The Castle of Fu Manchu
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Movie Reviews of The Castle of Fu Manchu
Movie Review: Causes physical pain
Summary: 2 Stars
The mere mention of the name Jess Franco in the presence of movie fans will elicit several reactions. Some filmgoers will shrug their shoulders as if to say, "Who's he?" These people likely spend a lot of time watching big budget, multiplex friendly cinema. Other folks will smile. These film fans recognize this director's name in the context of "Vampyros Lesbos" and "The Marquis De Sade's Justine," two Franco movies that actually contain a hint of style. Then there are the poor wretches who'll hear his name and visibly pale, groan as though they've eaten food that's given them salmonella poisoning, and slink quietly away into a corner for a few hours of serious sulking. I fall somewhere in between the last two categories. I liked "Vampyros Lesbos" and "Justine," but I've also seen enough Franco films to understand the utter banality of a large segment of his filmography. One need look no further (although one could if one wished to inflict needless suffering on oneself) than Jess Franco's take on the Fu Manchu legend. The director churned out a couple of these films at the behest of producer Harry Alan Towers back in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The first Franco/Fu Manchu project was "The Blood of Fu Manchu," released in 1969. It's awful. The second sledgehammer to the crotch came out in the States a few years later, in 1972, and went by the name "The Castle of Fu Manchu." This one is a war crime. Both star Christopher Lee as the wily Fu Manchu, an Asian despot bent on ruling the world. Both also co-star Tsai Chin as Fu's evil daughter, Richard Greene as Manchu's nemesis Denis Nayland-Smith, and Howard Marion-Smith as Nayland-Smith's (that's a lot of Smiths) comical sidekick Dr. Petrie. Every single one of these people entered the witness protection program after making "Castle," which ought to tell you something. Everyone, that is, except Howard Marion-Smith. He took his life by ingesting a large dose of sleeping pills. One is hesitant to link this genuine tragedy to the metaphysical awfulness of "The Castle of Fu Manchu," but one wonders nonetheless, eh? It's really not all that useful to go to trouble of listing the cast of both films in a review since it becomes painfully obvious early on that a number of chimpanzees could have stood in for the human cast and carried off the movies just as well. I don't think viewers would have noticed the substitution, quite frankly.
Anyway, the plot of "The Castle of Fu Manchu," if we dare call it a plot, involves Fu's plan to bring the nations of the world under his spell by turning the oceans into ice. How to accomplish such an amazing feat? Well, it's important to kidnap a brilliant scientist named Dr. Heracles, whose primary claim to fame is the creation of magical crystals that turn water into ice. It's also important to offer up a little demonstration to the world that these crystals do exactly what Dr. Heracles says they'll do. Fu Manchu accomplishes this trick quite nicely by dropping the ice making concoction into a cheesy looking machine that not only creates a lot of ice, but is so destructive that the movie suddenly switches gears and shows us footage of the Titanic sinking as seen in the 1958 film "A Night to Remember." Now that's an evil contraption! While the leaders of the free world laugh their heads off, the movie suddenly shifts focus once again to Istanbul and Manchu's diabolical machinations to take over the operations of a narcotics kingpin named Omar Pasha (Jose Manuel Martin). Why? Good question, and one I can't answer. All I know is that Heracles has a heart condition that needs fixing, Rosalba Neri shows up to shake and shimmy, and Nayland-Smith and Petrie arrive on the scene to save the day. All together now: WHATEVER!
Egads, what a clunker Franco lensed here! The soundtrack should have consisted of nothing more than the sounds of screeching tires and shattering glass played on a perpetual loop. It's no surprise that this film resulted in the abrupt abandonment to film any future Fu Manchu installments. How could anyone justify making another entry after witnessing this car crash? Nothing works in "Castle." The editing, the lighting, the camera work, the fight choreography, the dubbing, and the dialogue all have the agility of a turkey attempting to take flight with a brick tied to its feet. With nothing to work with, Franco relies on the sort of gimmicky tricks a first year film school student would find embarrassing. Anyone know how many times he relied on zoom shots of the characters' faces? Anyone? Bueller? Must have been, oh, a couple million times. I hear that the crew over at MST3K shot this one down back in the day. It's too bad I missed out on that episode--then again, as funny as those guys are when panning a particularly trashy movie, watching them zip off zingers with this film would require me to watch the movie again. I'm not willing to go that far, not even for the sake of humor.
