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The Castle of Fu Manchu

Play trailer Poster for The Castle of Fu Manchu PG Released May 30, 1969 1h 32m Horror Play Trailer Watchlist
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Tomatometer 1 Reviews 9% Popcornmeter 250+ Ratings
An Asian villain (Christopher Lee), now in Istanbul, plans to take over the world with a freezing machine.
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The Castle of Fu Manchu

Critics Reviews

View All (1) Critics Reviews
Walter Chaw Film Freak Central Almost all padding, with a few cheap racial stereotypes to spice up the stew. Rated: 1.5/4 Nov 11, 2003 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Andrew L Even The Legendary Sir Christopher Lee couldn't get us excited about pulp fiction's most famous villain (Doctor Fu-Manchu) on the big screen. This is one of Lee's forgotten performances and for good reason, it's a terrible movie that not even Mystery Science Theater 3000 could redeem. Rated 2 out of 5 stars 12/24/22 Full Review Audience Member Jess Franco, come on back to our site! Man, Christopher Lee may rival Donald Pleasence for not being able to say no — I say this with full knowledge that the former turned from Halloween while the latter said yes to that series more than he should have — and here he played Sax Rohmer's "yellow peril" character of Fu Manchu, who is joined by his just as sadistic daughter Lin Tang. She's played by Tsai Chin, who was a Bond girl twice in You Only Live Twice and Casino Royale, topped the music charts with "The Ding Dong Song" and played Auntie Lindo in The Joy Luck Club. Rosalba Neri is also in this and you know, as bad as this movie might be, Rosalba Neri is in it. You should be so lucky as to get to spend 92 minutes with her. This is the fifth and final time that Sir Lee played Fu Manchu, if you can believe that. Also starring in this movie is plenty of pilfered footage, including the entire opening effects coming from A Night to Remember and the dam bursting being taken from Campbell's Kingdom. There's lots of fog, which I appreciate, and a plot about freezing the oceans, which I am also totally down with. Man, is Fu Manchu the good guy? Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review joe m Awful in that badly laughable way which is only redeemed if your watching the MST3K version. But, even there, the fellas struggle to make even this clunker watchable. Rated 1 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Audience Member The new MST3K Netflix original has been released and I decided to expose myself to some of the old episodes available for streaming on Hulu and Netflix (there is a different random selection on each platform). Whether it is Joel or Mike watching these awful movies with the bots I do not envy the torture they are put through. Their snarky comments add some entertainment value, but my ratings are based on the movie's quality itself and not the extra material broadcast from the satellite of love. Absolutely awful! In the midst of making respected Hammer films I had no idea that Christopher Lee appeared in this garbage. This "Castle" picture is the 5th time Lee played Fu Manchu. International money and an international cast in this mess of a movie. Terrible action, acting, dubbing, continuity, and plot. Again I had to skip ahead while streaming looking for some piece of it with redeeming qualities. I found none. Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 02/01/23 Full Review Audience Member Slow-moving Christopher Lee thriller directed cult favorite Jess Franco, minus his usual over-the-top embellishments. Rated 1 out of 5 stars 02/27/23 Full Review Audience Member It truly was awful, the direction was a disaster, the editing was bad, the acting was even worse. I know it's low budget but it was really obvious. Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 02/01/23 Full Review Read all reviews
The Castle of Fu Manchu

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Cast & Crew

Movie Info

Synopsis An Asian villain (Christopher Lee), now in Istanbul, plans to take over the world with a freezing machine.
Director
Jess Franco
Producer
Jaime Jesús Balcázar
Screenwriter
Jaime Jesús Balcázar
Distributor
American Videotape
Production Co
International Pictures Inc. [us], Italian International Film
Rating
PG
Genre
Horror
Original Language
European Spanish
Release Date (Theaters)
May 30, 1969, Original
Release Date (Streaming)
Mar 28, 2013
Runtime
1h 32m
Sound Mix
Mono
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