Fu Manchu

Christopher Lee turns in another couple stern faced performances as the racially dubious Far Eastern criminal mastermind Fu Manchu, a character who would have fitted perfectly into the Bond Movies of the 1960s. At the Helm of these late entries in the Fu Manchu cycle is sleaze kingpin Jess Franco, whose career was peaking at the time thanks to the patronage of Producer Harry A. Towers, who gave the Spanish sex and horror specialist some of the biggest budgets of his patchy career. The results are a couple of typical boy's own adventures, which were slightly dated at the time of production (Fu Manchu films date back to the silent era and 1930s matinee serials). Watch out though, because Franco throws in some extra doses of grindhouse sleaze to appeal to an adult audience.

In Blood of Fu Manchu the evil genius inoculates ten beautiful women with deadly poison in order to assassinate ten world leaders, while in Castle of Fu Manchu the diabolical mad man concocts a wicked scheme to freeze the oceans of the world with a deadly new piece of technology. Only a plucky agent from Interpol can save us now...





These are great slices of OTT silliness that show that director Franco could make more mainstream movies that didn't involve torturing his long suffering wife, Lina Romay, in numerous twisted softcore scenes. He achieves some great results in these movies and they never fail to entertain despite the dated "Yellow Menace" racial stereotypes.

"The world shall hear from me again..."