Le château de Fu Manchu

Evil Fu Manchu (Christopher Lee) has devised a way of freezing vast amounts of water and plans to use it in his quest for world domination. To be honest the plot is as mad as a box of frogs but it does help make it fun. Director Jess Franco is best known for his X rated horror movies so it is a nice change to see him make a film that is rated PG and your kids can watch. As usual he appears the other side of the camera too, this time playing a police detective. Horror legend Lee plays Fu Manchu, the make-up department did an OK job of making him look Oriental, however he plays the role straight and I couldn't help but chuckle a few times, such a contrast from playing say Dracula. We are also treated to the inclusion of two beautiful actresses, Rosalba Neri and Maria Perschy, both familiar faces to fans of Euro horror and erotica. The movie's locations include Spain and Istanbul, some great scenery. I also liked Fu's dungeon and laboratory, the various colours (red, green, blue, etc) make it look really good. Fu's arch enemy Nayland Smith is back and it is laughable how easily he is able to break into and moved around fiend Manchu's castle despite being fortified by the latter's small army. The special effects include a cruise liner sinking and a dam bursting, not bad at all. The Castle of Fu Manchu is certainly no classic but I found it fun and colourful, plus I am a fan of both Lee and Franco.

Dastardly Chinese super-villain Fu Manchu (Sir Christopher Lee) is at it once more. Again focused on the worlds' destruction, his plan this time is to freeze its oceans solid using some sort of "crystal". However, he needs the expertise of a professor named Heracles (Gustavo Re), whom he's holding prisoner. But the good professor is dying, and Fu also abducts a doctor (Gunther Stoll) who can pull off a heart transplant. The intrepid Home Office inspector Nayland Smith (Richard Greene), Fu's persistent nemesis, must save the day once again.

A lack of action and a not particularly interesting plot hamper this final entry in the series, which tanked both commercially and critically. Cult favourite director Jess Franco directs without much zeal; you feel that most people involved are just going through the motions by this point. That said, the movie is not without *some* pleasures, such as the gorgeous female cast members Tsai Chin (as Lin Tang, Fu's nefarious daughter), Rosalba Neri (as Lisa), and Maria Perschy (as Ingrid, the doctors' young companion). The location shooting in Spain and Istanbul definitely adds some flavour and atmosphere. Charles Camilleri composed the score for the English language version, and it's suitably rousing.

Sir Christopher (one of those performers who could entertain this viewer just by reading from the phone book) is a delight, as always. He does seem to be having some fun, which definitely helps matters.

Considered by cinephiles to be the worst in the series, it's actually not all that bad. It's just not that good. But it does deliver some amusing, schlocky entertainment in the B movie tradition.

Copious footage is cribbed from both "A Night to Remember" (the ocean liner sinking) and "Campbell's Kingdom" (the dam cracking).

Five out of 10.

I really feel very out of step with regards to this one because scanning through the other IMDb reviews it became quite obvious that everybody else hated it! I don't really understand the universal dislike though, as this one really didn't seem to warrant this level of abuse. Don't get me wrong, it has problems. The script being a pretty obvious one. The story was very difficult to comprehend. It involved the master criminal Fu Manchu devising a method of turning the oceans into ice by using opium or something. And by way of this he would take over the world. Okay, whatever you say! Yeah, so admittedly, the narrative is a bit senseless.

But the thing is, I've seen a lot of Jess Franco movies and I thought this was quite coherent by his standards! In fact, it was from a period in Franco's career where he had more production value at his disposal, so again when people say this is ultra-cheap, I'm thinking it's quite big budget for Jess. I mean, he has even managed to hire Christopher Lee for the title role – I thought he was pretty imposing and well suited to the character to be fair. We also have Rosalba Neri as a gangster chick and she is always worth watching, so again, this is a good thing. Even the blatant lifts from other movies were entertaining enough, such as the whole opening scene that utilises scenes taken wholesale from A Night to Remember. Maybe the pacing could have been better perhaps but this is a constant Franco fault and in here it's no worse than usual. But overall, the film, while being often senseless, did have enough action and Euro cult value to keep me watching. Ultimately, I am probably the idiot for liking this but I guess I'll just have to live with that.

