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Yellow Peril: Difference between revisions
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== Comic Books ==
* [[Alan Moore]]'s comic series ''[[The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen]]'' concluded with a war between [[Fu Manchu]] and [[Sherlock Holmes|Dr. James Moriarty]]. It also reflected the times by having a lot of dialogue and depictions of London's chinatown in ways that [[Deliberate Values Dissonance|we would consider massively racist now]].
* The Mandarin, from ''[[Iron Man]]'', though recent writers have dropped the Fu Manchu characterization, in favor of that similar to [[Batman|Ra's Al Ghul]].
** The 90s TV series tried to avert this by revealing that he was Caucasian before he got exposed to the power rings and his appearance changed. To ''green.''
** The more recent [[Iron Man: Armored Adventures]] animated series also largely averts this with its portrayal of the two characters who use the Mandarin identity- Shin Zhang is treated as a fairly typical criminal mastermind whose Asian-ness is incidental to his evil, while his stepson Gene Khan is both a major [[Anti-Villain]] and, while he certainly takes pride in his heritage from China in general and his family line in particular, he's otherwise very modern and western in his mannerisms and outlook.
* There was a villain named "Yellow Peri" in both the Superboy [[Superman|comic book]] and TV show, but she had nothing to do with the trope other than the name pun.
* The ''[[Tintin]]'' story ''The Blue Lotus'' averts this: the portrayal of China is famously sympathetic and accurate. The Japanese invaders come across as evil and petty imperialists, but, well, they sort of ''were''. Coming from a Belgian, this is something of a case of grey and black morality, not that Herge was your typical Belgian colonial. The [[Second Sino-Japanese War]], in which at least 10 million Chinese civilians died at the hands of the Japanese Army, was undoubtedly the darkest moral hour of the Japanese people.
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* Parodied in ''[[The Kentucky Fried Movie]]'' with Dr. Klahn.
* Dr. Tito Daka from the 1943 ''[[Batman]]'' serial. It even works in a [[Lampshade Hanging]] about how, like many examples here, he is played by a Caucasian when a tourist meets him outside his amusement park hideout and mistakes him for, what else, an American playing an Asian: "Your accent's a little off, but the makeup is perfect!" In fact, Daka's accent was profoundly off for a supposedly Japanese character, sounding more like a cross between Chinese and Bronx.
** The serial blows ''far'' past [[Unfortunate Implications]]; the narrator actually refers to him as "the sinister Jap, Dr. Daka" and speaks glowingly of when "a wise government rounded up the shifty-eyed Japs" of Gotham City's Little Tokyo. The overblown racism is actually one of the reasons the serial had a minor camp revival among college students in the Sixties.
* ''[[Batman Begins]]'' changes Ra's al Ghul from his comicbook portrayal. Some of the Yellow Peril aspects are played more straight this time (his headquarters are in China this time, and Ra's is Chinese or Japanese) while others are messed with (he and his followers' lack supernatural powers, but use tricks to make enemies think they do, and {{spoiler|oh, yeah, he's actually a Caucasian--the aforementioned Chinese/Japanese guy is actually a decoy)}}.
* Dr. Yen Lo the sinister brainwasher in the 1962 film ''[[The Manchurian Candidate]]''.
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* ''[[Black Rain]]'' plays the trope completely straight, with a sinister Japanese conspiracy to flood the USA with "perfect" forged banknotes, although the mastermind is portrayed fairly sympathetically and reveals his motivation for the plot is revenge on the US, having survived Hiroshima as a child, while the main villain is a young [[Ax Crazy]] [[The Starscream]] whose actions are blamed on him having become too Westernized.
* Kabai Sengh, leader of the Sengh Brotherhood in ''[[The Phantom (film)|The Phantom]]''. Sengh is a misspelling of Singh, which is Punjabi, but he otherwise fits the trope, and is played by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, who was the go-to guy for Asian supervillains back during the 1980s and 1990s (he played Shang Tsung in the ''[[Mortal Kombat]]'' movie, for example).
* The upcoming ''[[Red Dawn]]'' remake has ''North Korea'' invading the United States.
