Casting Fu Manchu by Eelyn Lee (review)

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Reviewed by: Tobi Poster-Su

CASTING FU MANCHU. By Eelyn Lee. Chinese Arts Now Digital Commission, UK. Streamed, December 1, 2020.

Dr. Fu Manchu, the archetypal supervillain invented by English author Sax Rohmer in the 1910s and featured in countless Hollywood portrayals from the 1920s to the 2000s, has been described by scholars such as Ruth Mayer as the embodiment of Yellow Peril, an ideological construction of East Asia that William F. Wu regards as so pervasive within Western culture as to fundamentally shape both public perception and political policy.

Perhaps fittingly, Fu Manchu has not been portrayed in any major film production by a Chinese or East Asian performer. Instead, the character has been portrayed by white men engaging in makeup-assisted racial mimicry (a practice explored in David Henry Hwang’s 2007 play Yellow Face). This fact formed the backdrop for Eelyn Lee’s digital short, Casting Fu Manchu, for which Lee invited East and Southeast Asian performers to submit audition self-tapes of sides taken directly from classical Hollywood films featuring the character. These self-tapes, which featured prominently within the performance itself, created an opportunity for performers to subvert and reappropriate a character whose legacy can be seen as directly connected to the current resurgence in anti-Chinese sentiment.