The Castle of Fu Manchu.

[Neville]

Oh, boy, this one hurt quite a bit. Still lots of fun, can't quite explain the mental breakdown that produces watching present day workmen, boats or cars (from a distance, all be said) in a movie that's supposed to take place in the early XXth century.

Christopher Lee was a joy to watch, as always, but everything arounf him was paper thin. At several points the movie retorts to stock footage, with hilarious results. A damn bursting has several minutes of present day workmen walking around, and a prologue with a ship hitting an iceberg is obviously in B/W, despite the blue tinting.

What else to say? Plot was nonexistant, nothing made much sense here, from Fu Manchu wanting to turn the sea around Istambul into ice (for the eeeeevil pleasure of watching the Turkish ice skate, maybe?) to the people entering all the time into Fu Manchu's castle. They should have been captured at once by Fu Manchu's dakoi, but their numbers seemed to change between shots, sometimes he had a full guard, but in other scenes we barely see any of them.

Oh, and between the Istambul exteriors there are some scenes shot in several Gaudi monuments around Barcelona. It was fun to see Lee walking around them trying to look menacing.

[lester1/2jr]

there used to be a whole genre of "chinese" movies.  mysterious trap doors and murders and whatnot.  and alot of white people acting chinese.  they actually seemed more sort of german dressing chinese.  slow deliberate "wise" speech

[Neville]

So true. I've also watched "Mask of Fu Manchu" (1930) as a double session of sorts, and it's lots of fun, specially because of the implied racist. In a key scene Fu Manchu (Karloff) addresses a whole army urging them to rape white women, and a comic relieve moment features a chinese waiter being interrogated by the heroes, who are only convinced of his innocence when he claims not to have higher education.

The other "constants", like lots of torture scenes, bad makeup, and Dr. Evil moments are present. I've always wondered why bothering to give your enemies ridiculously elaborate deaths if you're not going to be there to enjoy the show. It's not like Fu Manchu is recording them on video.

Whatever, it's part of the fun, it's in the contract you sign when you pick the case from the shelf. And if you like the genre, "Mask of Fu Manchu" is much better that "Castle of Fu Manchu".

[lester1/2jr]

thanks for the tip.  i saw one the other day called "chinatown after dark".  it wasn't bad.  from somewhere in the alpha video bottlomless reissue pile.  For what you pay for a gallon of gas you could probably by 1000 alpha videos