** Before 2011 it was, unsurprisingly, China.
* Lo Pan in the film ''[[Big Trouble in Little China]]'' is a Chinese-American sorcerer who made a deal with a demon for power and long life. However, he's a weak example because the film as a whole is an [[Urban Fantasy]] loosely based on Chinese folklore, and the heroes are mostly composed of fellow Chinese-Americans.
** It has also been observed that the ostensible Caucasian hero of the film is mostly arrogant and boastful and the true hero is the Chinese-American [[Hypercompetent Sidekick]].
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* Used in ''[[Rising Sun]]'', by many characters. See Literature about the book from [[Michael Crichton]].
* Indiana Jones briefly faces off against Chinese mobster Lao Che and his cronies in ''[[Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom]]''. Not ''particularly'' stereotypical, although all [[Large Ham|rather hammy]].
* The not-particularly-nice Chinese pirate Sao Feng, as played by Chow Yun-Fat, in ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]: At Worlds End''.
* The Dragon Emperor as played by Jet Li in ''[[The Mummy Trilogy|The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor]]''. His spurned lover sorceress does help our heroes out, though.
* The Blaxploitation spoof ''[[Black Dynamite]]'' has The Fiendish Dr. Wu. His name actually '''is''' Fiendish Dr. Wu, and Dynamite refers to him like that every time he is mention. Considering how he {{spoiler|takes out the entire squad, leaving Dynamite as the sole-survivor, and has created a drug that shrinks people's "johnsons"}}, he certainly lives up to his name.
* The characters in every movie made about WW II in the Pacific or the Korean War, including extremely polite, but treacherous, characters who graduated from Harvard.
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== Literature ==
* [[Fu Manchu]], of the original short story and novel series by Sax Rohmer and their many, many adaptations, is perhaps the classic example. From the same source, Fah Lo Suee embodies the "beautiful-but-at-least-as-evil-as-he" version of the evil mastermind's daughter. Though he is not the first example of Yellow Peril caricatures of Asians, his cultural influence makes him the [[Trope Codifier]].
* [[H.P. Lovecraft]], a ''profoundly'' racist man, seemed to genuinely believe that some day in the future the Chinese would kill all the Caucasians and take over the world. This worked its way into the [[Cthulhu Mythos]] in his story "He," where a man travels into the future and sees New York filled with scary Asian people. His opus "The Shadow Out of Time" also briefly mentions "the cruel empire of Tsan-Chan, which is to come in 5,000 A.D."
** However, the man who came from the aforementioned "cruel empire" was apparently both brilliant and became friends or good acquaintances with the protagonist. Both were possessing alien bodies at the time though, along with various other human minds from different lands and eras.
* Robert W. Chambers, who was a major influence on Lovecraft, had a similar (though far less over-the-top) fear of the mysterious East in his short story "The Maker of Moons", which involved an evil Chinese criminal getting involved in an illegal American alchemy ring. He had a [[Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter|Beautiful Daughter]] who was good, but she was adopted and white.
* The villains in the 1928 pulp novel ''Armageddon 2419 A.D'' are the Han Airlords, an Asian empire that conquers the world in 2109. It takes a [[Buck Rogers|20th century transplant]] to turn the tide.
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* David Wingrove's ''[[Chung Kuo]]'' series of sci-fi novels averts this. The founder of the system actually saved mankind from extinction, but it became corrupted over time, so that dissenters of all ethnicities work together to overthrow the regime.
* [[Cyberpunk]] literature of the 80s and early 90s just considered [[Japan Takes Over the World|Japanese economic domination of the world]] inevitable, even extending to non-cyberpunk and even comedic SF like ''[[Back to The Future]] II''. [[Unfunny Aneurysm Moment|And then the bottom fell out of the Japanese banking system,]] which has never quite recovered.
* Ah Ling in [[Philip Pullman]]'s ''[[Sally Lockhart]]'' novels is half-Dutch, and ''looks'' Caucasian, but is otherwise a fairly standard example of the trope.
