tortures begin.
I think I'm overselling it. The Terror of the Tongs is not quite that over-the-top. And it's not like one of the Fu Manchu pictures. It's more a story of dockside intrigue in 1910 Hong Kong.
And the short running time keeps the film interesting with not a lot of time wasted.
