In my opinion, greed and overproduction eventually finished Mr.Wong movies - no less than six of them were made in only three years and though audience loved them, perhaps they all became a little bit hard to distinguish from each other. They always had same director and same team (wonderful Boris Karloff as completely unlikely Mr.Wong, police captain Grant Withers and a ditzy dame Marjorie Reynolds), they looked very much alike and felt very similar - police captain yells, ditzy journalist flirts with him and Mr.Wong quietly solves the problem. There was a certain comfort in watching them again and again but this was hardly something serious, it felt more like a friendly Sunday afternoon TV show.
"Doomed to Die" looks, sounds and feels exactly like all the other previous Mr.Wong movies - there is a victim, apparently killed in a closed room and usual suspects floating around while Mr.Wong comes to his conclusions. Young couple divided because of the parents arguments, mysterious chauffeur, smug secretary and so on. If you have seen one Mr.Wong movie, you have seen them all. Karloff is delightful as usual and Reynolds confused me because suddenly she changed the hair colour, turning from that recognisable blondie into brunette. The only really memorable thing about this movie is the fact that this was last Mr.Wong movie made by this particular team. For whatever reasons, Monogram Pictures will try to continue with completely different director and actors but without success.
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