The Vengeance of Fu Manchu (1967)
Christopher Lee returns in his third outing as the dastardly crime lord Fu Manchu once again out to bring about the downfall of his nemesis, Scotland Yard's Neyland Smith (Douglas Wilmer).
Filmed in Hong Kong at the Shaw Brothers studio this feels slightly more authentic than the first two films. Produced again under the gaze of Harry Alan Towers this suffers once again because there are too many players involved. Towers sought funding from everywhere especially Germany so the film features actors from these countries who all require lengthy screen time and in a film that lasts all of ninety one minutes it tends to take away from Lee and Wilmer's rivalry with both actors not really having an awful lot to do, especially in the case of Wilmer who also plays a non-speaking doppelganger of himself for large swathes of his screen time.
I do think this was an improvement on 1966's The Brides of Fu Manchu which felt largely like a remake of the first film. At least this tries to do something slightly different.
The extras on the Indicator Blu-ray are excellent and feature historian and author Jonathan Rigby heavily as he contributes a commentary track with Kevin Lyons (Which i plan to listen to this week) and an informative fifty minute documentary / analysis by Rigby of Christopher Lee's early acting career up to and including the Fu Manchu series.
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