Li H'sen Chang — who went by the stage name "the Celestial Chang" — did the bidding of Magnus Greel in return for powers beyond those of any human.
Biography
Originally, Chang was a Chinese peasant farmer. He discovered Greel, who had escaped to this time period in a time cabinet. Believing Greel to be the god Weng-Chiang, Chang hid him from Imperial troops and later became the leader of the Tong of the Black Scorpion, a cult devoted to doing Greel's bidding.
Greel granted Chang mental powers "undreamed of in this century", amongst them hypnosis, telepathy, and telekinesis. He also was given "Mr Sin", the Peking Homonculus, as a guard. Chang used these abilities as part of a magic act, his cover for Greel's work. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang)
He worked in Paris for a time, where he fell in love with the dancer Celestine Sorbonne. Wanting to spare her from the truth of his work, he erased her memory of him. (AUDIO: The Talents of Greel)
In London, where he quickly established a reputation among theatre managers of being a professional who never argued about money and always brought in an audience. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Talons of Weng-Chiang )Unknown to anyone, Chang was using his on-stage persona as a cover while he led the search for Greel's time cabinet. Chang's secondary duties included attending to his master, who hid in the basement of the Palace Theatre, and procuring young women to replenish Greel's bodily degeneration. During his act, Chang would hypnotise women volunteers. They would mindlessly do his bidding once the show was over.(TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang) To carry out his search and avoid exposure, he would only perform at small musical halls on the outskirts of London and only for a few weeks each, turning down offers from the West End. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Talons of Weng-Chiang )
During his performances at the Palace Theatre he was publicised as a "master of magic and mesmerism" by Henry Gordon Jago. Chang mesmerised his audiences by reading minds and levitating young women, including Emma Buller, above the floor. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang) He also arranged for Jago to get extra funding from a patron (secretly Greel) as long as he hired more women. While Chang also attempted to gain mental control over Jago, River Song interfered and prevented it. Celestine had moved to London and sought work at the Palace, and became one of Greel's victims; Chang temporarily rebelled against Greel. On River's instructions, he helped her get Greel's psionic staff and weaken him so the women could escape. (AUDIO: The Talents of Greel)
When Emma Buller's husband threatened to go to the police, Chang had him killed by Mr Sin. The Fourth Doctor and Leela would stumble across the murder and capture one of Chang's men disposing of the body, though ironically the police would ask Chang himself to interpret for them during an interrogation and he was able to have the man commit suicide.
The Doctor investigated the disappearances of women in the area. Chang tried to kill him on behalf of Greel, directly and through the Tong. His repeated failures earned him the wrath of his master, who summarily dismissed him. As a penalty, Greel secretly hid the body of a dead theatre custodian inside Li H'sen Chang's magic box. It tumbled onstage in front of Chang's stunned audience. Chang fled the scene, but was cornered by the Doctor. He threw himself to the giant rats created by Greel in the London sewers.
The rats ravaged him and tore off a leg, but Chang survived. His loyalty to Greel turned to hate when he realised that Greel had ruined his performance. Chang surprised the Doctor and Leela by greeting them as they arrived at the Tong's hideout. While smoking opium to dull the pain, he explained how he had met Greel and helped smuggle him out of China. He lamented he had been scheduled to perform at Buckingham Palace for Queen Victoria, then died of his injuries. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang)
Legacy
In 1890, Josephine Laws suspected that not even Li H'sen Chang could put a worked stone into a fossilised dinosaur hand. (PROSE: The Wheel of Ice)
Although Chang was dead, his daughter Hsien-Ko Chang returned to the Doctor's life in 1937. Her father's exposure to Zygma energy had resulted in her mutating in the womb to become apparently immortal, looking only twenty-five while her mid-sixties. Using the reactivated Mr Sin, Hsien-Ko tried to draw Greel to the present so she could punish him for his role in her father's death, but the Doctor halted this plan. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)
Appearance
Chang had "handsome Oriental features". (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Talons of Weng-Chiang)
Behind the scenes
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- A Caucasian actor, John Bennett, portrayed Li H'Sen Chang, using makeup to make him appear Chinese and adopting a Chinese accent. This has made the story controversial since its airing. In The Talents of Greel, Chang was portrayed by an actor of actual Chinese descent, Nicholas Goh.
- The novelisation would remark Chang was Chinese when most 'Chinese magicians' of the time were white men in makeup. This is likely a joke by Terrance Dicks about the casting.
- The story's writer Robert Holmes favoured breaking this six-episode Doctor Who serial into a four-episode story followed by a two-episode story (or vice versa). In the case of The Talons of Weng-Chiang, the first four episodes concentrate more on Li H'Sen Chang. Following Chang's death, the final two episodes of the serial centre more on Greel himself and on his other henchman, Mr Sin.
- A poster for Li H'Sen Chang's show can be seen in The Next Doctor, despite the story taking place in 1851 (nearly 40 years before the events of The Talons of Weng-Chiang).
- A similar poster featuring Chang as a LEGO minifigure can be seen in LEGO Dimensions, in the Victorian London section of the level "The Dalek Extermination of Earth".