The Castle of Fu Manchu - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

The Castle of Fu Manchu



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


​

Movie
Less than a year after The Blood of Fu Manchu, Christopher Lee returns as the megalomaniac known as Fu Manchu, a Bond-esque villain intent on world domination. After his hidden lair in South America was destroyed by Nayland Smith (Richard Greene), Fu Manchu has rebuilt his empire in Istanbul, Turkey. There he has discovered a way to turn water into ice, and using this mystical power can sink a ship in the Caribbean (hilariously the film uses unused footage from A Night to Remember with the sinking of the Titanic for this scene. Complete with it being black and white) to show the world that he can disrupt their trade and travel routes at whim.

However, once more, Nayland Smith of Scotland Yard is on the case, traversing over to Istanbul to track down Fu Manchu and put him away for good. Along with the help of his friend Dr. Petrie (Howard Marion Crawford), the duo attempts to penetrate the defenses of the warlord. Add in a kidnapped pair of scientists, a smoking hot female assassin (played by Euro sex symbol Rosalba Neri), plenty of bad acting, and you have The Castle of Fu Manchu.

As is the case with most of these Fu Manchu films, the script is fairly hackneyed, with sloppy writing, a glut of side characters, and subplots that somehow pad the movie out by an extra 20 minutes. And of course, cheap props and special effects that have only become more obvious with the upgrade to 4K. I was literally busting up laughing at the beginning fight scene, with Fu Manchu’s men fighting Turkish guards who have bayonets so obviously rubber that you can see them flopping around on the end of their rifles without even hitting anything.

Strangely enough, Nayland Smith and Fu Manchu’s screen time in the film seems to be reversed from the previous entry. The last film had Nayland pushed to the background in favor of Sancho Lopez and the secret spy of Naylands, because the intrepid Scotland Yard detective was poisoned for most of the movie. This time, Nayland is front and center while Fu Manchu takes a small back seat, except in short bursts. Richard Greene has the most fun here, hamming up the role to insane levels. Fighting men with choreography that would embarrass a high school play, and just generally winking and nodding at the camera. Christopher Lee does the best he can to make Fu Manchu imposing, but let's face it. Fu Manchu has always been a live-action comic book character come to life, ala Ernest Blofield from the original Sean Connery Bond movies. One little bit of nerdy history. Director Jess Franco actually has a moderate-sized cameo as a Turkish inspector, and he has a blast with his 3 minute cameo.

While I wouldn’t say that The Castle of Fu Manchu is worse than The Blood of Fu Manchu, both films are absolute cult schlock films that are painful to watch if you’re trying to view them objectively. Christopher Lee is way above this type of bottom-barrel cinema, but hilariously enough, this isn’t Jess Franco’s worst film. In fact, he’s done a LOOOOT worse over the years, even though I love him to death in these cult horror films. This marked the final entry into Christopher Lee’s 5 film outing as the infamous villain, with the series getting briefly resurrected in 1980, only to fail spectacularly. So while these aren’t exactly high-brow cinema, The Castle of Fu Manchu is a glorious bit of cheese that will most certainly appeal to niche audiences (which I am definitely the target audience for).




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




4K Video: Video:

I never saw the Indicator Blu-ray of The Castle of Fu Manchu, but if it’s anything like The Blood of Fu Manchu, it was the definitive version of the film on home video to date. The 2017 double feature from Blue Underground was using a VERY old and dated transfer that didn’t look so hot, forcing me to sell my old Blu-ray years ago after skimming it. Luckily for us, this new 4K remaster by Blue Underground is light years better, with a wonderful 4K UHD image that hits way above its weight class. When I went into these reviews, I honestly wasn’t expecting too much, but after how pleasantly surprised I was by The Blood of Fu Manchu, I went into this one with higher expectations.

Luckily for everyone involved, those expectations were met. The 1.66:1 framed image is quite superb, with a cleaner and modern modern-looking motif over the wild and woolly look of the previous film. The series has always had a bit of 1960s James Bond vibe going on, but this is probably the most Bond-eseque looking film to date. It has that warm earth tone to it, with slightly ruddy/earthy looking facial tones, and lots and LOTS of neon lights and fog machines everywhere to give it an exotic look. Fine details look good, though I noticed a little bit less fine detail than in The Blood of Fu Manchu. Grain can be a bit heavy throughout, but it’s a nice organic look to it with no signs of clumping or swarming. Black levels look good, but the neon lighting in the tunnels near the end makes things a tad murky in those shots. Outside of a few inconsistent grain levels here and there, the film looks spectacular. Honestly, this is the best I’ve ever seen the flick, and on a technical front, this is just superbly done. Blue Underground outdid themselves with these restorations.





Audio:

Once again, The Castle of Fu Manchu sports a rather simple 1.0 Mono track in DTS-HD MA (around 1.1 Mbps), and it’s not exactly going to knock your socks off, but what else were we expecting from a low-budget Fu Manchu film from the late 60s? Dialog is well done and precise, though I did notice a little bit of a squeak and cracking at higher volume and intensity levels. Ambiance is nice this go around, with an actual score for the film vs. The Blood of Fu Manchu, and while this isn’t going to be a widely dynamic mixing, things are solid enough all the way around.






Extras:

4K UHD Disc
• NEW Audio Commentary with Film Historians Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson
• International Trailer

Blu-ray Disc
• NEW Audio Commentary with Film Historians Nathaniel Thompson and Troy Howarth
• NEW Castle of Carnage – Interview with Stephen Thrower, Author of "Murderous Passions: The Delirious Cinema of Jesus Franco"
• NEW RiffTrax Edition – THE CASTLE OF FU MANCHU Riffed by Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett & Kevin Murphy (75 Mins.)
• NEW EXPANDED! Poster & Still Gallery
• The Fall of Fu Manchu - Interviews with Director Jess Franco, Producer Harry Alan Towers, and Stars Christopher Lee & Tsai Chin
• International Trailer

Final Score: ​

Neither of the Fu Manchu films is going to live on as some of the best movies ever made. Heck, I’ll come out and say it. They’re absolute crap films from beginning to end. But if you’re a fan of schlock/exploitation cinema ala This Island Earth, and want to be your own version of MST3K, then these are amazingly fun films to watch. The Castle of Fu Manchu is the final outing for Christopher Lee as the maniacal Bond-like villain (only one more film was ever made, back in 1980 starring a young Helen Mirren), and sends things out in a bang (as is the usual with these films). Blue Underground has done a superb job restoring these two films and loading them up with brand new extras (both films have the hilarious Rifftrax added as a bonus, albeit on the Blu-ray discs only), and fans of the franchise will want to pick these up.



Technical Specifications:

Starring: Christopher Lee, Richard Greene, Howard Marion-Crawford, Gunther Stoll, Maria Perschy
Directed by: Jess Franco
Written by: Harry Alan Towers, Jaime Jesus Balcazar, Sax Rohmer
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 HEVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA Mono
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Studio: Blue Underground
Rated: NR
Runtime: 93 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: July 29th, 2025

Recommendation: For the Fans

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

​