The Fall of Fu Manchu

The Fall of Fu Manchu (2003)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Director Jess Franco, producer Harry Alan Towers and stars Christopher Lee and Tsai Chin are interviewed about the final film in the Fu Manchu series, THE CASTLE OF FU MANCHU. Actually, there's not too much said about this fifth film outside that it's horrible and it pretty much killed off this series and any other attempt for another Fu Manchu film. The majority of the 14-minute running time has Franco talking about his working relationship with Lee. The director tells a couple good stories about Lee calling him after making COUNT Dracula and then returning to Hammer for another Dracula film. There's also a good story told about the two working on DARK MISSION, which seems to be a film that has been forgotten all together. This here is the second featurette dealing with the two Fu Manchu films that Franco and Lee made together and it's another winner from Blue Underground. The film manages to tell several great stories and it was rather nice to see Franco get to talk about some of his other films with Lee. There's really no doubt that this fifth film was pretty horrid so why waste time talking about it?