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Absolutely Fantastic

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Dr Fu Manchu – along with Bulldog Drummond – is now a bit of a hot potato in adventure fiction and a liberal shorthand for the shockingly racist excesses of our past culture. Indeed, Sax Rohmer's books – initially a trilogy in the mid-1910s before several more appeared in the '30s – were borne out of a xenophobia for East Asia grandly termed 'the Yellow Peril' and were offensive to some even then. Surprisingly, the character himself rarely showed up in his own franchise. Most of the action followed his enemies, the Holmes and Watson avatars Sir Denis Nayland-Smith and Dr Petrie, in a series of exotic, ludicrously pulpy plots.The 1960s saw contentious producer Harry Alan Towers revive the character for a cycle of five independent British films so cheesy that the ushers must have handed out crackers on the way in. Christopher Lee – best known at the time, of course, as Dracula in several wonderfully schlocky Hammer productions – played Fu Manchu in yellow-face in what basically amounted to a series of extended cameos. The Holmes and Watson connection remained with the starring of Douglas Wilmer, who had played Holmes on television for the BBC, and Howard Marion-Crawford, who had been Watson to Ronald Howard's Holmes in the drily amusing 1954 TV series. This third film jettisoned the director of the first two films, Don Sharp, and replaced him with Jeremy Summers, who had made the deservedly obscure Gerry and the Pacemakers film Ferry Cross the Mersey but also episodes of many of my favourite ITC series.The plot in this one is thin but does the business sure enough. After previous encounters with his English foe, Fu Manchu is so hungry for vengeance – hence the title – that he forces a plastic surgeon to change one of his servants into a doppelgänger for Nayland Smith. As the servant is also Oriental, we get a reverse Gustav Graves from Die Another Day.Is it me or do many of these bad-guys make the most unreasonable demands? So while the real Nayland Smith is captured and brought to Fu Manchu's wilderness lair, the lookalike replaces him, moves around like a robot and commits murder. He is then arrested, tried and scheduled to hang, thereby ruining Nayland Smith's reputation as one of England's finest. Fu Manchu plans to do this to several other prominent law-enforcers across the world, thus undermining that whole law and order thing that bothers him so much. Meanwhile, he plays host to a seedy man in a cowboy hat who is apparently – and this bit I loved – the Ambassador of the American Underworld.There's a fair bit of filler, of course – a boring meeting with Interpol, a nonsensical fight on a boat, a sprawling bar fight with sailors, an FBI character who does nothing at all and an unnecessary lounge number – but there is some surprising shots of the Chinese mountains and a couple of exciting ninja scenes which, while doing nothing for the Bruce Lee fan, does bring the energy up. Christopher Lee is listless as ever while Douglas Wilmer somehow keeps his dignity while he is bundled into a crater, a prison cell and a hay cart and inexplicably walks around with what appears to be a door around his neck. It's all wonderfully silly and, despite lagging at some points, is exciting enough. As long as you're in the mood for some cheesy fun, it's worth a watch.

The third outing for Christopher Lee's oriental tyrant (following on from THE FACE OF FU MANCHU and THE BRIDES OF FU MANCHU) is starting to wear a bit thin even in my tolerant expectations as the plot is simply rehashed again from the first two films (and there are still another two to go in the series!). I mean how many times can we go through the same old 'kidnapped scientist' scenario? Still there are a few minor thrills and chuckles to be had for those of us who are fans of this kind of '60s wackiness, and of course the nostalgia to be had from any of the items from this jam-packed decade of cinematic obscurities.This time around the comic book style is even more apparent than normal, with a bare minimum of plot merely serving as a basis for a series of fights, scraps, and one or two huge brawls. Once again these fight scenes are a lot of fun, but there are lots of other familiar ingredients in the film to enjoy too. These include strangulation, hypnotism, a fairly explicit decapitation, some torture (the rack and branding irons are brought into play) and much, much more. Obviously the changing, more liberal attitudes of the decade are evident here in the increased violence content, and now evil Chinese minions are stabbed on screen instead of off.The acting is all up to standard, and if the characters are clichéd, at least they're fun. Douglas Wilmer reprises his role as the heroic Nayland Smith, this time with grey hair after his tiring skirmishes with the yellow peril, and his wooden acting is spot on when he has to play a mindless double of his real self. Tsai Chin is wicked as Fu Manchu's daughter, while Christopher Lee has better makeup this time around (his slanted eyes are far more prominent) and is fun as always. Any film which has a character replaced by an evil double deserves to be watched, in my book at least.

