Sometimes I decides to read Jess Franco's biography at Wikipedia and every time I realize how patronizing and sniffy it is, obviously written by someone who's intelligence is on the level of Swedish nazi party leader Jimmie Åkessson. Which says a lot, if you know who that fucker is. Stuff like "In many ways, Franco was the European Ed Wood, in that he churned out an endless array of mostly bad movies filmed on shoestring budgets" and "Franco moved from Spain to France in 1970 so that he could make more violent and sexual films, and it was at this point that his career began to go downhill commercially". I never understood the reason why some people in text that's suppose to be neutral and informative must add their own stupid opinions? Wikipedia isn't a review site, or?
Anyway, this frustrating read made me remember that there's one movie (or two actually) in my collection I haven't seen yet, The Blood of Fu Manchu and The Castle of Fu Manchu. I've tried many, many times to watch Blood, but it's so uninspired I've always turned it off and watched something more alive instead. But as the Franco-fan I am I must see them all - and tonight I did it. I watched Blood from start to finish... and wasn't impressed either. But I suspected that already from the beginning. A movie needs a good hook - this didn't even have the bait.
The story is some nonsense about Fu Manchu (Christopher Lee, of course) sitting in jungle fortress taking out revenge on 20 of his enemies. How? By sending out beautiful women with literally deadly kisses! But one of his victims survive, he's - I think - a boss for some anti-crime organization in London, and he sends out his best agent to finally take down Fu Manchu and save the world. Or something.
The story IS a mess and I'm afraid not much is happening either. This agent is cool, and Götz George is decent in the part, but his character kinda disappears from time to time and there's other characters taking over, including a fat bandit and the stunning Maria Rohm - and I could never figure out why. Everything is very confusing. It's also low on action and adventure, which is very dangerous for being an adventure movie. Fu Manchu sits in his fortress yelling orders to people watching him, then he walks around a bit and then he sits down a bit. That's what Lee does and it's not much fun.
On the good side, The Blood of Fu Manchu looks damn good, with some fine locations and the direction itself isn't bad at all - it's just the boring script dragging it to crap-heaven. Daniel White, another Jess Franco veteran, delivers a fine and glossy score, which saves a lot of of the movie from being totally wasted.
I'm a huge fan of Franco and I love when he goes secret agent/kitch adventure in the 60's - The Girl From Rio is one of my all-time favorites for example - but The Blood of Fu Manchu just doesn't work. Damn pity.
But hey, I always have one hundred more movies from Uncle Jess to watch, I'm sure there's both worse and better productions among them!
"Sometimes I decides to read Jess Franco's biography at Wikipedia and every time I realize how patronizing and sniffy it is, obviously written by someone who's intelligence is on the level of Swedish nazi party leader Jimmie Åkessson."
And the sad part is.....that Åkesson might be in governement next year.....just look at Norway.
Wikipedia is like any other source or encyclopedia......full with subjective views...you know how it is.....stuff that you ike, someone else is going to hate.
"But as the Franco-fan I am I must see them all - and tonight I did it."
That´s exactly the right attitude.....see everything by your personal favorites, not matter how bad everyone else think about it.
"Everything is very confusing. It's also low on action and adventure, which is very dangerous for being an adventure movie."
Heavily edited perhaps...?
"But hey, I always have one hundred more movies from Uncle Jess to watch, I'm sure there's both worse and better productions among them!"
I think so too, good review and thanks, keep digging after hidden Franco films!
Posted by: Megatron | November 06, 2013 at 17:29
I agree that there is really no useful plot, but I really enjoyed it for the photography alone. It's a film made of different bits and pieces of various genres that don't belong together, but I thought it was better than his second Fu Manchu film, and it works in that weird Jess Franco way. The fat bandit bits of BLOOD OF FU MANCHU remind me more of an Italo-Western than a spy movie, and that portion bears some similarity in tone to X-312 FLIGHT TO HELL.
I watched all 5 Fu Manchu films in succession a few years ago. The first is the best (in my opinion), but BLOOD was a solidly fresh approach.
Posted by: Volker Stieber | November 06, 2013 at 18:13