Simply A Masterpiece

Expected more

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

There are women in the film, but none has anything you could call a personality.

The first of five films starring Christopher Lee as the Chinese criminal mastermind created by Sax Rohmer, this is enormous fun from start to finish. I have to admit that I was slightly apprehensive before watching the film as Fu Manchu is the archetypal Chinese character of the Yellow Peril era but I need not have worried. Yes, the character is played by a man whose only remotely Chinese attribute is his surname but both Lee's performance and the strong script manage to prevent Fu Manchu from devolving into a racist caricature. The film is very well directed by Hammer veteran Don Sharp and there are some great action scenes and some very memorable visuals.Lee, one of my absolute favourite actors, is never less than completely compelling as Fu Manchu, who is such a frightening figure in part because he never raises his voice. The truly powerful do not need to shout and scream to have their way. He is an amoral genius who wishes to use the poisonous solution that can be obtained from the black hill poppy, which grows only in Tibet, to gain control of Britain and eventually the world. He is a great villain of the old mould. Nigel Green is excellent in the role of his arch-nemesis Denis Nayland Smith and it is a shame that he did not return for any of the sequels, being replaced by Douglas Wilmer in the second and third films and Richard Greene in the fourth and fifth.The film has a very strong supporting cast overall: Joachim Fuchsberger as Carl Jannsen, Karin Dor as Maria Muller, Walter Rilla (the father of "Village of the Damned" director Wolf Rilla) as her father Professor Muller, Tsai Chin as Fu Manchu's daughter Lin Tang, Howard Marion-Crawford as Dr. Petrie and James Robertson Justice as Sir Charles. Like Lee, Chin and Marion-Crawford appeared in all five films. Unlike Hammer's 1961 film "The Terror of the Tongs", there were several actors of Chinese descent who had speaking roles in the film and I appreciated that. Lee played a similar character in that film but I am glad to say that he toned down his performance on this occasion.It was filmed in Dublin and the neighbouring countryside and I recognised a few of the streets. I was on the lookout for street signs in Irish or other things that would give away that it was filmed in Ireland but I couldn't spot any, unfortunately. Unless, of course, you count the inclusion of Irish actors such as the great character actor Jim Norton in one of his first on screen roles and Joe Lynch, who is little known outside Ireland but is well known in the country for his role as Dinny in the long-running soap opera "Glenroe".Overall, this is a hugely enjoyable old fashioned thriller which I enjoyed far more than I expected.

I love action films based on over-the-top characters like the legendary Fu Manchu. If there's a character that screams larger than life, it's Fu Manchu. Unfortunately, THE FACE OF FU MANCHU is not a really satisfying action/fantasy movie. Compared to the vibrant, colorful, sexy and clearly over-the-top James Bond films made during the same time, THE FACE OF FU MANCHU looks cheap, stodgy and uninspired. In fact, at times, I thought I was watching a BBC radio show. So many old actors hamming away expository dialogue within dull sets. Poor production values and unconvincing fight scenes do not help in creating an exciting, exotic action film. Hard to believe this spawned several sequels.

All reference sources cite this as the best of Christopher Lee's Fu Manchu movies. The movie begins with a well-executed (no pun intended) beheading scene, but the rest was very disappointing for me. For one thing, the Fu Manchu character in this movie is not cruel enough, the only instance of cruelty he inflicts on his prisoners is drowning a girl in a tank. Yes, the movie overall has a lavish look to it, but it lacks guts.

Undoubtedly the best of the series of Fu Manchu films produced in the late 60s, well cast and well directed by Don Sharp, who commendably eschewed camp 'Boys Own' heroics to produce a gripping adventure-thriller. Christopher Lee (as one would expect) is suitably menacing and inscrutable as Fu Manchu, even though the emphasis on his hypnotic eyes is an obvious reference to his role as Dracula. The ever-reliable Nigel Green (Zulu)turns in a solid 'Holmes-ian' performance as Fu Manchu's nemesis Nayland Smith, while James Robertson Justice has a memorable cameo as an irascible museum curator.The highpoint of the film is undoubtedly the chilling sequence set in a English village, where all the inhabitants have been killed by poisoned gas. It still sends a shiver up the spine. The first sequel, Brides of Fu Manchu, with Douglas Wilmer as Nayland Smith, is watchable, even though it is basically a retread of the first movie, but the films which followed (especially the two directed by the notorious Jess Franco)are absolutely dire.