Movielogr

Rating: 5.5 stars

Tags

UK warner archive England London heist diamonds

All movies seen on 11/07/2018

View on: IMDb | TMDb

The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu (1980)

Directed by Piers Haggard

Comedy | Crime

Overview

Fu Manchu’s 168th birthday celebration is dampened when a hapless flunky spills Fu’s age-regressing elixir vitae. Fu sends his lackeys to round up ingredients for a new batch of elixir, starting with the Star of Leningrad diamond, nabbed from a Soviet exhibition in Washington. The FBI sends agents Capone and Williams to England to confer with Nayland Smith, an expert on Fu.

Rated PG | Length 108 minutes

Actors

Peter Sellers | Helen Mirren | David Tomlinson | Sid Caesar | Simon Williams | Steve Franken | Stratford Johns | John Le Mesurier | John Sharp | Clément Harari | Kwan-Young Lee | Burt Kwouk | Derek Martin | Philip Tan | Clive Dunn

Viewing History (seen 1 time)

Viewing Notes

This is from 1980?!?  Thought it was the sixties (until Sellers makes an appearance as more himself than Fu Manchu). A movie that could not be made today in the same way with Sellers doing full yellow face as Fu with humor certainly a product of its time. I picked this up mainly for Helen Mirren, wanting a palate cleanser after the disappointing Nutcracker in which she’s in a supporting role. Mirren is lively and fun here but also mostly playing a silly character. Maybe worth seeing for her if one can stomach the intentional racism and orientalism of the production.

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