The Blood of Fu Manchu aka Kiss and Kill aka Against All Odds aka Kiss of Death (United Kingdom-West Germany-Spain, 1968, Blue Underground, 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray, NR, 93 min.). Between 1965 and 1969, Christopher Lee played Fu Manchu in five films, with the two here directed by Spain’s Jess Franco (“Incubus,” “Killer Barbys vs. Dracula”). Lee’s career had him playing a lot of villains, including Francisco Scaramanga in “The Man with the Golden Gun,” Count Dooku in “Star Wars,” The Mummy and Dracula.

In this film, Fu Manchu and his sadistic daughter Lin Tang (Tsai Chin of “Casino Royale,” “Memoirs of a Geisha”) infect 10 women with a toxic snake venom and then send them across the world to impart the kiss of death to Fu Manchu’s biggest enemies. The latter includes Nayland Smith (Richard Greene of “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” “The Desert Hawk”) of England. The poison first makes one go blind and then, weeks later, kills the victim.

After this stage one, Fu Manchu plans to use the venom to launch a global plague in his quest for world domination. Lee, by the way, plays Fu Manchu very even-handed, with no exaggerated stereotypes.

Among the female carriers of death are Maria Rohm (“Venus in Furs”) as Ursula Wagner and Shirley Eaton (“Goldfinger”) as Black Widow.

After Smith is poisoned and blind, he travels to the South American jungle to stop Fu Manchu and obtain a cure, helped by his friend Dr. Petrie (Howard Marion-Crawford of “Lawrence of Arabia,” TV’s “Secret Agent”). Also helping is hunky jungle guide Carl Jansen (Götz George of “Scene of the Crime: A Tooth for a Tooth”), although he gets sidetracked into playing chess with a local official for days. Franco himself plays Inspector Ahmet.

Thrown in for good measure is a band of bandits, led by Sancho Lopez (a buoyant Ricardo Palacios of “Los 7 de Pancho Villa,” TV’s “La banda de Perez”), a Fu Manchu enemy who becomes an accomplice. Lopez actually is the most interesting character, as overall, the film is rather boring most of the time.

This is the unrated European version of the film, some 16 minutes longer, in a new 4K restoration from its uncut original camera negative, with additional scenes of nudity and violence.

Extras include audio commentary by film historians Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson; an archival interview feature that includes Franco, producer-screenwriter Harry Alan Towers and actors Lee, Chin and Eaton (15:05); interview with Stephen Thrower, author of “Murderous Passions: The Delirious Cinema of Jesus Franco” (27:34); a RiffTrax edition of the film with comments by Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy (76 min.); and a poster and stills gallery. Grade: film 2 stars; extras 3.5 stars

Rating guide: 5 stars = classic; 4 stars = excellent; 3 stars = good; 2 stars = fair; dog = skip it

The Castle of Fu Manchu (United Kingdom-West Germany-Spain-Italy-Liechtenstein, 1969, Blue Underground, 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray, NR, 92 min.). Slightly better than “The Blood of Fu Manchu,” due to some solid action scenes and an overall more James Bond sense, the film has Fu Manchu (Christopher Lee) developing the ability to turn water into ice, which he threatens all the countries of the world with.

The opening – borrowed from an earlier film, 1958’s “A Night to Remember” – shows Fu Manchu sinking a loaded passenger ship and the chaos onboard. The film also borrows slightly from the earlier Lee film “The Brides of Fu Manchu.”

The film begins in the south Atlantic Ocean, but soon moves to Istanbul and a castle in Anatolia (actually the structure was in Spain).

In addition to Fu Manchu and his evil daughter Lin Tang (Tsai Chin), other returnees are Nayland Smith (Richard Greene) and Dr. Petrie (Howard Marion-Crawford). Director Franco plays Inspector Hamid this time.

The best action sequence is the destruction of a dam, with workers scrambling for their lives. Again, though, it was borrowed footage, from the Dirk Bogarde film “Campbell’s Kingdom” (1957).  Clearly seen, Bogarde is in the green checked shirt and Stanley Baker is in the red shirt. The film has an explosive ending, as did “Blood.”

The extras are similar, with audio commentary by film historians Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson; an archival interview feature that includes director Jess Franco, producer-screenwriter Harry Alan Towers and actors Lee and Chin (14:01); an interview with Stephen Thrower, author of “Murderous Passions: The Delirious Cinema of Jesus Franco” (21:25); a RiffTrax edition of the film with comments by Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy (75 min.); and a poster and stills gallery. Grade: film 2.5 stars; extras 3.5 stars

The Final Destination (2008, New Line, Blu-ray, R, 81 min.). This is the fourth film in what now is a six-film series and, other than a couple of mass destruction sequences, it does not bring much to the franchise – although the how-they-did-it extras are good.

This time it is Nick (Bobby Campo of “Scream – The TV Series”) who sees visions before things happen. His first takes place at an auto racetrack, which his friend Hunt (Nick Zano of TV’s “What I Like About You”) says he only attends to see a crash. Nick sees cars even go flying into the packed stands, resulting in 52 deaths overall. The staging of the destruction in this vision is very good and includes some awful deaths.

