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The last time I saw this was almost 7 years ago, and all I could remember was that Nayland Smith goes blind and that it was very boring. Having been initiating myself into the Franco cult though, I actually enjoyed this quite a bit on my second viewing. It's impossible to accept Christopher Lee as an Asian man, but he still makes for an imposing villain. I also liked the supporting character of Carl Jansen, even though he makes some pretty boneheaded decisions. Unfortunately the character of Sancho Lopez really hinders my enjoyment of certain scenes. I think he was supposed to be a likable jerk in the Tuco tradition, but Ricardo Palacios lacks the charisma to remain sympathetic even while doing bad things. Franco milks the budget for all it's worth, and there are only a few telltale signs of how meager his means were (such as a little cave being shot from many angles to suggest a huge fortress). I was also surprised at how well he did with the action scenes.
My favorite thing about Blood of Fu Manchu were some of the oddball touches throughout. There's a Mayor who detains Carl Jansen for three days simply because "good chess players are hard to come by", and the delightfully whiny Dr. Petrie. To give you an idea of what a sod this guy is, he actually whines about not being able to reach his thermos full of tea when stuck in Fu Manchu's dungeon. And at one point he complains about the South American climate, berating himself for having gone there in the first place. This despite the fact that his reason for coming along is the impending death of his friend Nayland Smith! This film may have a lot of haters, but I really enjoyed it.
(I also noticed a major connection with another Franco film. Both this and The Demons feature women dealing out kisses of death, though The Demons deals with it in a darker manner. I wonder if this pops up in any other Franco films. In this case it could just be an incidental connection, since this film was written by Harry Alan Towers.)
score 6/10
lonchaney20 19 July 2010
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2282024/ |
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14-3-2021 18:06:04