The Blood of Fu Manchu Film Review

This is the fourth in the Christopher Lee Fu Manchu quintet cycle and held by most movie critics in the same reverence as a case of gonorrhea. You read the reviews on the web and you expect it to leave a trail of slime behind it. A smell in the air that no detergent can wash away. After three solid if not overwhelming Fu Manchu films, the producer turned to exploitation auteur Jess Franco for the final two films. This sounds like the making of a perfect union. Franco by this time had already directed films such as Succubus, The Awful Dr. Orloff, the Diabolical Dr Z. and others - but it was still a tiny portion of the films to come later. And the producer Harry Alan Towers was behind a lot of television, a few Euro-spy films and then began the Fu Manchu films. At the time Fu Manchu had been out of commission for a few decades but Towers still saw an appetite there for Yellow Peril adventure films (Vietnam, China, Korea) with a smattering of nudity and perversion. The first three films always felt a bit too conventional to me, unwilling to really push the boundary of exploitation. The 1932 Mask of Fu Manchu was more deliciously perverse than those. Hiring Franco feels like a stroke of genius - he could inject that missing element.

But he doesn't really. Ok, there is the orgy but even that felt tame. It very much follows the conventions of the first three films except shot much more cheaply. It clunks along most of the time without Nayland Smith or Fu Manchu. There are of course the women in a state of undress chained up in dungeons - that is traditional and there is of course Manchu's devious plan to bring the world to its knees. But there isn't anything really new here. Franco seems uncaring about details like time passing - one second Smith and his loyal British friend Petrie are in England but a few days later are deep in South America - did they have a spaceship? Another time Petrie and a woman escape from Manchu's lair far into the jungle and get back to Smith within a short period. Are we to think that Manchu's lair is next door. Other clunkers are how poorly Manchu's lair or the prisoners are guarded. They just walk out. And walk in. I was expecting a group of lost tourists to come strolling through with a guide leading them. But did I enjoy it? Up to a point if you ignore all that. Franco shoots much of it in Brazil out in nature, it looks great and the girls are very lovely. I watch a lot of films that others would consider bad or B films - and so my threshold for pain is pretty high.

This time around Fu Manchu has moved to South America - living in a cave beneath Inca ruins and he has discovered a poison so toxic that he can kill millions with it. He is of course with his equally evil daughter Lin Tang who gets so much joy from hurting others. His plan is to first distribute this poison through the lips of beautiful women and kill all his enemies. He has a snake bite them which turns them into pure poison so just a kiss will kill. And sends them on their way like children going to school. Carl Jansen though is on his trail and sends a message to Smith.

Jansen was in the first Fu Manchu, The Face of Fu Manchu, but played by Joachim Fuchsberger. Here he is played by Götz George. Meanwhile the Kiss of Death has arrived at Nayland's door and given him a big smooch. He is played by stalwart hero Richard Greene, Robin Hood. Nayland goes blind. Petrie takes him to South America for a cure. Which is another roll your eyes moment when they cut Nayland in the arm, cut a poison girl - put their arms together and waalah - he is back on his feet toting a machine gun minutes later. But it is these roll your eye moments that are part of the pleasure of films like this.

Greene basically gets a pass from the entire movie because he is not Zatoichi and just lies in a bed. Showing up as well as a doctor is Maria Rohm in this very peculiar state of cowboy dress that feels totally inappropriate for a doctor or for anything living. She had been discovered by Towers a few years previously and he was to cast her in many of his films (The Vengeance of Fu Manchu) - one role was as his wife from 1964 to his death in 2009. Franco was to direct many of her films. Another familiar face might be the actor who plays the bandit Sancho Lopez. Richard Palacios who you will come across if you watch many Spaghetti Westerns as the loud fat sweaty bad guy. You also may have noticed Shirley Eaton near the end as The Black Widow - apparently footage from another film. I hear that the final film, The Castle of Fu Manchu is the real dud. But I am almost dud proof by now. There is good to be found almost everywhere.