Fu Manchu

Dr. Fu Manchu is a fictional character, a villain, often considered to be of Chinese origin, featured in a series of novels by Sax Rohmer.

"Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long, magnetic eyes of the true cat-green. Invest him with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant intellect, with all the resources of science past and present... Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man."—The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu

Fu Manchu has appeared as a villainous character in several motion pictures and cliffhanger serials over the years. There were a number made around 1930 including The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu (1929) and The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu (1930). The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932) featuring Boris Karloff is considered the best of those produced in the 1930s. The name was revived in a series starring Christopher Lee in the 1960s with The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), The Brides of Fu Manchu (1966), The Vengeance of Fu Manchu (1967), and The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968). His last major film appearance was The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu (1980).

In the novels, it was not clear what ethnicity Fu Manchu was. Most of the victims of Fu Manchu's crimes were Chinese, and based on the description of his facial features, such as the color of his eyes, Fu Manchu was clearly not of Chinese ethnicity, though he did come from the East. When adapted by Hollywood for film, however, Fu Manchu was transformed into a Chinese character. The character has remained controversial, being charged by some as an example of Western stereotyping of the Chinese.

He reappears as a minor character (but still a villain) in the comic book series Master of Kung-fu, from Marvel Comics. He is the (unnamed) criminal lord of Victorian "Limehouse" in Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.