Starring Christopher Lee, Richard Greene, Howard Marion-Crawford, Gotz George, Maria Rohm
Directed by Jess Franco
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)
The evil genius Fu Manchu infects ten women with a deadly poison and then orders them to deliver a kiss of death to his enemies, including Nayland Smith of Scotland Yard.
The second to last of the Christopher Lee Fu Manchu films and the first directed by Jess Franco is slow-paced but has some decent action sequences and good characterizations by the cast. Unfortunately the story waylays Fu Manchu's adversary Nayland Smith (played by Greene in his first appearance in the series) to a sick bed for most of the picture, focusing instead on agent Carl Jansen (Gotz George), an archaeologist seeking a lost city while at the same time tracking down the whereabouts of Fu Manchu. There's also an evil "king" of a band of bandits, the slovenly Sancho Lopez (Ricardo Palacios) who after engaging in terrorism and debauchery, is captured by Fu Manchu and goes to work for the villain. Despite all this, there are dull patches throughout the film, which were difficult to sit through. Lee is still magnetic in the role of Sax Rohmer's conniving menace, and captures your attention whenever he's on screen, but his screen time is limited.
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