It is 1969. Your on your way back to your car at the drive-inn, where your fiancé is happily sleeping off her double shift at the diner and you are about half-way through a film - Folterkammer des Dr. Fu Man Chu, Die (or the Castle of Fu Manchu) - which has already put you through two bags of popcorn and 3 cokes because the popcorn is just so much more interesting, and the worst happens - you can't find your car. Nightmares flash through your mind - maybe your fiancé was so annoyed by the cruelty of your decision to force her into a late night drive-inn triple feature full of Sax Rohmer films so she drove off, or maybe the film got her so upset that she drove off the nearest bridge. Trying to get a hold of yourself, you look up to the screen to verify that you're at the right part of the drive in. No help, all you can see is a smear of dark blue and dark red shadow across the lower part of the screen. After a minute or so, the lighting crew finds the on-switch and some out of focus people show up on the screen. They appear to be three Shriners sneaking up on an Imam who has just begun his afternoon prayer. Still no help. You resign yourself to the fate natural selection has accorded you. You , after all, decided to see this film with your intended reproductive partner, and that choice has probably ruined your opportunity to allow your genetic material to be carried on in the next generation of humans. So you decide to move to California to buy that house on the side of hill overlooking the San Andreas fault where you always wanted to live, and to pursue your dream to rekindle the Fu Manchu series this film killed. More power to you.

To be fair, I did not see the touted Blue underground DVD version of the film. Supposedly, this pressing is so much better than what I saw that it is incomparable.

Even my television objected to this film. It kept trying to turn itself off, switch channels, etc. It even unplugged the cable converter for a few minutes. Whoever it was that decided that Sax Rohmer's various B-grade stories ought to be made into movies, should be forced to watch all of them in a row - at least once. As they say, garbage in, garbage out. These films are a decidedly acquired taste. And this one is even more difficult to acquire a taste for than Sumuru... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061976/usercomments-8

Peruse the IMDb reviews - you will notice that most of the people who write positive reviews for this film do not describe the plot. There are two interrelated reasons for this - (1) there isn't one to be described and (2) they've never seen the film, and simply get a perverse pleasure believing that their opinions might be taken seriously enough to convince people to see the film (a poor assumption, at best).

Christopher Lee plays Fu Manchu - an inexplicably powerful meanie who wants something from all of the world's governments (we are never privileged with the knowledge of what in particular he wants, but I couldn't care less anyway), and is threatening to freeze the world's oceans to get it. The technology he is using has been developed by a dying scientist who he has kidnapped, and soon he finds himself having to kidnap a surgeon in order to arrange a heart transplant as well. There are various fight scenes which don't appear to be related to the film and may indeed have been found on a cutting room floor somewhere in the Middle East, or even reused from a previous Rohmer feature (I really expected Sumuru, some of her army of Amazon ninjas, or even Frankie Avalon to show up at one point). There are also a few scenes with Lee standing around looking ominous and using that great voice of his. I am not sure he knew what was going on in the rest of the film, and indeed with that voice it doesn't matter, but these scenes are, nonetheless, the ONLY remotely entertaining aspect of the film. And OH YES lest I forget, there are a few inept 007s who were likely rejected from the extras audition for Casino Royal making some roughly British sounding noises and taking all of this way too seriously.

I didn't think it was possible, but this film was even more difficult to get through than Manos: Hands of Fate, and quite possibly should replace it as the worst film of all time. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060666/usercomments-419

To state what, in particular is wrong with TCODFM is an easy task - EVERYTHING. The acting is mediocre, the plot is idiotic, the cinematography and editing are so bad that I don't believe TRYING to make a hideous mess of a film would net you anything worse. You'll either laugh hysterically or stare at your screen until you start drooling, unless you take my advice and avoid this.

Why did I watch it? I enjoy challenges.

Castle of FuManchu, The (1968)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

The fifth and final film in Christopher Lee's FuManchu series is considered by many to be the worst but I personally found it so bad that I was able to have a little fun with it. The film has FuManchu (Lee) once again trying to take over the world and by now you might be asking when the guy is just going to give up and go home. Anyway, this time he plans on freezing all the oceans in the world so he kidnaps a doctor to perform an operation on the one man who knows how to do such a thing. THE CASTLE OF FUMANCHU isn't a good movie so you shouldn't go into the film expecting anything other that pure silliness. There's no question this is a bad movie but thankfully it's bad enough to be mildly entertaining but I'm sure most people will be smart enough to hit the eject button by the thirty-minute mark. Once again Lee appears to have only enough energy to cash a paycheck as he's obviously not too thrilled about doing this picture. As in the previous film, Lee pretty much just sleepwalks through the film and offers up very little energy. The supporting cast includes Gunther Stoll playing the doctor, Jose Manuel Martin as an opium dealer and cult favorite Rosalba Neri playing an assassin. These supporting players are certainly one of the few good things in the film. The film has a bigger budget than most Franco pictures but that's not saying too much because we still get all sorts of cheapness including some stock footage from the Titanic picture A NIGHT TO REMEMBER, which certainly doesn't mix well with any of the new footage. The film does have some decent cinematography but there's just not enough here to make it worth viewing. Fans of Lee, Franco or FuManchu are bound to be disappointed with this film, which turned out to be the last in the series.