|
|
26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Grand folly from the Hammer/Shaw team, June 26, 2002
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, the Hammer/Shaw Bros. co-production "The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires" (1974) 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" (Tian Xia Di Yi Quan, 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" (Jie Tong) in 1960 to "The Adventurers" (Daai Mo Him Ga, 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 - whose name is misspelled on the DVD packaging - 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. This complete, unedited version runs 89m 1s. Anchor Bay's dual-sided DVD is basically a reproduction of the Roan Group's previous lasderdisc release and contains two important extras: The first is an alternate cut of the film - prepared for the original US release - entitled "The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula" (74m 59s). This shabby hatchet job rearranges most of the key sequences in a feeble attempt to reduce exposition and characterization to the barest minimum, thereby transforming a fair-to-middling potboiler into an 'audience-friendly' mish-mash of violent horror and kung fu skirmishes. Not only does it cheapen the production and blacken the names of all involved with it, this variant edition treats American viewers as dim-witted simpletons, emphasizing cheap thrills over plot development for the sake of a quick buck. The disc also includes a trailer for this version under the jaw-dropping title 'The 7 Brothers & Their One Sister Meet Dracula' (!!). The other item is audio-only (45m 41s), and was originally released in LP format as a promotional tie-in with the film's UK theatrical exhibition, in which an abbreviated version of the film's narrative is recounted by Peter Cushing (topped and tailed by an unnamed actor who hams it up for all he's worth!). Best of all, this recording preserves James Bernard's majestic score - an impressive combination of familiar Hammer themes and Eastern motifs - in 2.0 stereo sound, an invaluable addition to an already worthwhile package. This all-region disc preserves both versions of the film in letterbox format (2.35:1), and each print is supremely vibrant and colorful, though the US cut appears to be cropped on all four sides. The 2.0 mono tracks are strong, though sound effects and dialogue seem a little muffled throughout. There is no time-code on the films themselves, and no captions or subtitles. The chapter insert includes a reproduction of the fabulous quad poster art used for the original UK theatrical release. Incidentally, the film was screened in Hong Kong as "Qi Jin Shi", with the English title "Dracula and the 7 Golden Vampires".
|
DVD ~ Paul Massie - The Two Faces Of Dr. Jekyl
DVD ~ Christopher Lee
DVD ~ Ralph Bates
DVD ~ Christopher Lee
DVD ~ Clifford Evans
