'THE FACE OF FU MANCHU'......YESTERYEAR'S MOST POLITCALLY INCORRECT VILLAIN....

The Face Of Fu Manchu (1965)    Before anybody gets upset.......

         I'm well aware how utterly un-woke and politically incorrect this movie is, with its stiff-upper-lip British-Empire-Vs-The-Yellow-Peril institutional racism.....

         What can I tell ya......using Asians as mysterious, serenely omnipotent villains remained a mainstay of popular pulpy entertainment for literally centuries.  

          BQ's policy here has always been judging these films within the context of their time periods.....and this one's almost as old as the first Bond film "Dr. No", which recently hit its 60 year anniversary.....

          (And I don't know anyone who's given up watching Bond films because Sean Connery slaps girls on their butts and insults the Beatles.....)

          And come to think of it, what's "Dr. No" but a high-tech Fu Manchu movie.....

          So let's all travel back to a 1965 version of 1920's England, where Sax Rohmer's evil mastermind Fu Manchu (the eternal Christopher Lee,) has  taken up residence underneath the Thames, with plans to wipe out London with poison poppy seed gas...(don't ask.)

          This was the first and film buffs agree, the best of five Fu Manchu films produced by the tireless, prolific impresario of international cheapo cinema, Harry Alan Towers. Sir Christopher graced all five even as each subsequent entry grew cheaper and crummier.

          Made at the height of the worldwide Bond craze, this film's liberally stuffed with lengthy judo fights, car chases and scenes of Fu, just like Blofeld, executing disposable minions. 

           The good guys are represented by Scotland Yard inspector Nayland Smith (Nigel Green) and his loyal cohort Dr. Petrie (Howard Marion-Crawford), sort of alternate versions of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. 

            Along for the ride and giving the film genuine international flavor, come two stalwarts from the German Edgar Wallace 'Krimi' films, Joachim Fuchsburger and Karin Dor (who a few years later, as a flaming redhead, would menace Sean Connery in "You Only Live Twice")

            And oh my, let us not forget the stunning Tsai Chin as Fu Manchu's equally lethal daughter Lin Tang. (Chin soldiered on with Lee through the remaining rotten four movies in the series and memorably appeared in the "You Only Live Twice pre-credits sequence....and still with us and working in films today, bless her...)

             Director Don Sharp moves the whole thing along with fairly deliberate speed and Anglophiles won't want to miss a cameo appearance by that  beloved Brit icon James Robertson Justice. Playing an officious museum director, the film rewards Justice with its most priceless line,....("Wait a minute! You can leave the museum littered with dead Chinese!"

             Yes, of course the film's attitudes and atmosphere make it unacceptable by 2022 standards. No debate there.

            But we curators and lovers of pulp cinema take into the account the era and mores that defined these films......and still enjoy "The Face Of Fu Manchu" as antiquated, cornball fun.....which it still is.

            3 stars (***). (But Snowflakes who must exist only in their 'safe spaces' should go nowhere near it.....)