Icons of Adventure Collection (The Pirates of Blood River / The Devil-Ship Pirates / The Stranglers of Bombay / The Terror of the Tongs)

Lee turns up again as the imperious leader of a cutthroat tong--a secretive, organized criminal society--in the exotic 1961 Terror of the Tongs. Geoffrey Toone plays the captain of a British passenger ship whose daughter is murdered by the Red Dragon Tong during the latter's attempt to find incriminating papers smuggled (against her knowledge) within her possessions. As the captain seeks vengeance, he gets close to the dangerous heart of the tong, which exacts punishment over anyone who does not cooperate by hacking off his or her fingers. The fourth feature in Icons of Adventure is very different from the others and doesn't involve Lee. The Stranglers of Bombay (1960) stars Guy Rolfe as Captain Harry Lewis, a career soldier helping to protect the interests of exporters the British East India Company. Stationed in India for years, Lewis has conducted a thorough study of a rash of disappearances and anticipates a military assignment to solve the long-running mystery. When the job goes to an outsider who knows nothing about India, Lewis works independently and discovers a religious cult called the Stranglers, who waylay travelers and steal their possessions. A tense thriller involving crazed rituals of bloodletting, torture, wild-eyed sacraments and poisonous snakes, The Stranglers of Bombay looks like an influence on Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. --Tom Keogh