Customer Reviews

The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires [VHS]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

THE LEGEND OF THE 7 GOLDEN VAMPIRES

(UK/Hong Kong - 1974)

Aspect ratio: 2.39:1 (Panavision)
Theatrical soundtrack: Mono

Whilst lecturing in Chungking at the turn of the 20th century, Professor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) is asked by a poor villager (David Chiang) to help defend his community from a plague of vampires controlled by Count Dracula (John Forbes-Robertson).

Filmed on location in Hong Kong under extremely difficult circumstances, this Hammer/Shaw Bros. co-production attempts to meld the antiquated Gothic melodrama of Hammer's bygone glories with the new breed of kung fu thrillers which had recently been popularized by the worldwide success of KING BOXER (1971) - known in the US as 5 FINGERS OF DEATH - and, especially, ENTER THE DRAGON (1973). Roy Ward Baker (THE VAMPIRE LOVERS) took the reins from original director Gordon Hessler (THE OBLONG BOX) after only a few days, though his work was clearly hampered from the outset by co-producer Don Houghton's simplistic script, which describes events either in broad strokes or hasty scribbles, leaving most of the actors in disarray.

Cushing is urbane as ever, trading successfully on his established screen persona, but co-star Julie Ege (a former Bond girl) is merely decorative, while Chiang - an accomplished screen actor (also known as John Keung Tai-wei) whose work stretches all the way from STREET BOYS in 1960 to THE ADVENTURERS (1995) and beyond - is ultimately defeated by the English dialogue, which he's forced to deliver in a stilted, phonetic style. Robin Stewart (THE HAUNTED HOUSE OF HORROR) and Shih Szu are also featured as the juvenile leads, alongside hugely prolific actors Fung Hak-on (later a regular in Jackie Chan's movies) and Lau Kar-wing (an experienced performer and director in his own right).

Elsewhere, Forbes-Robertson does a fair impersonation of Christopher Lee in Dracula-mode, though his first on-screen appearance is almost ruined by a comical makeup design. Feeble special effects by Les Bowie, too. That said, however, the studio sets are appropriately vivid, and the widescreen Panavision photography (by John Wilcox and Roy Ford) makes a virtue of Johnson Tsau's atmospheric art direction - watch for the haunting image in Dracula's castle of ghostly shadows billowing softly on a multicolored wall just before the Count begins to stir from his coffin - and the fight sequences (arranged by veteran choreographers Liu Chia-liang and Tang Chia) are lively and energetic.

From the Hammer Collection. An original Shaw Bros. Film from HongKong. The DVD comes in 2 version, one on each side of the disc ( US release, and Asian release ). I watch this film when it was originally released in '74, the color redition is very good. The story is about Count Dracula in Transylvania who was trapped inside his castle when he was last defeated by Dr. Van Helsing. At that same instance in China, a Vampiric Cult which worshipped 7 vampires was also on the rampage. The cult ravage the village it was in by abducting women whom they literally kill to sustain themselves. A chinese peasant tried to save his daughter who too was abducted, but was too late to do so... in the process he killed one of the 7 vampire, but died in the process. The cult slowly desintegrated, and the monk leading the cult decided to seek help from ...guess who? Count Dracula in Transylvania. He travelled there, and found Dracula. And Dracula used him to escape his entombment in the castle. Travelling to China, Dracula took the role of the monk and revive the vampiric cult. At this time, Dr. Van Helsing ( Peter Cushing)and his son was in China giving a lecture on vampirism. He was only taken seriously by a student named Hsi Ching ( David Chiang ) who coincidentally was the descendant of the peasant who killed one of the original vampires. He believed in Dr. Van Helsing and wanted the doctor to help him eradicate the vampires now terrorising his village. The movie has some exciting Kung-Fu fight scene which have all-together disappear from the silver screen. This movie brings back some of those wonderful scene although unrealistic, but certainly worth watching. Unless you like old Kung-Fu shows, stay away from this one.

Who knew the asian people had the same problems with vampires that we do. This interesting little film was an attempt on the part of the Hammer studios to cash in on the martial arts craze. In this vehicle Count Dracula (not Lee) Takes the form of an asian keeper of asian vampires (7 to be exact) all wearing golden masks. Dracula then goes to rule the vampires and havoc ensues across the country side. Van Helsing (Cushing in his last starring role for Hammer) is drawn by a young man's tale of vampires in his village. The young man and his brothers and sister all masters of the martial arts, put on a wonderful display as they guide Van Helsing and crew to the final showdown with Drac and his buddies. A must if you're a collector or just a little curious. AS ALWAYS... WIDESCREEN

As a child my father took me to see this movie one Saturday afternoon in 1979 when it was released as The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula. This was the movie that put me on to the old school martial arts film with the fantastic special effects. Also being groomed by a grandfather who was an avid horror flick fan,I honestly say that you get the best of both worlds in one tremendously action packed film. I saw this movie when I was 6 years old and have been searching high and low for it for 20 years. This film is a definite must for anyone who claims to be a collector of movies such as Master Killer or the old fashioned horror film bfore they all became slash and gore.

An extravagant claim but one I'm gonna endeavor to back up.

'Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires' is the last horror picture Peter Cushing made for Hammer - and he's magnificent. He plays Van Helsing, (yes.. honest!)and to his eternal credit he looks believably close to tears every time he utters an emotionally-charged line like: "In Europe it is the crucifix, in Asia, the image of the Lord Buddha".
I adore Peter Cushing anyway, and to see him in any film is good for me but to see him in a work of this magnitude and gravitas is a real treat. He must be lying there now, thinking about his 50-odd year career, each performance building up to: "My knowledge is restricted to the Western Hemisphere".
Strangely, there's not much in Peter Cushing's autobiography about 'LOT7GV' which is unfathomable.

Julie Ege is the female lead; a Scandinavian buxom-vamp fresh from her Oscar-nominated role as Voluptua in 'Up Pompeii-the Movie'; ("There's no decorum/ in the forum/and they're quite at home in the hippy-drome, you can chose who you prefer/'coz Ben Him looks like Ben HER!!") and the biting satire-twins 'Not Now Darling' and 'Rentadick'.
One disreputable publication described her performance as 'a pair of t*ts with a Swedish accent', just goes to show that however much genuine talent you have, you can never drag the gutter press erm..out of the gutter. (!)

Robin Stewart plays the 'young hero' role. He's a classically trained comedy actor, mostly seen with Sid 'Sir' James in the abject Brit-Com 'Bless This House' and wearing a kaftan in the Michael Armstrong 60's slasher: 'the Haunted House of Horror' - a gory travesty with Frankie Avalon and Mark Wynter(yes.. honest!).
Viewing Stewart's performance as Leyland van Helsing (a FANTASTIC analogy with the Bolshevic-run 1970's car giant British Leyland, whose workers spent the whole decade on pointless strike) it's easy to criticise, but he is in fact showing 'solidarity' with his lion-hearted co-unionists. This is breathtakingly poignant and relevant; it's not every-one that can fight 50 heavily armed kung-fu zombie vagabonds with the conviction of a house-brick. 'Red' Ron and all the other commies back in Blighty held out at their braziers for another year on the strength of Stewart's subtly and deftly understated showing.

Count Dracula, present in every scene and the central evil core of the movie, is played by John Forbes Robertson in the campest make-up in British cinema - all pinks, greens, bat-eyebrows and lipstick. Much criticised among the unknowing (described in another disreputable publication (not really - it was the same one!) as a 'pantomime dame'), but it put me in mind of Olivier's Oberon in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'(another - slightly lesser - work of feminism and sexual ambiguity) and JFR's performance as one of British literature and world cinema's most recognisable and serious characters, just HAS to be experienced:
As the villain he has all the best lines: "A curse on you and your house!" "I am Dracula; Lord of Darkness, Master of the Vampires, Prince of the Undead, Ruler of the Damned!" (yes.. honest!) and "Right! van Helsing - you will once more see my face... before you die! Behold van Helsing - look on me, now." You'll fill up - as I did - at the magisterial impact of it all.

Music is by James Bernard, re-jigging themes from his previous scores, and even here 'LOT7GV' wins. Not many blockbusters were recycling in the wasteful, excessive 70's. The Bond movies for example, had Sir Roger Moore flying all over the world, inadvertently ruining it. So well done Hammer!

The plot is so sophisticated and progressive, no-one can understand it. Unkindly scorn holds sway. Stupid critics pathetically concentrate on the appalling special effects(post-modernism); atrocious action (satirical slapstick) and the cavernous holes in the script(delicious irony) as justification of universal condemnation. How wrong can you be?

The '7' of the title also refers to van Helsing's companions; 6 lads and a girl heading to their remote village to destroy '7' vampires that have plagued them for centuries and this is where the feminism and sexual ambiguity comes in.
The 'sister' can fight kung-fu nearly as good as the men (yes.. honest) in a film set in 1904(!) and only dies when she weakens for love. What a gal. Rest easy Emily; it seems chaining your bra to the railings wasn't for nothing after all.

Director Roy Ward Baker claims his masterpiece was flawed by studio interference (In this instance, co-financiers the Shaw Brothers; based in Hong Kong and who know nothing about making martial arts movies). They should've just let the ex-English public school prefect to his vision, he was obviously so in-tune with the aesthetics of the medium, their pettiness could easily have ruined the film.

'LOT7GV' is deliberately hysterical. Some beautiful, screaming girls with their breasts revealed as they lie strapped down next to a bubbling cauldron of blood, is vital to the plot in a real sense, as well as the abstract that Ward Baker is delicately invoking. Tears rolled down my cheeks as the scene unfolded, so moved was I by its multi-layered intensity and relativism.

So you see, there can be no doubt as to the claims of 'LOT7GV'. I've only scratched the surface here - the action sequences seriously challenge Kurosawa and the terror, so originally and tensely conveyed, is as full-blooded and awesome as any Jacobean tragedy.
Acting is Welles-perfection and production is refreshingly minimalist and compact.
Much like '2001', 'Once Upon a Time in the West' or 'Jaws'; the locations are so visual and forceful, you feel like you're actually there in Szechwan Province with Peter and the boys, vanquishing vampires and returning the world to safety and contentment.

And isn't it wonderful that since Hammer/Baker's uber-treatise on cultural bonding and the futility of violence was released in 1974, there hasn't been a single war.

Now, you tell me, could anything but the greatest film ever made do that?

I hadn't heard much about the film before I bought it, save for the following: vampires, zombies, kung-fu and... Peter Cushing!!! Combining all those elements together, I just knew I couldn't stay away from this movie! I went in expecting it to be extremely cheesy (like most Hammer films), yet extremely fun to watch (also like most Hammer films). Needless to say, I was not disappointed. Once again, Peter Cushing turns in a great performance as vampire hunter extraordinaire Professor Van Helsing.

I was so glad when on a whim one day I noticed that old Hammer horror titles previously released by Anchor Bay Entertainment appeared to be getting a re-release. Boy, was I wrong about that! Don't be fooled. DVD-R's are no substitute for a real factory manufactured product. The pictures appear murky, bleeding and washed out even though its obviously a direct burn from a genuine Anchor Bay DVD. The sound drops in and out. I played each disc on 3 different players manufactured by 3 different companies. In all I wasted $20 dollars a piece on 3 of these pathetic knock offs. Originally when I purchased these titles there was NO mention of them being bootleg quality DVD-R's. I don't know who's ingenious idea it was to propose such a gross misuse of wasted effort. Either shame on Anchor Bay or shame on Amazon for perpetuating such poor quality knock offs at such an absurd price. They even use the original Anchor Bay DVD's cover art printed by a laser printer however most of the special features listed will not appear.

I.E. - The Legend Of The 7 Golden Vampires does not include the U.S. cut of the film as mentioned.

What a crime in itself either release the film correctly or don't bother at all. What a tease. What a waste of my money and time.

The movie had this been a genuine product released through Anchor Bay would've received 5 stars.

I threw my money away on:

Dracula Prince Of Darkness

Frankenstein Created Woman

The Legend Of The 7 Golden Vampires

Save your money until somebody with half a brain decides to do the right things with the old deleted Hammer titles. I'm still very dissatisfied with this scenario.

I love the 1974 flick titled Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (or possibly the 7 Brothers Meet Dracula if you're more familiar with the shorter version with some alternate editing.) I'd been meaning to see this flick for awhile (after hearing Ben and Dan talk about it on the Mondo Movie podcast), and recently I got a chance to sit back and watch the very odd pairing of two cult movie studios, Hammer and the Shaw Brothers. Yeah, I know what you're thinking, how exactly do you mesh kung fu and horror? I was skeptical too, but after watching it I have to say that these two go together like chocolate and peanut butter.

I don't have a ton of experience with either studio's work though I have seen a few films by each and I've really liked everything I've seen so far. Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires was Hammer's shot at trying to breathe some new life into the studio, aiming to cash in on the burgeoning popularity of kung fu cinema in the 70s. The film was written by Don Houghton (who had penned some episodes of Doctor Who as well as a few other Hammer films) and directed by Roy Ward Baker (who was also part of the Hammer stable of creators), though it's also been noted that Shaw's most prolific and well known filmmaker Chang Cheh also worked on the film.

We get the basic gist of what's to follow as Kah, a Chinese monk on a quest, begs Dracula to help him awaken the legendary seven golden vampires so that he can take control of a province in China. Dracula refuses, and instead decides to take over Kah's body and so that he himself can return to rule over China and eventually the world.

Honestly this film should be a horrible disaster as right off the bat there are a ton of conflicting story holes, not to mention that the film relies heavily on the films that have come before it, but I still couldn't help smiling with glee throughout the whole thing. The insanely colorful lighting, the corny dialogue, the interesting though pretty sub-par effects work, it all mashes up into a wonderful hour and a half of crazy monsters and fun kung fu action...

Peter Cushing reprises his role as Professor Van Helsing, though this time he's traveling through China in 1904 in hopes of enlightening the local Universities with his knowledge of the undead. What surprised me a little was how much Cushing wasn't doing, action-wise. If there was one thing that I noticed about Cushing's performances in the other Hammer films I've watched (Curse of Frankenstein, the Horror of Dracula, Hound of the Baskervilles and Night Creatures), it is how amazingly action packed his roles have been. When chasing down Dracula, the man is jumping on tables, running and tumbling everywhere, so different from his turn as Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars. In Lo7GV Cushing pretty much kept to the background as soon as any fights broke out (of course, he was 61 or so at the time, but still.)

What's kind of weird is that this whole movie sort of negates Helsing's battles with Dracula in the other Hammer films, as the character supposedly disappeared from Transylvania in order to travel to China to awaken the seven golden vampires. Even though there are giant plot holes, this is still one of the most enjoyable vampire flicks I've ever seen.

The movie begins with a rather stupid opening sequence with the Chinese villain Ka asking Dracula (not Christopher Lee this time) to resurrect the 7 Golden Vampires. Though Ka is speaking Chinese and Drac is speaking English, somehow they both understand what the other is saying. Soon Dracula takes on Ka's image and goes about creating an undead army to attack a small village. Billed as "the first kung fu horror spectacular" (Why wasn't the movie called ENTER THE VAMPIRE? You can imagine Bruce Lee in this) there are some exciting martial arts sequences and a good cast led by horror legend Peter Cushing, once again in his role as Van Helsing. Another special highlight is Julie Ege's generous bosom; her accent is also delighfully, chillingly erotic.(Or maybe that's just my overabundance of testosterone speaking for me). Anyhow this is a fun, unique horror/ kung fu flick. A minor cult classic ripe for rediscovery.

If you are a Shaw Brothers fan, a "Black-Belt Theater" buff, a vampire collector, or a Peter Cushing freak, this movie is for you!

Now the fact that Peter Cushing is tracking Dracula to China is reason enough to pick up this flick. But wait, there is more!
Along the way Drac gets the help of the legendary "7 Golden Vampires" and Peter Cushing (as VonHelsing)gets some help of his own in the form of a Kung-Fu sibling team up. You see, the 7 Golden Vampires destroyed their village, and they want VonHelsing to help them get revenge.

Just when you think you couldn't fit another cliche into one movie, this movie features "Son of VonHelsing" and the Kung-Fu sister in a love element.

Get a pizza and phone the friends, this movie is a non-stop laugh riot.