Why would I dare give this film two stars when it deserves one? Two reasons: Christopher Lee and the DVD extras. I like Lee, as do most cult film fans, I can't see myself impugning his superhuman efforts to elevate this cheesefest to a decent level. As for the extras, they're pretty good. An interview with Franco discusses the problems he had making the movie as well as his relationship to Christopher Lee. According to the director, Lee would accept the role if he could stay in a nice hotel with a good golf course. Hey, at least someone got some enjoyment out of this catastrophe! For cult film aficionados only, give "The Castle of Fu Manchu" a wide berth if you're not used to schlock filmmaking at its absolute worst!
Movie Review: Release the magic crystals and turn on the icemaker...
Summary: 2 Stars
The villainous Fu Manchu is back yet again, this time with a nefarious plot to rule the world involving...making ice? Oh geez...Jesus 'Jess' Franco, Master of the Unnecessary Close Up, not to mention also being the Master of the Useless Zoom In/Zoom Out, and Master of the Pointless Pan Shot, directed this mess of a movie. Christopher Lee reprises his role from the earlier films The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), The Brides of Fu Manchu (1966), The Vengeance of Fu Manchu (1967), and The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968). Also appearing are Richard Greene as Denis Nayland-Smith, Howard Marion Crawford as Dr. Petrie, and Tsai Chin as Fu Manchu's daughter, Lin Tang. While I haven't had an oppourtunity to see all these films, this one, the last in the series, seems weak and probably holds up poorly to the original films, but then that's pretty much what people have come to expect from numerous sequels, each to be worse than the next (personally, I think it should be the other way around, but what do I know?).
With Fu Manchu's return he brings with him some kind of process that can create ice from water...am I blowing your mind? Wait...he demonstrates this early on by creating an iceberg (?!) and sinking a Caribbean ocean liner. The process involves complicated machinery and magic crystals, Pop Rocks, I think...anyway, he kidnaps the scientist who originally developed the process, but the man has a really bad heart, so Fu Manchu also kidnaps a heart specialist to do a transplant. I am not sure why he needed the scientist with the bad heart, the one who created the water freezing process, as Fu Manchu already demonstrated that he had the power to manipulate water, but maybe his process wasn't quite as refined as he would have liked...who knows? The whole movie is filled with moronic plot points like this. Oh yeah, he also takes over a castle in Istanbul, with the aid of a local opium drug lord, who Fu Manchu then betrays because he's so evil. Also, within this very prominent castle resides a high ranking government official, who is quickly dispatched, but no one seems to notice...like ever...oh well...maybe he wasn't very popular to begin with...Nayland Smith is assigned to the case, with Dr. Petrie tagging along, and the chase is on...sort of...thing is, there were just so many characters in this film, and too many pointless plot threads flailing about, smacking the viewer in the face. Combined with an extremely weak plot, pointless dialogue, and amateurish directing, this film became very hard to watch very quickly.
Things that annoyed me throughout the film...Fu Manchu's seemingly inexhaustible supply of disposable henchmen. And where did he get these cut-rate knuckleheads? They obviously couldn't fight, so at least they could have been supplied with firearms...what was with the goofy mood lighting beneath the castle, in the caves? Red, purple and blue lighting? Ugh...it looked like a bad disco...I half expected to see one of those black light posters on the wall at some point. The constant zooming in on character's faces, as though to try and create a sense of suspense...and the camera's tendency to linger on non-relevant scenes for so very long...so much padding...the scenes shot on location looked decent, but they only served to exemplify how cheap and awful the scenes shot on sets were, especially the scenes in the bowels of the castle. There was potential here do to something decent, given the talent of the actors involved, but it was all wasted. I did like the costumes, and Christopher Lee looked suitably fiendish in his full-length robes. Some of the locations were nice to look at, but other than those elements, I couldn't find much else to enjoy in this film.
