''Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen'' is a 1981

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

–

mystery film A mystery film is a genre of film that revolves around the solution of a problem or a crime. It focuses on the efforts of the detective, private investigator or amateur sleuth to solve the mysterious circumstances of an issue by means of clues, i ...

directed by

Clive Donner Clive Stanley Donner (21 January 1926 – 6 September 2010)Ronald Berganbr>Obituary: Clive Donner ''The Guardian'', 7 September 2010 was a British film director who was part of the British New Wave, directing films such as ''The Caretaker'' ...

that stars Peter Ustinov,

Angie Dickinson Angeline Dickinson (née Brown; born September 30, 1931) is an American actress. She began her career on television, appearing in many anthology series during the 1950s, before gaining her breakthrough role in ''Gun the Man Down'' (1956) wit ...

and

Lee Grant Lee Grant (born Lyova Haskell Rosenthal; October 31, during the mid-1920s) is an American actress, documentarian, and director. She made her film debut in 1951 as a young shoplifter in William Wyler's ''Detective Story'', co-starring Kirk Dougl ...

Plot

Retired detective

Charlie Chan Charlie Chan is a fictional Honolulu police detective created by author Earl Derr Biggers for a series of mystery novels. Biggers loosely based Chan on Hawaiian detective Chang Apana. The benevolent and heroic Chan was conceived as an alter ...

is asked for his help by the

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

police to solve a new series of murders. This time his usual sidekick, "Number One Son" Lee Chan, has been replaced by Lee's own son, Lee Chan, Jr. The prime suspect in the killings is a shadowy lady known as the Dragon Queen, but soon Chan's suspicions fall elsewhere. Among those at risk are Lee's maternal grandmother, Mrs. Lupowitz. Even though Lee Jr. is (as usual) rarely accurate in reading clues, he has the love and full support of his beautiful fiancee Cordelia.

Cast

* Peter Ustinov as

as Mrs. Lupowitz *

as The Dragon Queen * Richard Hatch as Lee Chan Jr. *

Brian Keith Brian Keith (born Robert Alba Keith, November 14, 1921 – June 24, 1997) was an American film, television, and stage actor who in his six-decade career gained recognition for his work in films such as the Disney family film '' The Parent T ...

as Police Chief Baxter *

Roddy McDowall Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude McDowall (17 September 1928 – 4 October 1998) was a British actor, photographer and film director. He began his acting career as a child in England, and then in the United States, in ''How Green Was My Valley'' (1 ...

as Gillespie * Rachel Roberts as Mrs. Dangers * Michelle Pfeiffer as Cordelia Farenington * Paul Ryan as Masten *

Johnny Sekka Johnny is an English language personal name. It is usually an affectionate diminutive of the masculine given name John, but from the 16th century it has sometimes been a given name in its own right for males and, less commonly, females. Variant ...

as Stefan

Reception

Critical response

Critic

Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' wrote in his review: "

's ''Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen''... is loose-limbed, immensely good-natured entertainment that moves easily between parody and slapstick without ever doing damage to the memories of the character who, in the 1950s and 1960s, gained something of a following as a figure of camp."

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media company that provides television program listings information as well as entertainment and television-related news. The company sold its print magazine division, TV Guide Magazine LLC, in 2008. Corpora ...

gives ''Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen'' 0 out of 5 stars. Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel loathed the movie, giving it two "no" votes on their public television series '' Sneak Previews'', and later listing it as one of the worst movies of 1981.

Release

''Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen'' was released in theatres on February 13, 1981 by American Cinema Productions.

Home media

The film was released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

on September 7, 2004, by Trinity Home Entertainment.

References

External links

* {{Charlie Chan 1981 films 1980s parody films American parody films Charlie Chan films 1980s comedy mystery films 1980s English-language films Films scored by Patrick Williams Films directed by Clive Donner Films set in San Francisco 1981 comedy films 1980s American films