12/04/2025

CHRISTOPHER LEE VS NIGEL GREEN IN 'THE FACE OF FU MANCHU'

Christopher Lee and Deborah DeLacey in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU Year: 1965 Rating: ***

In BEAT GIRL, Christopher Lee played a sleazy nightclub owner where his even more slimy manager berated girls into becoming strippers... and here the always-intense Nigel Green is in opposite camps of Lee's titular FACE OF FU MANCHU: the one and only time as Sax Rohmer's Scotland Yard Inspector Nayland Smith...

Later replaced by a more classy and dignified Douglas Wilmer, Green's the first and overall best lawman/adversary since he really seems to completely detest Asian mastermind/super-criminal Fu Manchu...

Karin Dor in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU with Nigel Green

Where Christopher Lee kidnaps a scientist to transform a deadly black poppy to poison England's gigantic Thames River... which is soon a double-kidnapping as the scientist's beautiful daughter Karin Dor is also held hostage...

Making the first half the most intriguing before the investigation drags with too much expository dialogue and not enough of the initial James Bond franchise style fights... that Nigel Green and his Watson-like sidekick Howard Marion-Crawford passively experience through muscularly resilient German gent Joachim Fuchsberger...

Tsai Chin and Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

Taking away from Nigel's central hero, and, somewhat resembling Lee's Hammer adversary Peter Cushing, he has the fervency of a cornered cat... while Fu Manchu's gorgeously ferocious Asian daughter Tsai Chin complains to daddy about not having enough to do...

Which occurs in the next, and overall best of the franchise, BRIDES OF FU MANCHU, where the hypnotizing of beautiful starlets is the focal-point compared to this more cerebral, handsomely-produced science-fiction-crime-thriller that hasn't enough chills for the stakes that are ultimately raised.

From THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
From THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Karin Dor in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Karin Dor and Joachim Fuchsberger in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Karin Dor in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Karin Dor in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Karin Dor in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU with Nigel Green
Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Walter Rilla in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Tsai Chin and Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Karin Dor in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Karin Dor in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Tsai Chin in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Tsai Chin in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Tsai Chin in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU with Karin Dor and Deborah DeLacey
Karin Dor in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU with Karin Dor and Walter Rilla
Deborah DeLacey in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Deborah DeLacey in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU with Karin Dor and Walter Willa
Nigel Green, Howard Marion-Crawford and Joachim Fuchsberger in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Tsai Chin and Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Tsai Chin and Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Tsai Chin and Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Tsai Chin and Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Tsai Chin and Christopher Lee in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Nigel Green in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Deborah DeLacey in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Christopher Lee and Deborah DeLacey in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU with Tsai Chin
CHRISTOPHER LEE in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU
Walter Rilla and Jim Norton in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU

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