Blue Underground dose an exceptional job with releasing this shoddy film, providing a number of great special features. There are interviews with the actors and the film makers, a couple of detailed biographies, a nice wide screen picture, facts about the character Fu Manchu and his creator, Sax Rohmer, a poster and still gallery, and even a sweet little reproduction of an original movie poster inside the case.
Cookieman108
Movie Review: Appalling film, great presentation
Summary: 2 Stars
When even Harry Alan Towers admits a film is bad, you know you're in trouble. On the disc's featurette he recalls turning to the amazingly untalented and prolific Jess Franco after seeing the final cut and telling him "You've done something I didn't think was possible: you've killed Fu Manchu." And how...
Badly directed, written, acted, photographed, recorded - heck, I'm willing to bet that even the catering was bad on this one - it's a real ordeal even for the most devoted Fu Manchu fan. If you thought the series couldn't get worse after the astonishing use of black and white stock footage from 'A Night to Remember,' you ain't seen nothin' yet. And not seeing it is probably the best thing to do by far.
But, for Fu Fanatics, the disc is still a must buy, if only for the extras and the presentation. The second of the two-part documentary descends into Jess Franco telling Christopher Lee stories about other films, but the rest of the package is well put together and Blue Underground's transfer is the best the film has probably ever looked (not much of a compliment, it's true). Now, if only they could get their hands on the first three films...
Movie Review: For MST3K fans with an IMDB rating of 3.3
Summary: 1 Stars
That about says it all put the name Jess Franco and you'll know your in for either a dull time or a weird time. His exploitation films like Ilsa the Wicked Warden and others are fun to watch because he at least is able to work around some plot and action with shameless nudity to keep the viewer interested.
This movie has none of it!!!! Also don't get fooled by the other reviews praising this mess, it's a badly acted, badly directed movie that puts the talents of Christopher Lee to shame. This is one of those type of movies that good actors tend to forget about because they stand as a bad stain (See Al Pacino in "Cruising"). There is nothing historical here except another log entry into the bad movie cinema with Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Some trademarks of Franco's ahem "filmmaking" skills are leaving the camera in one place while the action happens outside of it, bad editing, horrible lighting skills, and basically the inability to deliver one effective scene after another. That is about obvious in this nightmare called "The Castle of Fu-Manchu". Some scenes are poorly
lit or just plain dark (when they're not supposed to be!!!"
The plot about Fu controlling the oceans to rule the world is just plain stupid and idiotic and should have been shot down in the film meetings. Idiotically enough Franco thought they we're good ideas and made the movie anyways. The one part that was fun was seeing Fu's Henchman storm a castle and kill of the guards of a wealthy european.
The other parts in the movie were less interesting, although the actress who plays his Asian daughter is really hot. There is nothing to write home about here though. The acting is laughable even by Mr. Christopher Lee himself, and some
of his goons with the Shriner hats just look like idiots.
This is a bad movie that only MST3K lovers will see. This isn't a "cult film" because to be classified as that it would have to have some value and this movie does not have any value. Franco will be remembered as one of the most mediocre European directors ever. His venture to direct horror movies seems more like an exercise into comedy and he can't even begin to be in the same league as Ruggero Deodata or Lucio Fulci.
Movie Review: Do not attempt to watch without the help of MST3K
Summary: 1 Stars
Fu Manchu's evil plan? Control the world's oceans by making . . . ice! I think that was the plot anyway. It's hard to tell since not a darn thing in the movie makes any sense. Fu seems to need some scientist's help, but the man has a bad heart. So Fu kidnaps a heart surgeon and has him replace the man's heart with one from a perfectly healthy young man. So the scientists is still alive, but we never find out why that is so important. He never actually does anything. The British eventually find Fu and foil his plans, but again, how did they find him? The movie is so incoherent. Things happen and get edited in with other scenes of things happening and voila, we have a movie. This had to be Christopher Lee's easiest movie to make. He delivers his lines in a monotone and his face never shows any emotion no matter what happens. The acting is pretty bad from everyone involved but only to keep up with the inexplicably weird direction.
If you feel you must watch this movie, you're taking a college film course or you've made a pact with the devil, then by all means get the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version and at least get some laughs out of the experience.