Jess Franco's Fu Manchu films

[Haze]

I was curious as to whether anyone around here could give me some helpful information (opinions on quality and entertainment value) on these two films:

The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968)
Castle of Fu Manchu (1970)

Are they interesting? Funny? Stupid? Bad? Good? Whatever. If anyone can help, please chime in.

The movies are available through Blue Underground's DVD transfers, of which I am thinking of buying.

[Chris K.]

Jess Franco likes "pop", and that is what THE BLOOD OF FU MANCHU and THE CASTLE OF FU MANCHU are: silly spy/thriller films. They are fun in that no-braner sort of way. And the transfers from Blue Underground are superb! And if you are willing to shell out some extra cash, THE BLOOD OF FU MANCHU and THE CASTLE OF FU MANCHU are also available in 'The Christopher Lee Collection', which has the non-Jess Franco film CIRCUS OF FEAR and the better-than-average Franco pic THE BLOODY JUDGE.

[Vermin Boy]

"Castle" was featured on an episode of MST3K; the writers of the show always considered it to be one of the worst movies they ever did (I saw it years ago, but I don't remember a thing about it).

[I luv dolma]

Jess Franco is seriously one of the worst directors ever. I say this, ONLY  HAVE SEEING ONE OF HIS FILMS! Oasis of the Zombies. I bought it from amazon.com knowing it was the sequel to Zombie Lake (which is the most unintentially funny zombie movie of all time) and thinking of course Oasis of the Zombie would be just as funny. I was dead wrong. I tried watching and fell alseep. I woke up to see the DVD back at the title menu, and I felt like I had a hangover from a night's of hard drinking. A couple of months later I took the DVD back out from my desk and tried watching it again, I didn't make it 15 minutes into the movie. 15 minutes felt like 15 weeks. THE MOVIE SUCKS!

[Yaddo42]

I saw one of the Fu Manchu's on TBS years ago (when they still had their afternoon movie). Not sure which one or waht it was about, I just remember thinking how odd it was to have the very English Christopher Lee playing Asian criminal mastermind Fu Manchu. Elsewise it made no impression.

The only other Franco film I've seen all the way through was "Count Dracula", great cast nice attempt to follow the novel in some early scenes, but falls apart the further you go and it is seriously hurt by having no budget. Murky sound, natural (nonexistent) lighting, and the whole thing looks like a home movie shot with my grandmother's old home movie camera.

I'd still like to see his attempt to make a Dr. Mabuse film though. The descriptions on IMDB sound cheesy fun bad and worlds away from even the pulpy German ones from the 1960s.