The Face of Fu Manchu is a 1965 British adventure and espionage film directed by Don Sharp and produced by Harry Alan Towers.

It is based on the Fu Manchu novels by British author Sax Rohmer and runs about 94 minutes, blending horror, action, mystery, and spy fiction.

Christopher Lee plays the criminal mastermind Dr. Fu Manchu, who plans to unleash a deadly chemical weapon capable of wiping out entire populations.

Nigel Green plays his determined enemy, Nayland Smith, an investigator who has spent years trying to stop him, and Howard Marion-Crawford appears as Dr. Petrie, another recurring character from Rohmer’s books.

Tsai Chin plays Lin Tang, Fu Manchu’s daughter and one of his most trusted associates, a character adapted from Fah Lo Suee in the original stories.

She returned in the later films and became an important part of the series.

The story is set mainly in London and Tibet.

Fu Manchu’s scheme centers on a poison extracted from the seeds of a rare Tibetan poppy, which he hopes to use in his plan for world domination, though the plot also includes a powerful explosive weapon.

He runs his operations from a secret underground headquarters beneath the River Thames.

Nayland Smith, as always, is determined to stop him before disaster strikes.

Behind the scenes, the film was a British and West German co-production, with most of the shooting done in Ireland.

Much of it was filmed around Dublin, even though the story takes place in England and Tibet.

Kenure House in County Dublin and the historic Kilmainham Gaol, now a popular museum, were both used as locations, and the coastal town of Skerries stood in for parts of the English setting.

The conditions were not pleasant.

The Irish weather was miserable, and several cast and crew members came down with influenza, including the German actor Walter Rilla, who played Professor Hans Muller-Mertens and reportedly became seriously ill.

The screenplay was credited to Peter Welbeck, which was actually a pseudonym for Towers himself, who reportedly paid $70,000 to Sax Rohmer’s widow for the film rights.

Christopher Lee was already famous for playing Count Dracula in the Hammer horror films, and taking on another legendary villain helped cement his reputation as one of cinema’s most recognizable horror stars.

His Fu Manchu makeup took about two hours to apply and was very uncomfortable, especially around the eyes, where it made blinking difficult and restricted his facial movements, so he had to rely heavily on his eyes and voice to convey emotion.

Even so, his imposing look became one of the film’s most memorable features.

This was the first of five Fu Manchu films starring Lee, running through 1969, and he later said he considered it the best of the lot, famously suggesting that the first film should have been the last.

The movie was released in the United States in October 1965, with a New York premiere on November 12, and was shot in Technicolor and widescreen Techniscope.

Its American publicity campaign included an amusing political stunt, with posters around New York showing Lee as Fu Manchu under the slogan “Fu Manchu for Mayor,” inspired by the city’s recent mayoral election.

The posters proved popular enough to be reproduced and sold commercially over the following years.

The film’s success also led to a sequel, The Brides of Fu Manchu, released in 1966, with both Lee and Tsai Chin returning.