The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu1980

Name: The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu
Genre: Comedy Horror, Classic Monsters
Released: 1980-08-08
Rating: 4.6

“BEWARE! See this movie - An hour later you'll want to see it again!”

Directed by Piers Haggard

4.6

Crypt Score

Blended from 3 sources

IMDb 4.9Rotten Tomatoes 15%TMDB 4.9

✍ Review

Share this title

X Facebook Reddit Pinterest

Year

1980

Runtime

108 min

Box Office

Revenue (worldwide)

$10,700,000

Domestic

$10,697,276

🏆 2 wins & 3 nominations

The premise

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.

Horror Vault's take

The legendary villain Fu Manchu faces a surprisingly domestic crisis on his 168th birthday when his life-extending elixir is accidentally destroyed, setting off a globe-trotting scramble to replace it. With priceless ingredients to steal and bumbling henchmen to command, Fu must outwit a ragtag coalition of FBI agents and a seasoned nemesis before time — quite literally — runs out. Peter Sellers brings manic, dual-edged comic energy to this late-era send-up of pulp villainy, leaning firmly into absurdist laughs over genuine chills. It's a playful relic of a bygone era of arch, larger-than-life screen villainy.

Content: Racial Stereotyping Reflective Of The Era, Mild Slapstick Violence