THE CASTLE OF FU MANCHU. (1969) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

THE CASTLE OF FU MANCHU. (1969) BASED ON CHARACTERS CREATED BY SAX ROHMER. DIRECTED BY JESUS FRANCO.

STARRING CHRISTOPHER LEE, TSAI CHIN, RICHARD GREENE, HOWARD MARION-CRAWFORD, GUSTAVO RE, GÜNTHER STOLL, MARIA PERSCHY, ROSALBA NERI AND JOSÉ MANUEL MARTIN.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

This is Christopher Lee’s last film outing as super-villainous arch-criminal mastermind, Fu Manchu, and his last time to don the moustaches, rubber-soled shoes, little silk caps and regal Oriental robes of said villain.

This time around, Fu Manchu has the mad idea of controlling the world by freezing the oceans. Indeed, the start of the film is like TITANIC. He’s holed up in the governor’s castle in Istanbul (he’s taken over the castle) with a view to controlling the biggest opium port in Anatolia.

Now, while it’s no surprise to hear that Fu Manchu has his finger in the drugs pie, this time he actually needs the opium to fuel his ocean-freezing machine. Yes, reader, this is possibly the most far-fetched of all his zany schemes for world domination thus far, but who are we to judge, we who haven’t spent years studying and planning for world domination as Fu Manchu has done?

He needs the help of Dr. Heracles, an ailing scientist with a dicky ticker, to carry out his zany scheme. It’s this doctor’s magic crystals which will freeze the world’s oceans, see? But Dr. Heracles may not live long enough to carry out this mad plan of Fu Manchu’s. What to do, what to do?

Fu Manchu sends his men to kidnap a Dr. Kessler from England and his sexy colleague, a Dr. Ingrid, to perform heart surgery on Dr. Heracles. What would happen if they too got sick?

I suppose he’d just keep kidnapping more and more doctors until he eventually got the job done. But each quack has to be disposed of when he or she has outlived their usefulness, so the blood must flow before long…

English toff Nayland Smith, Fu Manchu’s Interpol/Scotland Yard nemesis, and his tea-drinking companion Dr. Petrie, are back once more to annoy the evil genius Fu Manchu, foil his plans and put the wind up him with their British doggedness and non-giving-up-ness.

Lin Tang, Fu Manchu’s beautiful, cruel daughter, is also here again, to say things like: ‘Father, they’re getting away!’ To which her unruffled Pops invariably answers: ‘They won’t get far.’ He keeps a cool head in a crisis, does Fu Manchu. Either that, or he has a lot of faith in his army of dacoits (bandits) to stop people from absconding.

I love the Fu Manchu Broadcasting System. It’s a lot like the Voice of Terror in the 1942 film SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE VOICE OF TERROR, in which a stern German voice announces catastrophes the Nazis are planning to inflict on the British nation just before they happen. Fu Manchu has great fun threatening the world on his little toy. ‘The world shall hear from me again…!’

I’m sure it will, Fu Manchu, ya crazy loon. I’m sure it will.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books.

THE BLOOD OF FU MANCHU. (1968) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

THE BLOOD OF FU MANCHU. (1968) BASED ON THE WRITINGS OF SAX ROHMER. DIRECTED BY JESUS FRANCO.

STARRING CHRISTOPHER LEE, TSAI CHIN, RICHARD GREENE, HOWARD MARION-CRAWFORD, GŐTZ GEORGE, MARIA ROHM, RICARDO PALACIOS AND SHIRLEY EATON.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

‘The world shall hear of me again…!’

Nowadays we’d probably be making all kinds of noises about cultural appropriation and how white English males should under no circumstances be permitted to play Asian characters in film, but 1968 was a simpler, more politically incorrect, time, lol.

Horror icon Christopher Lee looks surprisingly authentic here as the magnificentally moustached Oriental villain Fu Manchu. Holed up in his Amazonian jungle hideaway with a number of beautiful female slaves suspended from hooks in the ceiling, you’d think he’d have enough to do, recreationally speaking, without wanting to be bothered about world domination as well, but bothered he most definitely is.

Having discovered a novel method of killing known as ‘the Kiss of Death,’ where women bitten by a kind of venomous snake carry the poison in their mouths and can kill chosen males by kissing them on the lips, Fu Manchu is in his gleefully evil element.

He duly dispatches ten beautiful, venom-infected female slaves to go do that voodoo that you do so well, or, in other words, to murder his ten biggest enemies all over the world, including his nemesis, Nayland Smith, in London.

But Nayland Smith is British, you see, and is made of sterner stuff than to curl up his toes and die when kissed by a hot chick. Accompanied by his even more British chum, Dr. Petrie, he pursues Fu Manchu to his jungle hideaway, much to the chagrin of the murderous Asian mastermind.

You simply wouldn’t believe how chagrined Fu Manchu is, lol. He and his drop-dead-sexy Oriental daughter Lin Tang, who’s even crueller than her cold, cruel father, are both apoplectic with rage at the unsporting unwillingness of Nayland Smith to politely succumb to the Kiss of Death like a good fellow.

Have their plans for world domination, using mass-produced vials of the deadly snake venom to kill thousands of human beings, foiled by a couple of tea-drinking, public school botty-whackers? The very idea. Their vengeance will be swift and deadly. Unless of course it’s foiled first, as I said…

My favourite character is the super-English, tea-swilling Dr. Petrie, whom you can totally imagine using expressions like ‘top-hole,’ ‘jolly good,’ ‘old boy’ and ‘what-ho, old chap!’ I love when he says ‘Cold tea and no horses? I wonder why I go abroad!’ Quaite raight, old chap. Quaite raight.

I also love the boozy, rapacious character of Sancho Lopez, the outsized, larger-than-life, lust-and-dust-begrimed bandit, who ends up captured by Fu Manchu and reluctantly working for the splendidly moustached villain.

Ditto the character of attractive archaeologist Carl Jansen, who’s poking about the jungly area looking for the ‘lost city’ that Fu Manchu has already discovered and made his own.

Maria Rohm plays sexy nursie Ursula Wagner, daughter of the archaeological professor who is killed while working with Carl, and she seems warm for Carl’s steaming, sweaty form. Bond Girl and Carry On beauty Shirley Eaton brings sex and evil to the role of one of Fu Manchu’s deadly priestesses.

A few boobies can be seen bouncing around this Boys’ Own-style action-adventure film with a hint of espionage and a soupcon of derring-do, but I would definitely have put in more sex myself.

Fu Manchu lives surrounded by beautiful female slaves who are utterly in thrall and bondage to him. Surely he could have bestirred himself to slip the odd slave girl the benefit of his honourable Oriental boner? Ah well. We can but dream.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books.