Nick gets Hunt and their girlfriends Lori (Shantel VanSanten if TV’s “The Flash”) and Janet (Haley Webb of TV’s “Teen Wolf”), to leave the venue, along with a few other people they stumble into and security guard George (Mykelti Williamson of “The Purge: Election Year”). Yet, even outside a flying tire beheads one “survivor.”

After online research into previous cases (that is, the previous films), Nick figures out death is coming for the survivors and their only chance is to break the chain, the order of the deaths in his vision. Also, Nick starts having more frequent visions, which are clues into how people are going to die, but without any indication of who the victim will be.

Nick, Lori and George unsuccessfully try to break the chain, while Hunt continues as his obnoxious self. One scary scene involves going through a car wash – because they are scary anyway – with a malfunctioning car sun roof.

The most memorable scene though involves a movie theatre blowing up and then basically wrecking the mall it is located in. Other than that, several of the deaths are way too complicated and several have the usual false would-be causes.

There is hardly any characterization, except for Hunt being obnoxious, and the film, directed by David R. Ellis (“Snakes on a Plane,” “Shark Night”), does not add anything to the overall lore.

The extras, which are much better than the film, include a look at how seven of the deaths were accomplished (22:07); two three-part – storyboard, previz and final versions – looks at the race car crash (5 min.) and the movie theater explosion (6:04); nine deleted scenes (7:16); and two alternate endings, including a Nick sacrifice that appears wrongly placed in the timeline (3:33). Grade: film 2.75 stars; extras 3 stars

Dark Victory (1939, Warner Bros., Blu-ray, NR, 104 min.). The year after Bette Davis won her second Academy Award for her work in “Jezebel,” Davis again was at the top of her craft in “Dark Victory,” playing heiress Judith Traherne, only 23 but dying of a brain disease. She was again nominated for an Oscar, but 1939 was the year of “Gone with the Wind.” The film also received Oscar nominations as Best Picture and for Max Steiner’s score.

Traherne owns horses, including one she believes will be a steeplechase champion. Some what amusingly, knowing what he will accomplish later, her Irish horse trainer, Michael O’Leary, is played by Humphrey Bogart (“Casablanca,” “The Maltese Falcon”). Even less seen is future president Ronald Reagan as playboy Alec.

The male lead is Traherne’s new doctor, neurosurgeon Frederick Steele (George Brent of “Jezebel”), who was about to move to Vermont and do cell research, before she became his patient just before his train was about to leave. He stays and they fall in love, but he withholds the prognosis that her brain surgery will not prevent her dying in 10 months. He says she will be able to act normal until blindness comes near the end.

Get out your handkerchiefs. Extras include audio commentary by film historian James Urisini and CNN film critic Paul Clinton; a discussion of 1939’s bevy of exceptional films (9:33); audio of the Jan. 8, 1940 Lux Radio Theater version of “Dark Victory,” starring Davis and Spencer Tracy (59:12); a newsreel (2:04); the “Robinhood Makes Good” cartoon (7:47); and a short film on Andrew Jackson in 1812 (16:50). Grade: film 3.75 stars; extras 2.5 stars

Gigi (1958, Warner Bros., Blu-ray, G, 115 min.). While Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s “My Fair Lady” still was the toast of Broadway, they were asked to adapt Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette’s “Gigi” novella into a musical film. “Gigi” also was playing on Broadway in a non-musical form. The result was this charming film, which yielded the wonderful songs “Thank Heaven for Little Girls,” “The Night They Invented Champagne,” “I Remember It Well” and “Gigi.”

The film opens with Maurice Chevalier (“The Merry Widow”) as Honoré Lachaille talking directly to the audience as the narrator, before he starts singing “Thank Heaven for Little Girls.” Here the film starts to show off its many outdoors Parisien locations. Honoré is the uncle of playboy Gaston Lachaille (Louis Jourdan of “Octopussy,” “The Swamp Thing”), who frequently makes headlines with his affairs and their endings. Mostly, Gaston says, “Life is a bore.”

However, Gaston becomes intrigued with Gigi (Leslie Caron of “Lili,” “An American in Paris,” the latter also directed by Vincente Minnelli, who directed “Gigi”), after she learns her man-catching lessons from her Aunt Alicia (Isabel Jeans of “Suspicion”) and the three of them have a fun seaside weekend in Trouville.

Other familiar faces in the film are Eva Gabor as Liane d’Exelmans as Gaston’s dumped girlfriend and Hermione Gingold as Madame Alvarez, Gigi’s grandmother, whom she lives with.

Although “Gigi” won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay (Alan Jay Lerner), Best Cinematography (Joseph Ruttenberg), Best Song (“Gigi” by Lerner and Loewe) and Best Score (Andre Previn), the film feels a bit dates at times. And I certainly did not believe it was a film about the raising of a would-be prostitute, as the extras point out repeatedly.

Speaking of the extras, they include audio commentary by historian Jeanine Basinger, with Caron; the complete 1949 French non-musical film “Gigi” (82 min.); a new making-of feature with Caron, who talks about not knowing her singing was to be dubbed by Betty Wand (35:49; contains Caron’s own voice on one song); “The Million Dollar Nickel” short (9:30); and the Tom and Jerry cartoon, “The Vanishing Duck” (7:08). Grade: film 3.25 stars; extras 3.5 stars