The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968)

Director:

Jesus Franco

Writers:

Sax Rohmer (novels)
Harry Alan Towers (story)

Release Date:

24 September 1969 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Crime | Horror | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

Programmed to kill!

Plot:

Fu Manchu inoculates ten women with poison, to kill ten world leaders. |

Plot Keywords:

Poison | Fu Manchu | Death | Blind Man | Assassin

Cast

Christopher Lee	...	Fu Manchu
Richard Greene	...	Nayland Smith
Howard Marion-Crawford	...	Dr. Petrie (as Howard Marion Crawford)
Götz George	...	Carl Jansen
Maria Rohm	...	Ursula Wagner
Ricardo Palacios	...	Sancho Lopez
Loni von Friedl	...	Celeste
Frances Khan	...	Carmen
Tsai Chin	...	Lin Tang
Isaura de Oliveira	...	Yuma
Shirley Eaton	...	Black Widow

Also Known As:

Against All Odds (USA) (video title)
Der Todeskuß des Dr. Fu Manchu (West Germany)
Fu Manchu and the Keys of Death
Fu Manchu and the Kiss of Death
Fu Manchu's Kiss of Death (International: English title) (literal title)
Fu-Manchú y el beso de la muerte (Spain)
Kiss and Kill (USA)
Kiss of Death (USA) (video title)

Runtime:

92 min | Germany:82 min | USA:94 min (DVD)

Country:

Spain | West Germany | UK | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:M | UK:15 (uncut version, re-rating) | Singapore:M18 | Argentina:16 | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 (cut) | USA:M (original rating) | USA:PG | West Germany:18 | USA:Unrated (DVD uncut version)

Filming Locations:

Madrid, Spain

Company:

Ada Films

Trivia:

'Richard Greene' replaced Douglas Wilmer.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Fantastic Fantasy Fright-o-Rama Show Vol. 1 (1996) (V)

Just about passable junky adventure from Franco

I bought this one in a 2 DVD set with the Castle Of Fu Manchu, thinking that the combination of Christopher Lee and 60's era Jesus Franco would be a bit of a winner. Sadly the reviews all said otherwise and I haven't even watched Castle Of Fu Manchu yet. Tis one I thought was basically not a very good film, but it sorta held my attention and was a lot better than I thought it would be. It does not start too well and quit early on reveals its biggest weakness, really badly done action scenes. Franco may be good at a lot of things, but setting up and then filming fights or any action sequences is not one of them. Pretty much all of the action in this one ranges from just about amusingly bad to plain putrid and sadly, there are a fair few action scenes. Its a shame, because outside of this glaring fault, the film isn't too bad. The story is good, and though Fu Manchu isn't a well drawn character in this film Christopher Lee at least imbues the part with sufficient Oriental malevolence. Richard Greene performs quite nicely as the heroic Nayland Smith and I was entertained by Ricardo Palacio as the bandit Sancho Lopez. Some of the dialogue is quite fun and the film moves at a good pace. The scenes in Fu Manchu's lair have a neat sleazy edge to them, and throughout the film there are moments when Franco is more in his element and things go quite well. Although he doesn't have the most coherent style he is often able to pick out strings of nice visual moments that convey the impression of events with a certain enticingly lurid feel without actually filming the events properly. For example, when Sancho Lopez and his men occupy a village the camera picks out lots of fragmentary happenings, creating a sense of chaos from a skein of fleeting moments in quite an intriguing fashion.It looks cheap, but Franco makes it work somehow. Unfortunately, regardless of the nice moments spattered throughout, the film ultimately relies on a conventional adventure plot and exciting scenes and this just isn't Franco's area of expertise, so the film ends up slowing down in terms of interest inmost of the places it should be speeding up. Plus, there are plenty of bits of standard ineptitude, without the overarching surreal feel of his better works to mitigate it. So, ultimately this is hard to recommend to anyone but die hard France addicts and undemanding trash fans. There are certainly worse films out there, but this still ain't great.