* Explicitly averted in the original [[Charlie Chan]] novels by Earl Derr Biggers, in which the author set out to create an Asian character on the right side of the law for a change. How accurate they are is open to question, but at least some respect for the Chinese and their culture is shown, though when films were made based on the books, [[Yellowface|Chan was portrayed by a white actor]].
* Played very straight in [[Wallander|Henning Mankell]]'s novel ''"The Man From Beijing"''. Evil Chinese mastermind? Check. Sinister Chinese conspiracy to take over the world (well Africa anyway)? Check. Subtle Chinese murder techniques? Check.
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* The bizarre Saturday morning chimpanzee-acted parody of spy parody ''[[Get Smart]]'', ''[[Lancelot Link Secret Chimp]]'', featured both "Wang Fu" and the (*[[Lampshade Hanging|ahem]]*) "[[Dragon Lady|Dragon Woman]]."
* Chinese communist agent Wo Fat from ''[[Hawaii Five-O]]''.
* The second ''[[Sherlock]]'' episode ''The Blind Banker'' is an old-fashioned Yellow Peril story that smacks viewers in the face with every Chinese stereotype ever portrayed in television.
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** Debateable as the characters aren't mentioned by name and they all appear to be working as mercenaries for higher powers.
* [http://dcanimated.wikia.com/wiki/Sin_Tzu Sin Tzu], from [http://dcanimated.wikia.com/wiki/Batman:_Rise_of_Sin_Tzu Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu].
* Marshall Kai from ''[[Indiana Jones and The
* Yakuza ''Kumicho'' (boss) Shogo Takamoto in ''[[Tomb Raider]]: Legend''. And scores of Yakuza mooks. Lara does get a Japanese friend who helps her find Takamoto, in the form of media mogul Nishimura.
* Wang, leader of the sinister Shai-Gen Corporation in ''Crackdown''.
* Richard Wong from ''[[Psychic Force]]''. Class S evil Chinese man who controls time and manipulates the NOA group under [[Dark Messiah|Keith Evans]] to eventually take over the world for his plaything as a God. Predictably, he breaks out from NOA.
* [[Mortal Kombat]]
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* So does the ''[[Popeye (comic strip)|Popeye]]'' [[Wartime Cartoon]] "You're a Sap, Mr. Jap" with the Imperial Japanese Navy.
* The Siamese cats from ''[[Lady and the Tramp]]''.
* ''Robotboy'' featured the evil if short-statured Dr. Kamikazi and his hapless sumo sidekick Constantine, though they were deliberately overdone.
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* There are many that view China this way as the nation continues to grow stronger and closer to attaining superpower status, and it seems to have become the default "bad guy" for Tom Clancy et al. Why the country who the entire world turns to for cheap manufacturing ability would want to turn on their customers is far more complex and.... [[Flame Bait|controversial]], and far less mentioned.
* Similarly, China has become a sort of boogeyman in political ads, with candidates decrying each other by saying that the other is going to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeL9ov_yS18 allow China] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kxw4uZAezaI to take over.]
* The Mongolian Empire after the death of Genghis Khan spent several decades sending invasions into Poland and Hungary, though they never managed to achieve any lasting occupation. In fact, some scholars believe that these invasions were purely to scare European kingdoms away from the Mongolians' Russian conquests.
* In June 1904, just after the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), [[Jack London]], of ''[[The Call of the Wild]]'' fame, wrote an essay titled "The Yellow Peril" expressing fear that a militaristic imperial Japan would invade China and organise its industrious hordes into a huge army and wage war against the West. Japan's victory in the war unleashed the wave of [[Yellow Peril]] xenophobia that Sax Romer ''et al'' surfed so effectively.
* There are examples of [[WW 2]]-era Chinese and Japanese propaganda that display ''each other'' as the [[Yellow Peril]]. Not surprising considering those countries don't have a very pleasant history with each other, and there are still tensions today.
* Interestingly, during [[World War II]], there was a nationwide ban on all things Fu Manchu in the [[United States]] and the [[United Kingdom]] as they took pity on the Republic of China and saw them as a nation in need after declaring war with [[Imperial Japan]].
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