The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968) (NTSC)

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Video (NTSC)		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.66:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.66:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The first three Fu Manchu films were produced by Harry Alan Towers with British and German financing. The series seemed to have run its course after The Vengeance of Fu Manchu, but Towers brought the character back, moved the production to Spain and hired prolific exploitation director Jess Franco to direct two new entries. Christopher Lee was enticed back to play the evil criminal mastermind. One wishes he had begged off, but as he points out in the interview on this disc he had mouths to feed.

    In this fourth instalment the fiendish doctor has moved his base of operations to an unspecified South American location. Here he has extracted via torture the secrets of the Kiss of Death. No, it isn't Lou Richards, and there's no sign of a cackling Richard Widmark to push a wheelchair-bound victim down a flight of stairs. This kiss of death is the one which a group of mesmerised slave women can give to the enemies of Fu, having been bitten by the black cobra. Exactly how the women do not die from the bite but manage to store the venom in their system and transmit it via a kiss on the lips remains unexplained. But anyway, one femme fatale is despatched to London to do her evil work on Fu's arch-nemesis Nayland Smith (Richard Greene). And so she does. The effect of the poison is to render Nayland Smith blind and unable to act, and he has until the full moon to find a cure with the aid of the good Doctor Petrie (Howard Marion Crawford).

    Meanwhile in the jungle an expedition led by Dr Wagner is ambushed, and the sole survivor is Carl Jansen (Götz George). Jansen, Petrie and the late doctor's daughter Dr Ursula Wagner (Maria Rohm) set off to seek out Fu's lair and find a cure for Nayland Smith before it is too late.

    This is somewhat better than the last of the Fu series with Lee, mainly because it has a relatively coherent storyline. On any scale of quality film-making though it fails to register. There is no suspense or excitement and some of the acting is absolutely dreadful. The former Robin Hood Greene is perhaps the worst offender, delivering his lines with such deliberation that he seems to be reading from a script that he has not seen before. Marion Crawford looks haggard and, to be frank, as though the flask of cold tea he drinks from contains something much stronger. Rohm was probably cast due to being married to the producer, though she acquits herself reasonably well - she is not called on to emote. George is now regarded as something of a senior statesman in the German cinema and has done much better work than this, such as his role based on the life of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss in Death is My Trade. Here he is unremittingly dull and is called upon to enact some of the worst-staged fight scenes in the history of the cinema.

    If that wasn't enough we also have a transplanted Mexican bandit, Sancho Lopez, played by Ricardo Palacios whose filmography includes appearing as a bartender in the last two entries in Sergio Leone's Dollars series. Here he seems like he mistakenly wandered in from the set of a spaghetti western.

    Apparently the scenes involving Christopher Lee or Richard Greene were shot in Spain, while the jungle work was done in Brazil. Lee is not menacing at all as Fu, nor is Tsai Chin as Fu's evil daughter. Fu's apparent personal inertia cripples the film, as all of his dirty work is carried out either by the fair maidens with the death kiss or a particularly inept bunch of Dacoits. If Fu had actually done something rather than just order people about, and had personally menaced someone, the film might have been much better. It's a strange film when the hero and villain both spend most of the movie doing very little indeed.

    The credits list Shirley Eaton as appearing in the movie, but her brief bits seem to have been off-cuts from the second of two movies made by Towers about the criminal organisation Sumuru, and seem jarring when inserted here. Sumuru was another invention of Fu's creator Sax Rohmer, though hardly as successful.

    Incredible as it may seem, this film is a masterpiece when compared to the last effort in the series. A review of the DVD of that movie is forthcoming.

Video

    The film is presented in the original aspect ratio of 1.66:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. It is also an NTSC transfer. I believe that the distributor has merely imported the US release from Blue Underground, which was coded for all regions and so can be played in Region 4 without too much difficulty.

    This transfer is probably as good as the film will ever get, and more than it really deserves. The video is sharp and there is plenty of detail, though some of this is achieved through the use of edge enhancement. There are film artefacts, mainly small flecks which appear in bunches from time to time. In some of the darker sequences a lot of dust is visible, and there are occasional light blemishes.

    Some of the darker sequences show what is either excessive grain or low level noise, such as at 0:50. Colour is reasonably good, with flesh tones appearing natural for most of the running time. Black levels are also good. However there are problems with the red portion of the spectrum, with the bright scarlets far too saturated. In some sequences this results in a sort of 3-D effect, and is quite distracting. Shadow detail is average to poor, with some dark sequences losing some visual information.

    No subtitles are provided.

    The disc is RSDL-formatted with the layer change well hidden at 52:14.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The sole audio track is English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono.

    There is nothing particularly wrong with the audio. Dialogue is clear for the most part, though some of the accents are a little difficult to decipher. There is no significant distortion or hiss present. That being said the audio is quite flat and lacking in life. There is also a slight edge to the sound, which could be the result of noise reduction filtering.

    Part of the lifelessness of the audio could be due to the fact that the soundtrack seems to be entirely looped. While the principals' voices are their own, there are slight variations in audio sync and the dull acoustic sounds studio-bound.

    The music score by Daniel White deserves special mention, mainly because it is so bad. There are dramatic crescendos that are way over the top and ill-timed, and there is also some banal Latin dance music. One of the worst scores I have heard in a long time.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Main Menu Introduction

    A brief introduction with deliberately distorted video and the chilling voice of Fu Manchu.

Main Menu Audio

    The menu features audio from the score.

Interviews-Cast & Crew-The Rise Of Fu Manchu (15:03)

    Blue Underground have gone to some trouble to produce extras for the two Fu films they have released. This disc contains some interviews with surviving cast and crew. First up is Jess Franco, speaking in French (there are subtitles), who doesn't so much defend the film as defend Towers and criticise Lee's attitude towards the movies he was in. Lee quietly describes his reasons for making the film (money and travel) and talks about the troublesome makeup he was forced to wear. Tsai Chin discusses her issues with the depiction of Chinese characters, while Towers has only a couple of brief things to say. Shirley Eaton didn't make any films or TV series after the second Sumuru film, so to see her again after 35 years is welcome, though it does show how much she has aged. She only has scathing things to say about her 'participation' in the movie.

    This extra is in 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.

Theatrical Trailers (4:40)

    Two trailers are included, both in widescreen and 16x9 enhanced. First up is the international trailer, which is in good condition, followed by the slightly sleazy American trailer in considerable worse condition. The film was retitled Kiss and Kill for the American release. According to Leonard Maltin the film was released in black and white in the US, but this trailer is in colour.

Gallery-Posters And Stills

    A selection of posters from various countries plus a lot of stills, almost all of which feature Maria Rohm.

Notes-The Facts Of Fu Manchu

    A lengthy text extra which includes a history of the character and its creator, plus a complete list of the original stories.

Biographies-Cast & Crew

    Long and informative text biographies and filmographies of Christopher Lee and Jess Franco.

Booklet

    The four-page booklet contains a two-page essay by Tim Lucas, which contains similar information to the text notes on the disc.

    As the Region 4 appears to be the Region 1 release then the choice of where to buy it comes down to price and convenience. The advantage of the distributor having imported these discs is that they are not defaced by brightly-coloured classification markings.

    The Region 1 disc is also available as part of a set of Lee potboilers, including both Franco Fu Manchu movies, Circus of Fear and The Bloody Judge. Each is available separately.

    A mediocre entry in the Fu series, but it gets a fine presentation on DVD.

    Only colour saturation problems with the video are significant.

    The audio is a little strident at times but quite acceptable.

    Not a huge number of extras, but very relevant and probably more than the film deserves.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall