For My Money, This Ties for Worst of the Series

I know the conventional wisdom on Harry Alan Towers's Fu Manchu series starring Christopher Lee is that the movies steadily declined in quality with each release and that Jess Franco's final pair are the worst of the series, but I would respectfully have to disagree.

While I would agree that Castle of Fu Manchu is possibly the worst of the series, I actually enjoyed Blood of Fu Manchu much more than this turkey. Vengeance seems very hastily and poorly written, with unnatural, ridiculous dialogue and baffling plot points (e.g., why would Dr. Lieberson refuse Fu Manchu's demands and allow his daughter to be branded, only to comply mere seconds later?), lazily directed (director Jeremy Summers couldn't even bother to change the camera position between widely separated shots of the exterior of the cabaret where Ingrid is singing), riddled with continuity errors, and, worst of all, rather dull and boring. There isn't even any nudity to spice things up, which we at least get a bit of in Blood. And some of Franco's visuals in Blood are quite interesting compared to Summers's lackluster presentation.

As others have mentioned, despite location shooting in some exotic locales, the film seems very set-bound and claustrophobic, and both Lee and Wilmer are completely wasted in this mess, with little for either to do. I'd have to watch Castle again to double-check whether it's actually worse than this one, but at least it provided me with a few laughs, which this one did not.