The Blood of Fu Manchu

In spite of the fact that this is the 4th (I think) entry in Christopher Lee's Fu Manchu "series" (I'm assuming they don't all follow on from each other), it's the first one I've seen and if the rest of them are anything like this; I hope it's the last! I can't profess to know a great deal about this series having only seen one film in it; though I am familiar with the character Fu Manchu after having seen the 1932 Boris Karloff film. Christopher Lee is a great actor, but here he looks like he couldn't really be bothered; for a start, Fu Manchu is meant to be an oriental character, and Lee doesn't even try to put on an oriental accent! The plot follows Fu Manchu's quest for world domination and focuses on his bright idea of filling up a load of women with poison and using them to seduce ten of the most powerful men in the world. It actually doesn't sound like that bad a springboard for a decent film, adding in the jungle setting and a super villain, you'd really be forgiven for thinking that this film is going to be a lot better. Jess Franco takes the directors chair and it seems, as is often the case, he cared more about his paycheck than the film as it lacks suspense and excitement, the characters are mostly dull and the situation is not made the best of. Overall, this film may do something for fans of the series; but personally it hasn't made me want to see more of these films!

The evil Fu Manchu continues his endless quest for world domination but first; he has developed a plan to eliminate his arch-enemies (of which Scotland Yard's Nayland Smith is top priority). So our oriental master-criminal has kidnapped 10 of the most beautiful women on the planet and stuffed their bodies with the world's deadliest poison. Their orders are to seduce the enemies and kill them with "the kiss of death". His fiendish plan almost succeeds but Smith survives the assault and goes after Fu Manchu, who shelters in the jungles of South America. The premise of this sequel sounds promising enough but, don't be fooled, it's a terribly boring and unexciting film. There are so many things wrong with this production I don't even properly know where to start. For starters, the screenplay introduces way too many characters and actually none of them are worth mentioning. There's no tension and there's a total lack of gore and sleaze, as well (considering Jess Franco signed for the direction, I was at least hoping for this). There are a lot of battle sequences but they're painfully tame and tedious. Franco makes no use of the great jungle-location at all and the editing is lousy. Judging by his emotionless performance, Christopher Lee wasn't interesting in repeating the Fu Manchu role for the fourth time at all. Jess Franco also directs on automatic pilot, meaning without the slightest bit of passion or motivation. For him this was just another easy-money job in between some euro-trash cinema highlights like "99 Women" and "Marquis de Sade: Justine". The absolute best Fu Manchu film remains the 1932 "Mask of Fu Manchu" (starring Boris Karloff), although Don Sharp's efforts "the Face of…." and "The Brides of …" are pretty good as well. There's absolutely nothing to recommend about this one, so avoid unless you're a perfectionist...or really REALLY bored.

Blood of FuManchu, The (1968)

1/2 (out of 4)

This here is technically the fourth film in the Christopher Lee/FuManchu series, although most fans just consider the first three to be a series and the final two just the work of Spanish director Jess Franco. No matter how you consider the series to work, there's very little doubt as to how bad this film actually is. FuManchu (Lee) and his daughter Lin Tang (Tsai Chin) are hiding out in the Amazon jungle. FuManchu comes up with a new idea to take over the world and it's to send out ten beautiful women with poison on their lips to kill various world leaders. THE BLOOD OF FUMANCHU was released under countless titles including KISS AND KILL but no matter what you call it there's no doubt it's a horrible little picture that doesn't have a single thing going for it. Jess Franco has made a lot of bad films in his career but there's no question this here is the worst of the decade, which for the most part had some decent films that even non-fans thought were at least good. The biggest problem is that the entire story is a complete mess as you never really know if this film is trying to be serious or some sort of spoof. Lee pretty much sleepwalks through his role and it really doesn't appear that he's having any fun. Tsai Chin is about the only decent thing in the film but she isn't given too much to do and the rest of the supporting cast appear to have some sort of poison in their system as well. The film has a comic book vibe to it but there's not an ounce of energy to be found anywhere and what fun adventure there should be isn't anywhere to be found either. This production might have had a bigger than normal budget but nothing was done with it and in the end this is just a worthless film without anything going for it.

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