Ameriatch One of the best films i have seen

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Nigel P After the roundly derided 'Blood of Fu Manchu', director Jess Franco once again tackles Sax Rohmer's indomitable moustache twirling super villain. Richard Greene 'guest stars' as sleuth Nayland Smith, and Howard Marion Crawford, in his last performance, plays second hand man, silly old Professor Petrie.As Fu, Christopher Lee is exactly as you would expect – clipped, precise and cool. Under impressive oriental make-up, he conveys moments of anger, complacency and effective degrees of evil. His relationship with far more interesting daughter Lin Tang (Tsai Chin) is slightly more focused than previously, but the most interesting character here is Lisa (Rosalba Meri), 1971's 'Lady Frankenstein'. Lisa is a duplicitous and beautiful creation, often dressed in a suit ("She fights like a man") – and yet, like everyone else here, she is fearfully underwritten and little more than a cypher.Added to that, much of the stock footage that provides the more spectacular moments is generously scooped from other productions, notably a dam-busting scene from 'Campbell's Kingdom' from twelve years earlier.Despite a strong start, this soon dissolves into the kind of muddled plotting that blighted 'Blood…' previously. Although I actually found this slightly more entertaining than that previous film, it is still difficult to maintain interest in events when both storyline and characters are so sketchy.A further entry into the Fu Manchu series was contracted, but due to the drubbing 'Castle…' received both critically and commercially, Fu's promise that 'the world will hear from me again' remains unfulfilled. With a fairly generous budget (most likely due to the further involvement of Harry Alan Towers) and a good cast, it seems to me that Franco just wasn't interested in telling a story about Fu Manchu – and subsequently, the audience felt the same way about paying to watch it.

clinikill What word can I use to describe The Castle of Fu Manchu? I'm really struggling to come up with a word. "Boring"? "Lifeless"? Those two are accurate, but they're not quite what I'm looking for. I'm looking for something more damning and derogatory to describe this godawful movie. Ah-ha, there it is, the word I've been looking for: "godawful".The Castle of Fu Manchu is the final installment of the Christopher Lee-starring Fu Manchu series, and story-wise it's the worst of 'em all. The plot goes something like this: the massively evil Fu Manchu, along with his henchmen and his daughter Lin Tang, plan to destroy the world by turning its seas into ice. To do this, he needs special kinds of crystals to be developed -- crystals made of opium. One man can make them happen, and his name is Dr. Heracles. Fu Manchu kidnaps Dr. Heracles along with a cardiologist, Dr. Kessler and his assistant. Our hero, the incomparable Naylan Smith, a police officer from Scotland Yard, is tasked with saving the kidnapees and taking the detestable Fu Manchu down. There is probably more to the plot, but my memory of this crap show is rather foggy.The plot is so messy that it's hard to really tell what's going on. The character development is so minuscule that the characters' appearances are basically inconsequential. Even Fu Manchu, the main villain of the film, is rarely shown, and when he does appear, the plot barely advances. One particular scene makes absolutely zero sense: the opium crystals are supposed to turn the ocean into ice, but when they are put to use on a dam, they cause the dam's wall to implode and a flood ensues which kills all of the dam's workers. There was no ice to be seen in that whole segment. It is stuff like that that makes this film a very frustrating viewing.The biggest problem with The Castle of Fu Manchu, though, is the pacing. This film is painfully slow. At times it feels like it is moving in slow motion. Among the worst of the tedious scenes is an unbearably slow five-minute heart transplant that could have easily been condensed to a minute. Ironically, this boring film does feature some action. There are plenty of fight scenes, but they are slow, poorly choreographed and fake looking. The slowness makes this 90-minute film feel like a three-hour one. This is perhaps the most boring film I ever seen.There's not much to say about the performances of the actors and actresses. They were just there. Even the late, great, Christopher Lee couldn't improve the quality of this film. His masterful screen presence is nullified due to the lack of development of his character. Tsai Chin, a very pretty and talented actress, also felt bland as Fu Manchu's daughter. The same goes for just about every other character. It's as if everyone phoned in their performances, but I think no matter how much effort was put into this, the plot and general dull atmosphere of the film would make everyone seem dry.The only positive thing about The Castle of Fu Manchu is its photography. There are some very pretty scenic shots of Fu Manchu's castle, which is the main setting of the film. Despite being pretty and colorful, there is a fault to the cinematography: the constant use of zoom. To call this film "zoom-laden" is an understatement. It seems as if during every shot there is zooming in and/or out, and a lot of it is pointless and improves nothing. Despite that, though, the film is very easy on the eyes, thanks to the film's director of photography, Manuel Merino, and the scenery, which at times is picturesque.All in all, The Castle of Fu Manchu is purely and simply a bad movie. There is very little redeeming quality to this flick. I'd even go so far as to say it's one of the worst films I have ever seen. It's not as bad technically as films like "Manos: The Hands of Fate" or "The Creeping Terror," but it's so unbearably tedious that it makes those films seem entertaining. I recommend this film to those who are interesting in really bad movies, because in terms of awfulness, this film does not disappoint.

