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Despite its low-budget pulp fiction origins, this whodunit is a milestone of sorts as the first Hollywood film to star Asians since the early silent days of Sessue Hayakawa and Tsuru Aoki. Not that Keye Luke and Lotus Long are in their class exactly but they remain the genuine article, no fake-looking "Oriental" spirit gum makeup necessary. Luke's Jimmy Lee Wong's relationship to that eminent detective Mr. James Lee Wong, whom Karloff had played in the previous five films, is merely hinted at here when faithful retainer Lee Tung Foo alludes to the young man's absent "father." In concocting their fanciful tale, the Monogram hacks undoubtedly sneaked a peek at Universal, where the somewhat similar The Mummy's Hand was in progress, and although no phantom actually appears, there is plenty of highfalutin' talk about sarcophaguses, mysterious scrolls and dire curses.