Tentative and dull, but worth seeing for Lee and Chin

mido505

The Blood of Fu Manchu has very little going for it other than the fact that Sadean director Jess Franco seems to want to make the evil Chinese mastermind and his deliriously malevolent daughter, Lin Tang, the heroes of the film. Having been reduced to cameo status in the turgid previous entry in the series, The Vengeance of Fu Manchu, star Christopher Lee is now given plenty of screen time, numerous loving close-ups, and plenty of over-ripe dialog. He responds with a wonderfully spirited performance that is a joy to behold. Conversely, ostensible hero, Nayland Smith, played by a wooden Richard Green, is reduced to blind impotence, and sidekick Dr. Petrie comes across as a sputtering buffoon. The usually exciting climax is here rushed and perfunctory, as if Franco could not bear to kill off his villains. Franco never comes to grips with producer Harry Alan Towers' dreadfully wordy and convoluted screenplay, and the film bogs down for long periods of time in pointless sub plots and banal 'action' sequences. Fortunately, in the next and last film in the series, The Castle of Fu Manchu, a more confident Franco throws all caution to the wind and focuses almost entirely on Fu and Lin Tang, ironically, in the process, killing off the series forever.

score 7/10

mido505 2 July 2005

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1116868/