The Shadow

A former warlord and opium king, Ying Ko, is taken in by a Buddhist monastery in Tibet and reformed by an elderly holy man who teaches him to cloud the minds of others and to hide himself from sight. Sent to New York in the 1930s to atone for his past, he lives a double life as the wealthy playboy Lamont Cranston while fighting crime as a masked figure the city comes to know as The Shadow. His opponent is Shiwan Khan, a descendant of Genghis Khan whose powers rival his own, and who intends to bring the world under his control, beginning with a threat to New York itself. The film is based on the 1930s pulp and comic-strip character.

Russell Mulcahy directed, working from a screenplay by David Koepp; the film is the seventh of the fourteen features he has directed, following The Real McCoy and preceding Silent Trigger. Alec Baldwin plays Cranston and his shadowy alter ego, with John Lone as Shiwan Khan, Penelope Ann Miller as Margo Lane, Peter Boyle as Moe Shrevnitz, Ian McKellen as Dr. Reinhardt Lane, and Tim Curry as Farley Claymore.

Made for forty million dollars, it took in around forty-eight million worldwide, a modest return on its budget. Ratings sit at 6.1 out of ten on IMDb from roughly twenty-nine thousand votes and 6.1 out of ten on TMDB from about six hundred, while the critics' score of 4.9 out of ten from fifty-two reviews is clearly lower than what audiences give it.