The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Music composed and conducted by Malcolm Lockyer. Songs: "The Real Me" and "Where are the Men", lyrics by Don Black; sung by Samantha Jones. Camera operators: Tony Spratling, Neil "Ginger" Gemmel. Producer: Harry Alan Towers. Babasdave Films. U.S. release through Warner Bros.-Seven Arts: January 1968. New York opening at the Lyric (as the lower half of a double bill with "The Shuttered Room"): 14 February 1968. U.K. release through Anglo Amalgamated: 3 December 1967. Australian release through British Empire Films: 26 July 1968. Sydney opening at the Capitol (ran one week). 7,960 feet. 89 minutes.SYNOPSIS: This time the insidious Fu plots to have all the police chiefs of the world replaced by doubles under his control.NOTES: Third of the Christopher Lee/Fu Manchu series. (Available on a very good Momentum DVD).COMMENT: This film offers good entertainment but it is a disappointing effort, when compared with the first two films in the series ("The Face of Fu Manchu" and "The Brides of Fu Manchu") of which this is the third. Lee, Wilmer, Crawford and Chin are again on hand; but on the production side, only film editor Morrison remains, together with the producer and production manager — though photographer Kotze has been promoted from 2nd to main unit, and has provided some appealing color photography. There are also some attractive sets and costumes. Fortunately, Wilmer gives a vigorous performance as the alter ego, but, beyond a brilliantly staged execution scene, director Jeremy Summers seems to have a very loose grip on the production. His direction has mostly very little punch (though there's an exciting night club brawl).Perhaps the rigors of a tighter shooting schedule and a less lavish budget all around, account for the director's general lack of inventiveness. Even Fu Manchu's black-garbed attendants are presented so flabbily, they fail to inspire the terror of their earlier appearances. The film's dispirited air even extends to its pedestrian music score. As for the songs, they also peg in as distinctly fourth rate.

In a remote corner of China the diabolical criminal mastermind Fu Manchu has dynamited the pass leading to the province and sent word to the authorities suggesting there was an earthquake. Free from outside interference he plots his revenge against his nemesis; Assistant Commissioner Nayland Smith of Scotland Yard. This scheme is inevitably devious; he has kidnapped a doctor and his daughter and forced him to perform plastic surgery on a man to change his appearance so that he looks like Nayland Smith. He then arranges for the real Nayland Smith to be kidnapped and replaced while on holiday in Ireland. While the real policeman is put in a crate bound for China the imposter commits murder and is put on trial… killing Nayland Smith won't be enough for Fu Manchu; first he must be thoroughly discredited in the eyes of the world. Meanwhile it emerges that a senior member of the American criminal underworld is heading to China to talk to a potential leader of world crime.I first watched the Fu Manchu films as a child in the seventies and this is the first one of the series that I've watched since then. Watching again it is clear that this is far from a classic film but it is rather fun. In this day and age it would be unacceptable to have a European playing a Chinese character but Christopher Lee does do a fine job as the diabolical Fu Manchu; thankfully he doesn't attempt a dodgy 'Chinese' accent. Douglas Wilmer does a solid job as Nayland Smith, and his doppelganger, although the real policeman spends much of the time in captivity and the copy is unspeaking and emotionless. Tsai Chin impresses as Fu Manchu's daughter, a character who is clearly a chip off the old block. The story is pretty silly… but then it wouldn't have been interesting if Fu Manchu had done the obvious thing and just had Nayland Smith disposed of. The action scenes are decent in a fairly bloodless way; certainly not too violent for younger viewers. Overall it is a bit dated but I rather enjoyed it; perhaps for nostalgic reasons but also because it was rather fun.

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.