The Face of Fu Manchu **** (1965, Christopher Lee, Nigel Green, Tsai Chin, Howard Marion-Crawford, James Robertson Justice, Walter Rilla, Joachim Fuchsburger, Karin Dor) – Classic Movie Review 2945

Director Don Sharp’s brisk and entertaining 1965 British-West German crime thriller horror movie is the first and best of five Twenties period thrillers featuring Christopher Lee as Sax Rohmer’s dastardly super-villain character Fu Manchu, who surprisingly returned to great favour and popularity in the James Bond Swinging Sixties era. The series is produced by the legendary Harry Alan Towers, who also writes the screenplay under his pseudonym as Peter Welbeck. 

Lee dishes out the villainy with a practised hand in a typical plot about the super-villain seeking world domination. Nigel Green makes a fine adversary as Scotland Yard Inspector Nayland Smith, who has witnessed Fu’s execution but thinks he may still be alive in the wake of a series of strangulations in London. Clues lead back to the River Thames when a killer spray made from Tibetan berries is suspected.

The atmospheric 1920s sets and period details and Ernest Steward’s Technicolor cinematography really give the film a lift, as do the star support turns of Tsai Chin as Fu’s daughter Lin Tang and Howard Marion-Crawford as Dr Petrie, who became series regulars.

It also stars James Robertson Justice, Walter Rilla, Joachim Fuchsburger and Karin Dor. Also in the cast are Harry Brogan, Poulet Tu, Edwin Richfield, Archie O’Sullivan, Joe Lynch and Ric Young.

The first sequel is The Brides of Fu Manchu in 1966.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2945

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