The lurid, pre-Code Daughter of the Dragon continues TCM's excellent series of Anna May Wong films. In this film Wong portrays the daughter of Fu Manchu (Warner Oland) who has returned to London to get even with the Petrie family, whom he blames for the death of his wife and son. Fu Manchu poisons Sir John Petrie's pipe tobacco but is shot before he can kill Sir John's son Ronald (Bramwell Fletcher) and tells Ling Moy (Wong) to finish the job. Ling Moy can't kill Ronald because she's fallen in love with him but Fu Manchu's coterie insist she must do as her father ordered. She proceeds with the attempt and along the way falls in love with Ah Kee (Sessue Hayakawa), who works for Scotland Yard and who kills Ling Moy when she attacks Ronald.
This is one of several Fu Manchu films from the early thirties, based on Sax Rohmer's successful novels. Daughter of the Dragon is photographed by Victor Milner, who later worked with Lubitsch and Preston Sturges, with dialogue by Sidney Buchman, who wrote screenplays for Frank Capra and others. Anna May Wong plays a complex character, capable of falling in love but ultimately loyal to her father. Director Corrigan made films in the twenties and thirties but then switched exclusively to acting. Most of the film takes place at night and in dark tunnels and basements, with intense scenes of fear and violence.
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