late 30 independent serial that feel like poverty row feature from several year earlier . this be a yellow peril tale of a half chinese half western woman look to take over chinatown by destroy the chinese merchant . bela lugosi star a the scientific genius and main operative who use his scientific skill to create havoc and to try and stop a detective play by herman brix from put an end to the criminal endeavor . i be of mixed emotion about this serial . to be certain it have all of the thing you associate with a serial in spade and a great villain and great trap and and plot that just keep go . however the serial be so poorly and evenly make and act that you will be sit star at the screen in utter disbelief . not to put too fine a point on it this serial be a mess . first off the serial be construct like one of the annoy horror mystery film from a few year earlier when sound be just come in . everyone talk and talk and talk a if sound be still a novelty . more often then not when that happen the motion of the film just stops a we watch the dialog scene . ( yes it fine when the action happen but those dialog scene be deadly ) . it doesn not help that much of the film be poorly shoot . the set often look cheap and a though they have be throw together randomly and or bad a if they be just wall with nothing behind them . the cast be awful . lugosi give what be more often then not a nonperformance . even in his drug addle later day he at least seem to be connect to the action and here he seem to be in another film entirely . it at it bad when lugosi be alone on screen and he seem to be completely lose a if wait for the director to tell him what to do . at time it probably his bad performance . the rest of the cast be a mixed bag but most of them seem to be either phone it in or incapable of act on screen . ( the reporter come off a an annoy chipmunk ) when i watch the featurized version of this a few month back i state that the only thing worse then that be the full version . see the serial again for the first time in maybe two decade i have to revise that and the feature be bad . grant this isn not a four star winner by an stretch of the imagination and maybe be only a negative . however this score over the feature simply because it have more chapter ending and serial like adventure then the feature . for lugosi fanatic and serial nut only .