A pretty silly but nonetheless entertaining entry in the 1960s Fu Manchu series. Christopher Lee is back (though with scarce screen time) as the nasty master criminal out to seek vengeance on his stalwart nemesis Nayland Smith (Douglas Wilmer). Not particularly suspenseful and featuring one too many poorly choreographed fight scenes, it's still fun to watch Lee chew the scenery. This time out, he's hiding in a fortress in a remote part of China, plotting his revenge on Smith while forging a criminal partnership with an American gangster. Wilmer is OK and Tsai Chn is back as Lee's equally nasty daughter. Future Jess Franco superstar Maria Rohm plays a nightclub singer performing a couple of songs (badly).

Evil Oriental mastermind Fu Manchu (CHRISTOPHER LEE) and his daughter in crime Lin Tang (TSAI CHIN) return to their ancestral China from where they plot their latest diabolical scheme for world domination. First they create an explosion causing a rocky mountain to subside, thus creating the illusion that all communications have been cut off between the village that neighbors Fu Manchu's palace and Shanghai. Secondly they abduct a renowned plastic surgeon called Dr Lieberson (WOLFGANG KIELING) and force him to create a double of Nayland Smith (DOUGLAS WILMER). The real Smith is subsequently abducted and brought to Fu Manchu's palace. Meanwhile, the double who is a prisoner under a deep state of hypnosis kills Smith's housekeeper and is subsequently arrested, tried and hanged for the crime. Fu Manchu is delighted as the whole world thinks that Nayland Smith was a psychopathic killer and his reputation is posthumously ruined. While all this is going on, Fu Manchu will have the pleasure of murdering the real Smith on the quiet. A wanted American criminal mastermind called Rudolph Moss (NOEL TRETHARNAN) has recently arrived at Fu Manchu's palace with a pact signed by the world's criminal bosses agreeing to the Yellow Peril becoming their leader. Fu Manchu plans to use Dr Lieberson to create further doubles of all the criminals' enemies and give them the same treatment as he intends for Nayland Smith. Smith must escape, clear his name and stop an international murder spree erupting.THE VENGEANCE OF FU MANCHU was the third of producer Harry Alan Towers' series of international productions starring Christopher Lee as Sax Rohmer's fiendish Oriental mastermind. Don Sharp had directed the first two films in the series, but Jeremy Summers took over for this one entry. Summers was essentially a TV director who occasionally made feature films. These include the Gerry & The Pacemakers movie FERRY CROSS THE MERSEY (1965) and the Tony Hancock vehicle THE PUNCH AND JUDY MAN (1964). On TV he has directed episodes of such British cult classics as JASON KING and RANDALL & HOPKIRK (DECEASED) as well as contributing to notable UK soap operas such as CORONATION STREET and BROOKSIDE. Summers' father was Walter Summers who directed the notable Bela Lugosi horror film THE DARK EYES OF London (1939). Incidentally, this was the first film in the UK to receive the "H" for horrific certificate in Britain. The film marks first step down the slippery slope of the series' degeneration into becoming shambling nonsense. The script is both poorly plotted and confused. Matters are not helped by an unwise emphasis on torture and sadism like when Fu Manchu brands Liebrson's daughter (MARIA ROHM) with a branding iron in order to force him to carry out his demands. These scenes are disheartening and make one wish for the return of the light direction of Don Sharp in THE FACE OF FU MANCHU (1965). The production also has the air of being a half-hearted effort all round as most of the performances are all at best average with the possible exception of Tsai Chin whose portrayal of Lin Tang is still undeniably evil without any sign of remorse in her actions. The direction is coherent and well-paced (which saves the picture from being a complete disaster) but shows little enthusiasm for the material. The film wasn't particularly successful, but Towers was able to squeeze out two more (and even worse) sagas featuring Fu Manchu. They were THE BLOOD OF FU MANCHU and THE CASTLE OF FU MANCHU (1968), which were shot back to back by Spanish director Jess Franco. This series could have lasted for a long time if they had referred back to the original source for plots rather than trying to invent their own.