Red-Barracuda I really feel very out of step with regards to this one because scanning through the other IMDb reviews it became quite obvious that everybody else hated it! I don't really understand the universal dislike though, as this one really didn't seem to warrant this level of abuse. Don't get me wrong, it has problems. The script being a pretty obvious one. The story was very difficult to comprehend. It involved the master criminal Fu Manchu devising a method of turning the oceans into ice by using opium or something. And by way of this he would take over the world. Okay, whatever you say! Yeah, so admittedly, the narrative is a bit senseless.But the thing is, I've seen a lot of Jess Franco movies and I thought this was quite coherent by his standards! In fact, it was from a period in Franco's career where he had more production value at his disposal, so again when people say this is ultra-cheap, I'm thinking it's quite big budget for Jess. I mean, he has even managed to hire Christopher Lee for the title role – I thought he was pretty imposing and well suited to the character to be fair. We also have Rosalba Neri as a gangster chick and she is always worth watching, so again, this is a good thing. Even the blatant lifts from other movies were entertaining enough, such as the whole opening scene that utilises scenes taken wholesale from A Night to Remember. Maybe the pacing could have been better perhaps but this is a constant Franco fault and in here it's no worse than usual. But overall, the film, while being often senseless, did have enough action and Euro cult value to keep me watching. Ultimately, I am probably the idiot for liking this but I guess I'll just have to live with that.

mstomaso It is 1969. Your on your way back to your car at the drive-inn, where your fiancé is happily sleeping off her double shift at the diner and you are about half-way through a film - Folterkammer des Dr. Fu Man Chu, Die (or the Castle of Fu Manchu) - which has already put you through two bags of popcorn and 3 cokes because the popcorn is just so much more interesting, and the worst happens - you can't find your car. Nightmares flash through your mind - maybe your fiancé was so annoyed by the cruelty of your decision to force her into a late night drive-inn triple feature full of Sax Rohmer films so she drove off, or maybe the film got her so upset that she drove off the nearest bridge. Trying to get a hold of yourself, you look up to the screen to verify that you're at the right part of the drive in. No help, all you can see is a smear of dark blue and dark red shadow across the lower part of the screen. After a minute or so, the lighting crew finds the on-switch and some out of focus people show up on the screen. They appear to be three Shriners sneaking up on an Imam who has just begun his afternoon prayer. Still no help. You resign yourself to the fate natural selection has accorded you. You , after all, decided to see this film with your intended reproductive partner, and that choice has probably ruined your opportunity to allow your genetic material to be carried on in the next generation of humans. So you decide to move to California to buy that house on the side of hill overlooking the San Andreas fault where you always wanted to live, and to pursue your dream to rekindle the Fu Manchu series this film killed. More power to you. To be fair, I did not see the touted Blue underground DVD version of the film. Supposedly, this pressing is so much better than what I saw that it is incomparable.Even my television objected to this film. It kept trying to turn itself off, switch channels, etc. It even unplugged the cable converter for a few minutes. Whoever it was that decided that Sax Rohmer's various B-grade stories ought to be made into movies, should be forced to watch all of them in a row - at least once. As they say, garbage in, garbage out. These films are a decidedly acquired taste. And this one is even more difficult to acquire a taste for than Sumuru... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061976/usercomments-8Peruse the IMDb reviews - you will notice that most of the people who write positive reviews for this film do not describe the plot. There are two interrelated reasons for this - (1) there isn't one to be described and (2) they've never seen the film, and simply get a perverse pleasure believing that their opinions might be taken seriously enough to convince people to see the film (a poor assumption, at best). Christopher Lee plays Fu Manchu - an inexplicably powerful meanie who wants something from all of the world's governments (we are never privileged with the knowledge of what in particular he wants, but I couldn't care less anyway), and is threatening to freeze the world's oceans to get it. The technology he is using has been developed by a dying scientist who he has kidnapped, and soon he finds himself having to kidnap a surgeon in order to arrange a heart transplant as well. There are various fight scenes which don't appear to be related to the film and may indeed have been found on a cutting room floor somewhere in the Middle East, or even reused from a previous Rohmer feature (I really expected Sumuru, some of her army of Amazon ninjas, or even Frankie Avalon to show up at one point). There are also a few scenes with Lee standing around looking ominous and using that great voice of his. I am not sure he knew what was going on in the rest of the film, and indeed with that voice it doesn't matter, but these scenes are, nonetheless, the ONLY remotely entertaining aspect of the film. And OH YES lest I forget, there are a few inept 007s who were likely rejected from the extras audition for Casino Royal making some roughly British sounding noises and taking all of this way too seriously.I didn't think it was possible, but this film was even more difficult to get through than Manos: Hands of Fate, and quite possibly should replace it as the worst film of all time. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060666/usercomments-419To state what, in particular is wrong with TCODFM is an easy task - EVERYTHING. The acting is mediocre, the plot is idiotic, the cinematography and editing are so bad that I don't believe TRYING to make a hideous mess of a film would net you anything worse. You'll either laugh hysterically or stare at your screen until you start drooling, unless you take my advice and avoid this. Why did I watch it? I enjoy challenges.