Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not quite the pit of despair, but close..., October 10, 2003
The entry of Jess Franco to Harry Alan Towers' Fu Manchu series signalled the beginning of the end. Fast, cheap and amazingly bad, Franco is one of the few directors who could make Michael Winner look like Stanley Kubrick by comparison. After all, it takes denial on an Olympian scale to have David De Keyser dub three separate characters IN THE SAME SCENE or to include black and white stock footage from 'A Night to Remember' in a colour film (in The Castle of Fu Manchu) and think that if you tint it blue no-one will notice...
'The Blood of Fu Manchu' is marginally the better of his two Fus, but its still a major step down for the Christopher Lee series. Fully restored, but really no better for it, the presentation is enough reason for disappointed Fu Fans to consider adding it to their collection. The print is the best you're likely to see (the film is marginally better shot than most of Franco's efforts) and the extras package is more entertaining than the film (although the same can be said of mending a faulty waste-disposal). The first of a two-part documentary gives a brief background to the series with some candid observations from Tsai Chin and Shirley Eaton, as well as a somewhat more relaxed than usual Christopher Lee, countering Franco's unwarranted enthusiasm; one of the two trailers actually makes the film look good (quite an achievement); and the notes on the Fu Manchu novels are enlightening.
If only we could get this kind of presentation on the highly enjoyable initial entry 'The Face of Fu Manchu' or its two immediate sequels 'The Brides of Fu Manchu' and 'The Vengeance of Fu Manchu' - they may not be masterpieces, but they're a lot more fun than this FuBar film.
Incidentally, this print credits Peter Welbeck - Towers' regular pseudonym - as writer, but the film was actually written by Manfred Barthel and Jaime Jesus Blacazar.
|
|
|
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Mediocre, December 8, 2004
Christopher Lee's career in films spans some four or five decades by now. Filmgoers, especially fans of Hammer horror, widely consider him to be one of the acting greats. Lee's appearance in the Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy certainly hasn't hurt his reputation any. I can't recall seeing him turn in a poor performance in any film, no matter how low the budget, how bad the script, or how incompetent the filmmaker. Jess Franco's "The Blood of Fu Manchu" serves as an excellent example of a pitiful film made better by the presence of the immensely talented Christopher Lee. Sadly, the words "pitiful" and "Jess Franco" often go together like ice cream and cones. He's made a few good films over the decades, "Faceless" and "Vampyros Lesbos" among them, but far too often he churns out the worst sort of schlocky dreck. Not that I care, actually, since I'll watch almost any bad film at least once, but it's extremely difficult to stomach the idea of Christopher Lee appearing in a Jess Franco film. The only reason I can think of why Lee agreed to do the picture is that he desperately needed the paycheck. He apparently needed more than one since he also did another Fu Manchu film with Franco.
Fu Manchu, it turns out, is a master criminal operating on a global scale. He's always coming up with some wacky plot to topple a government, kill world leaders, or do battle with his archnemesis Nayland Smith (Richard Greene). Sometimes he combines all three into one foolproof plan for world domination. In "The Blood of Fu Manchu," our villain figures out a way to turn a bevy of beautiful women into carriers of a deadly ancient poison. Fu Manchu, with the help of his ruthless daughter Lin Tang (Tsai Chin), then plans on sending these girls to every leader in the western world so that a single kiss will deliver the venomous payload. Oddly, we don't see any western leaders topple over dead. The only person to suffer the detrimental effects of Manchu's plot is Nayland Smith who, even more oddly, doesn't die immediately but instead goes blind. So much for the effectiveness of the poison, eh? Nayland's aide de camp Dr. Petrie (Howard Marion) offers up an explanation: in a few rare cases, a person poisoned with this venom goes blind first and then dies later. Whew! Thank goodness for small favors! Now we know that Nayland Smith has a narrow window of time to track down Fu Manchu and find the antidote.
