1967's "The Vengeance of Fu Manchu" came third in the Christopher Lee series, allowing for on location shooting in Hong Kong and Kowloon (interiors at Dublin's Ardmore Studios), a picturesque opening in which Fu returns to his birthplace in the northern province of China to set up a truly international criminal organization led by himself, at the same time that arch nemesis Nayland Smith (again played by Douglas Wilmer) is forming a coalition of police chiefs (the origins of Interpol). The villainous American ambassador from San Francisco is played by German Horst Frank, resolutely unconvinced until he learns of Fu's ultimate revenge, forcing a noted surgeon (Wolfgang Kieling) to transform a Chinese underling into the exact visage of Nayland Smith, certainly good enough to fool his sidekick Dr. Petrie (Howard Marion Crawford). The switch takes place on a Scottish holiday, the real McCoy shipped off to Shanghai while the uncommunicative double waits until he's alone with Smith's female servant to strangle the life out of her. Just like the on screen characters, the audience waits, and waits, and waits for the journey to end so things can wrap up in satisfactory fashion, whether on horseback from Shanghai, by ship from America (Eddie Byrne a crooked captain), or Smith arriving in Fu's desolate mountain hideaway just as his convicted doppelganger is about to hang. With Lee's dominating presence reduced to 12 minutes (his shortest in the series), and Wilmer's dual roles actually offering less to work with, director Jeremy Summers allows the uninteresting background characters to take precedence, action scenes poorly choreographed as fists fly without landing, stunt doubles fall over without being touched, and only a few token karate kicks by Shanghai's Inspector Ramos (Tony Ferrer) to remind us that Bruce Lee was definitely not available (it's still better than Jesus Franco's final two in the series).