Der Todeskuss des Dr. Fu Man Chu

The fourth entry in the Fu Manchu series with Sir Christopher Lee is a very mild diversion at best. Lee, playing the dastardly arch villain, appears to be just going through the motions. This time, his fiendish plan is to abduct a dozen sexy young women, and use them as assassins. Their blood is filled with poison and they are dispatched to various major world cities to murder Fu Manchus' enemies. On the side of good are Fu Manchus' chief nemesis, Nayland Smith (Richard Greene), Carl Jansen, a so-called "archaeologist" (Gotz George), Dr. Petrie (Howard Marion-Crawford), and Ursula Wagner (Maria Rohm), a nurse.

Another collaboration between screenwriter / producer Harry Alan Towers and the extremely prolific director Jess Franco, this is going to be awfully disappointing for those people that love Francos' ultra-sleazy 1970s output. Titillation is minimal. As a jungle adventure / pulp nonsense bit of entertainment, it's okay, but it falls short of any potential. Overall, it lacks style and energy, and some viewers may even find it boring. Even the action scenes aren't very exciting. The location shooting in Spain and Brazil is adequate, and there are some very fine looking ladies (also including Shirley Eaton of "Goldfinger" fame as The Black Widow) to add to the scenic value.

Lee is just okay, unfortunately, although there is pleasure in watching Tsai Chin ("You Only Live Twice") as Fu Manchus' sadist daughter Lin Tang, and the lively Marion-Crawford. Ricardo Palacios is amusing as a bandit leader, but the film simply spends too much time with his uninteresting gang. Greene, credited as a "guest star", doesn't get all that much to do.

If you're a fan of Lee and / or Franco, you could definitely do better than this.

Five out of 10.

Christopher Lee returns in this fourth chapter as the evil Fu Manchu , this time has designed a fantastic gadget injecting gorgeous girls (Leni Von Friedl, among others) a venomous poison which reacts in a killing kiss . The beautiful girls are sent to seduce Nayland Smith (Richard Greene replaced Douglas Wilmer) and world leaders . When Nayland Smith is kissed by a death-kiss and he then strolls completely blinded , letting his assistant Dr. Petrie (Howard Marion Crawford) takes the center of attention . A blind Nayland Smith enlists the help an adventurer named Jansen (Gotz George) and an attractive woman (Maria Rhom, married to producer Harry Allan Towers) .

This is a bizarre blending of adventures , thriller and Spaghetti Western . This exciting picture is full of Chinese killers , British adventurers , and Cangaiceiros dressed in Mexican bandits-alike . Weak performance by Richard Greene as Nyland Smith who in previous episodes was best interpreted by Nigel Green and Douglas Wilmer . The villain T Sai Chin stands out as Fu Manchu's daughter and the murderous bandit Ricardo Palacios overacting as a sympathetic chief Cangaicero . This is the beginning of collaborating between Jesus Franco or ¨Uncle Jess¨ and the producer Harry Allan Towers and to be continued in several movies . Filmed in Madrid and Rio De Janeiro and well photographed by Manuel Merino . Atmospheric musical score by Daniel White , Jess Frank's usual.

Most critics felt this outing was one of the weakest entries along with ¨The castle of Fu Manchu¨ also directed by Jess Frank with similar casting , plenty of stock-shots and a Z-series style . Christopher Lee (Dr. Fu Manchu), Tsai Chin (Lin Tang) and Howard Marion-Crawford (Dr. Petrie) are the only actors to appear in all five Harry Allan Towers/Fu Manchu films . The best installments resulted to be ¨Face of Fu Manchu (1965, Don Sharp)¨ , and ¨Brides of Fu Manchu (1966, Don Sharp)¨ and the inferior ¨Vengeance of Fu Manchu (1967 , Jeremy Summers) ¨.

Fu Manchu (Christopher Lee) is hidden with his evil daughter Lin Tang (Tsai Chin) in a lost city he has found in the jungles of South America. He discovers a poison deadly for men through kiss and he abducts ten women to infect them with the poison to destroy his enemies. Then he sends one woman to London to kiss his greatest enemy, the Scotland Yard agent Nayland Smith (Richard Greene). Nayland is blinded by the poison and his friend Dr. Petrie (Howard Marion Crawford) travels with him to the jungles in South America to seek out Fu Manchu expecting to find an antidote. They team up with agent Carl Jansen (Götz George) and soon they learn the scheme of Fu Manchu for world domination.

"The Blood of Fu Manchu" is a silly and lame adventure of the infamous Fu Manchu by Jess Franco. The acting is dreadful and the plot is confused and boring with no emotion. The speeches of Howard Marion Crawford and Götz George are very difficult to be understood and most of the women are beautiful actresses. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): Not Available on DVD and Blu-Ray

If you read the plot synopsis of "Blood Of Fu Manchu" it sounds like exploitation gold, but don't get your hopes up: it doesn't make the most of its premise (to put it kindly). Despite noted smut peddler Jess Franco in the director's chair, it is quite tame, and despite being part of the Fu Manchu series, a stereotypically fat, unshaven, cackling bandit has by far the most screen time (Shirley Eaton fans will also be disappointed; her part is a 2-minute cameo). Location filming in Brazil and Christopher Lee's commanding (even if unconvincing) performance are pretty much its only assets. ** out of 4.

The fourth film in the revived Fu Manchu series from hit-and-run international film producer Harry Alan Towers is the first one directed by Jesus (Jess) Franco, a cult icon best known for the staggering quantity of his films, as well as their usually appalling quality. In hindsight, Towers and Franco were destined for each other. Both were specialists in speedy international productions and each usually juggled more than one project at a time.

"Fu Manchu's Kiss of Death" (the shooting title) was filmed back-to-back (or perhaps simultaneously) with the next film in the series "The Castle of Fu Manchu" and shows evidence of having been written on the fly. The script is loosely constructed and constantly sidetracks itself with multiple subplots and far too many characters. The most intrusive involves the a South American bandit chief, whose protracted exploits take up so much screen time that viewers just walking in would think they were in the wrong theater. Probably designed to show off the Brazilian exteriors, it is tempting to say that these sequences look like rejected scenes from "The Wild Bunch", but that would be giving Franco's footage too much credit.

As evidence that Towers was not above ripping off himself, the film opens with a sequence that is a remake of the opening of "Brides of Fu Manchu", with women chained to pillars in an underground hideaway. As in "Brides", one is led to a snake pit but, instead of being lowered in, she is gingerly bitten in the throat by one, thereby becoming the carrier of the title's kiss of death. The contrast between the lighting, staging and sets in these two sequences gives ample testimony of how low the series had fallen in just two years.

The ever-present Maria Rohm (AKA Mrs. Harry Alan Towers) shows up as a jungle missionary wearing a gaucho hat and red leotards. She gets involved in yet another subplot about a proto-Indiana Jones leading a medical expedition. Apparently, this plotline exists only to provide the hero, afflicted with the death kiss, with a miraculous cure at the last minute.

While the rest of the cast was having fun in the Brazilian jungles, stars Christopher Lee and Richard Greene never leave the studio in Madrid, Spain that was home to all the film's interiors. Guest star Shirley Eaton appears in one brief scene that appears to be an outtake from one of the two Su-Muru films she was making for Towers at the time. (The second was also directed by Franco.)

It's hard to believe that this film (retitled "Kiss and Kill") got major USA playdates in 1968 as a solo feature.