Happily, Nayland Smith hasn't been sitting around doing nothing while Fu Manchu plotted to kill him. He knows an archeologist named Carl (Gotz George) who stumbled over the location of the cave where Manchu is hiding. An ambush in the jungle nearly claims Carl's life, but he escapes in time to hook up with a local village doctor named Ursula Wagner (Maria Rohm) and thus launch a vendetta against Manchu. As Nayland Smith begins the arduous journey to the jungle and his rendezvous with Fu Manchu, Carl and Ursula run into a few problems. The primary obstacle is a bandit chieftain named Sancho Lopez (Ricardo Palacios) and his band of merry misfits. These thugs terrorize the countryside in search of plunder, killing and maiming anyone who gets in their way. Lopez tries to terrorize Wagner's daughter, but she convinces him to join in the hunt for Fu Manchu. Problem is, Manchu's minions capture Lopez and turn him to the dark side of the force with the help of torture. The obligatory battle between good and evil at the conclusion is hardly a surprise. I could go on but there really isn't any point in doing so. "The Blood of Fu Manchu" is an incredibly cheesy picture suffering under a plethora of problems.
The only reason to watch this film is to see Lee disappear into the role of Fu Manchu. Well, that and the good effort Tsai Chin puts into playing Manchu's icy daughter. The primary problem I had with the film revolves around the Sancho Lopez character. He seems superfluous, there only to help pad out the run time. Moreover, he's one of the most irritating secondary characters in the history of B budget cinema. The character is grossly overweight, which seems strange for a bandit leader who must move quickly through the countryside if he wishes to stay one step ahead of the authorities. Also, how can he defend his position as gang leader when someone fights him for it? What's he gonna do, fall on them? It gets worse. He's decked out in this ridiculous ensemble that includes a supercheesy hat and what looks like cap pistols for side arms. He looks like an evil Chris Farley. And that laugh! Oh brother! I could fill whole pages about this guy's massively annoying laugh. I suspect it's supposed to sound rather evil and threatening, but since he seems to laugh nearly every second of his screen time it comes off as grating--like fingernails on a chalkboard grating. With so much attention focused on the antics of Sancho Lopez, it's easy to forget that nothing really happens in the film, or that when it does happen it occurs amidst very cheap set pieces. Look at those flimsy cell bars!
There are more extras on the disc than you would think. The DVD version offers trailers, stills, an easter egg, and a text article about the original Fu Manchu stories penned by author Sax Rohmer (which definitely sound more interesting than this film). Surprisingly, the disc also contains short interviews with Jess Franco, Tsai Chin, and Christopher Lee. The excellent picture transfer and care taken with the extras makes me think this film has a cult following. If so, I apologize to the fans, but I don't see the magic here. I'll stick with Lee's better gigs and Franco's better pictures.
|
|
|
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Biding My Time, Waiting for the Real Thing., September 14, 2005
I finally broke down and purchased this as there are still no Fu Manchu DVDs on the near horizon. I knew what to expect beforehand and got what I paid for. Still there's no Fu like an old Fu.
This movie can be viewed on two levels. As a movie it has the same components as other movies but the screenplay lacks humour and the plot is witless. Christopher Lee hams his way throughout with a brooding performance although his voice sounds different to normal without his recognisable timbre. He clearly did not need to exert himself in any way and his authoritative stature as Fu gives one the only reason to buy this movie. As a movie it is not very successful with a plot full of holes and a seeming lack of available acting skills. The budget looks to have been lower than that of a spaghetti western and a choppiness to the editing which suggests that no-one's heart was really in it.
Having said that I think that there is something to this movie which is overlooked. It seems to me that the film itself resembles the pulp fiction upon which it is based. I do not suggest that it belongs to the so bad it is good school but I think that the direction is intentional. In that it resembles the fictional base of Fu Manchu. If one is looking for the books to be realised on film then clearly this is more in the true spirit of the books in one sense. Sadly I believe that it is cheapened by the overt use of nakedness and semi-nakedness in parts not because there is anything wrong with those things if there is a context but in this movie they really detract from what it is about.
On the whole this is a valuable addition to anyone's Fu Manchu collection on DVD inasmuch as you can have a region 1 xollextion until the earlier, much better movies are released to us. One does wonder if they are too politically incorrect for a US release?
Not the best Fu Manchu movie available but at least it is available and hopefully the rest will be soon. For completeists only.
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
DVD ~ Werner Abrolat
DVD ~ Christopher Lee
DVD ~ Henry Brandon
![The Vengeance of Fu Manchu [Region 2]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51R78HFY5RL._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
DVD ~ Christopher Lee
DVD ~ Glen Gordon
on 
