Le château de Fu Manchu

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.

It boggles the mind that anyone could possibly defend this movie as some sort of lost classic or claim that people only say it's bad because it was on "Mystery Science Theater". When *two* lengthy scenes in a movie consist largely of footage borrowed from better movies, and when both of those scenes could be removed without anyone noticing the break, you know that the director's aim was to exert himself as little as possible to get the required length of film in the can. Anyone here with a burning zeal to uphold the reputation of THE CASTLE OF FU MANCHU against its boorish detractors is almost certainly exerting more effort on the movie's behalf than Jess Franco ever did.

Nevertheless, the film is not among the all-time worst. Roger Ebert is correct when he says, "There's probably a level of competence beneath which bad directors cannot fall....they've got to come up with something that can at least be advertised as a motion picture, released and forgotten." It can be safely conjectured that this was just what Jess Franco wanted. The dialogue is passable, the acting (what little is needed) is serviceable, and occasionally the editing actually drums up something like tension.

So if no one aspect of THE CASTLE OF FU MANCHU is really *that* bad, why is watching the whole film such a chore? A bad movie can be difficult to watch, but an *aggressively* mediocre one can be worse. When Roger Corman cranked out his listless, paint-by-numbers adventures and fantasy movies, at least he had the excuses of working with zero budget, a cast of third-stringers, and shooting schedules permitting him maybe a week's use of a sound stage. I'm guessing that Franco's budget was scarcely greater, but he had a decent cast and enough freedom for location shooting in more than one country. Yet he produced a movie as uninspired and perfunctory as Corman did at his worst. What was Franco thinking?

The plot seems almost to go out of its way to abandon consistency. Fu Manchu kidnaps Prof. Heracles and then his doctor because he needs help to make the magic freezing crystals in quantity (crystals, by the way, which also perform the totally unrelated duty of a knockout gas), but then even though we see Heracles at the end refuse to help Fu Manchu, his refusal doesn't even slow Fu Manchu down, who initiates his freezing plan without apparent need for Heracles's assistance. We *had* seen Fu Manchu demanding a ransom earlier one (without bothering to name terms) but any idea of actually collecting on the ransom never comes up. Fortunately for the world Nayland-Smith shows up to foil his plot to freeze the ocean, although Franco can't be bothered to show us how he foils it. We see him beating up some flunkies and trying to contact London by radio, then suddenly there's a loud report and soon Fu Manchu is watching helplessly as everything blows up around him. I'm used to villain's fortresses improbably blowing up because the hero fires one well-placed shot or smashes one control panel, but THE CASTLE OF FU MANCHU gives us the only case of a villain's fortress exploding merely because the hero makes a long-distance phone call.

It's not as though Franco didn't have enough screen time to fill these plot holes. It's just that he decided to fill that time with lengthy establishing shots, walking, and creeping around dark corridors and tunnels. He also directs his actors to speak as slowly as possible and pause whenever possible. They have excuses, I suppose. Fu Manchu is "inscrutable", being an offensive Oriental stereotype, and Omar Pasha is probably stoned out of his mind on opium half the time. The police chief in Istanbul simply doesn't care and spends a good deal of his screen time sulking and telling people not to bother him. And why should he bother doing his job? He's played by Jess Franco, after all.

With so little actually happening in THE CASTLE OF FU MANCHU, we have to be content with watching the scenery. There are some beautiful background shots in the film, to be sure. Mostly, though, Franco traps us in Fu Manchu's lair. The quarter-hours slip by as the "action" takes us from one room or chamber to another and another, none of them very well lit, while Christopher Lee sits and looks smug, or stands up and looks smug, or even speaks while looking smug. Eventually a lot of people die and Fu Manchu disappears into the billowing fake smoke. Dry ice, Rosco fog, and blood, indeed.

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.

Despite bad reviews and a low box-office success, this film must be considered a classic among movies. With a very low budget, it achieves what a lot of big-budget flicks never did: being interesting and funny to watch. With the acclaimed performance of Christopher Lee, his master counterpart, and some good directing, this film is a must-see.

Final outing in Fu Manchu-Christopher Lee series set in Turkey and based on Sax Rohmer's characters . Christopher Lee returns in this fifth chapter as the evil genius Fu Manchu who doesn't give up easily, and is out to destroy world or bent on conquering it . This time has designed a fantastic gadget to fleece water on oceans and he threatens world leaders by forcing a ransom . The baddies are Jose Luis Martin a Spanish actor usually playing the villain-role in Spaghetti Western and Christopher Lee, as always acting as a magnificent evil-doer . Nayland Smith-Richard Greene his perennial adversary and arch-nemesis takes the center of attention when is assigned the dangerous mission . Howard Marion Crawford of Britain's Home Office is the assistant of Nayland Smith , a Watson-alike . And of course, the Fu Manchu's daughter , habitually played by T Sai Chin, acting perfectly as a nasty murderous.

At the film there are action, adventures, thrills, sadism and exotic outdoors filmed in Estudios Cinematográficos Balcázar (Spanish producers are Alfonso and Jaime Jesus Balcazar), Esplugues De Llobregat, Barcelona, Cataluña, Spain (studio), Istanbul, Turkey and Parque Güell, Parque De Ciutdadella , Barcelona , Cataluña , Spain.

Fifth in Christopher Lee's Manchu series several pegs below his predecessors ; it is a bizarre blending of adventures, thriller and action with low budget . This exciting picture is full of Chinese killers , British adventurers, and nasty drug dealers . Weak performance by Richard Greene working below capabilities as Nyland Smith who in former episodes was best interpreted by Nigel Green , and Douglas Wilmer . The villain T Sai Chin stand out as Fu Manchu's daughter named Li Tang and the smuggler Jose Luis Martin overacting as an ominous bandit , furthermore turns up Burt Kwouk, Pink Panther-Sellers series's usual , in a brief appearance . The beautiful girls are two Eurotrash Goddeses as Maria Perschy and Rosalba Neri . This is the second collaboration between Jesus Franco and the producer Harry Alan Towers ( producer of the Fu Manchu's five movies ) and to be continued in several films . Well photographed by Manuel Merino , being recently fine remastering , though previous versions were awfully photographed.

Most critics felt this outing was one of the weakest entries along with ¨The blood of Fu Manchu¨ also directed by Jess Frank with similar casting , plenty of stock-shots , zooms and a Z-series style . The best installments were ¨Face of Fu Manchu(1965, Don Sharp)¨, and ¨Brides of Fu Manch( 1966, Don Sharp)¨ and the inferior ¨Vengeance of Fu Manchu(1967) . Only for completist , the outcome is one of the worst Fu Manchu movie ever made . Rating : Bottom of barrel , below average .