Sax Rohmer's The Castle of Fu Manchu (1969)
"The Castle of Fu Manchu" (original title)

An evil Chinese mastermind plots to freeze the Earth's oceans.

Director:

Jesús Franco

Writers:

Jaime Jesús Balcázar (dialogue: Spanish version), Manfred Barthel (screenplay),

Stars:

Christopher Lee, Richard Greene, Howard Marion-Crawford

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Christopher Lee	...	Fu Manchu
Richard Greene	...	Nayland Smith
Howard Marion-Crawford	...	Doctor Petrie (as Howard Marion Crawford)
Günther Stoll	...	Curt (as Gunther Stoll)
Rosalba Neri	...	Lisa
Maria Perschy	...	Marie
José Manuel Martín	...	Omar Pashu (as Jose Manuel Martin)
Werner Abrolat	...	Melnik (as Werner Aprelat)
Tsai Chin	...	Lin Tang

Storyline

The evil mastermind Fu Manchu plots his latest scheme to basically freeze over the Earth's oceans with his diabolical new device. Opposing him is his arch-nemesis, Interpol's very British Dr. Nayland Smith.

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Plot Keywords:

chinese | fu manchu | interpol | disaster | actual animal killed | 

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Taglines:

He's Back!!! The World's Most Evil Man with a Fiendish Plan of Conquest

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Crime | Drama | Horror | Thriller

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Country:

West Germany Italy Spain UK Liechtenstein

Language:

English

Release Date:

1972 (USA)

Also Known As:

Sax Rohmer's The Castle of Fu Manchu

Filming Locations:

Estudios Cinematográficos Balcázar, Esplugues de Llobregat, Barcelona, Cataluña, Spain

Box Office

Gross:

ESP 12,985,224 (Spain)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Balcázar Producciones Cinematográficas, International Cinema, Italian International Film

Technical Specs

Runtime:

92 min 92 min (DVD)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Although credits state that locations were "filmed in Istanbul and surroundings", most of them correspond to Barcelona (Spain).

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Goofs

Despite being set in the 1920s, a 1960s-style car can be seen on the harbor in Istanbul during the sequence where Lin Tang is having her secret meeting on the ferry.

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Quotes

Denis Nayland-Smith: Ah, Petrie.
Dr. Petrie: I'm an idiot, an imbecile and an incompetent dolt.
Denis Nayland-Smith: Did you come all the way to Scotland Yard to tell me that?
Dr. Petrie: I'm terribly excited but I just found it. It's been on my own bookshelf all these years.
Denis Nayland-Smith: [reading] Professor A. G. Heracles.
Dr. Petrie: The world's top authority.
Denis Nayland-Smith: Well, I dare say, Petrie, buy would you explain why this book of yours has suddenly become so important?
Dr. Petrie: Because, his theory may give us the clue that we are desperately searching for. Well, you see, he has a theory, that when...
[...]

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Crazy Credits

Maria Perschy's character is called Dr. Ingrid Koch but on the credits her character's name is given as Marie.

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Connections

Follows The Midnight Summons (1924)

User Reviews

The Fifth and Final of the Series

Castle of FuManchu, The (1968)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

The fifth and final film in Christopher Lee's FuManchu series is considered by many to be the worst but I personally found it so bad that I was able to have a little fun with it. The film has FuManchu (Lee) once again trying to take over the world and by now you might be asking when the guy is just going to give up and go home. Anyway, this time he plans on freezing all the oceans in the world so he kidnaps a doctor to perform an operation on the one man who knows how to do such a thing. THE CASTLE OF FUMANCHU isn't a good movie so you shouldn't go into the film expecting anything other that pure silliness. There's no question this is a bad movie but thankfully it's bad enough to be mildly entertaining but I'm sure most people will be smart enough to hit the eject button by the thirty-minute mark. Once again Lee appears to have only enough energy to cash a paycheck as he's obviously not too thrilled about doing this picture. As in the previous film, Lee pretty much just sleepwalks through the film and offers up very little energy. The supporting cast includes Gunther Stoll playing the doctor, Jose Manuel Martin as an opium dealer and cult favorite Rosalba Neri playing an assassin. These supporting players are certainly one of the few good things in the film. The film has a bigger budget than most Franco pictures but that's not saying too much because we still get all sorts of cheapness including some stock footage from the Titanic picture A NIGHT TO REMEMBER, which certainly doesn't mix well with any of the new footage. The film does have some decent cinematography but there's just not enough here to make it worth viewing. Fans of Lee, Franco or FuManchu are bound to be disappointed with this film, which turned out to be the last in the series.