Famed vampire hunter, Professor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) travels to China where he’s hired to assist residents of a remote village in destroying several vampires who have been resurrected by Dracula.
The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires combines the best and the worst elements from two companies who have seen better days. The kung fu is about as exciting as a wake, the acting more foul than a rotting corpse, and the story has more cheese than a fondue party in Wisconsin. The result is an entertaining cult classic without peer!
Professor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) is again up against his arch nemesis Count Dracula (John Forbes-Robertson). This time, Dracula has accepted an invitation to journey to China to resurrect the legendary 7 Golden Vampires so that he might bring vengeance upon the mortal world. While lecturing in China, Van Helsing is asked by Hsi Ching (David Chiang) to journey with him and his family of kung fu experts to stop the seven vampires from wrecking havoc upon a his village. With the financial support of Vanessa Beran, an adventurous admirer, Van Helsing and his son (Robin Stewart) journey to the village to destroy the seven vampires and face Dracula once more.
Having played Van Helsing in numerous other Hammer films, Peter Cushing thankfully steps into the role again, adding perhaps the only grounding in a film filled with bad acting. David Chiang also manages some level of depth even if his character’s contrived romance with Vanessa Beran is painfully unconvincing. Speaking of, I must give credit to the filmmakers for attempting to bridge the cultural gap with not one, but two cross-cultural romances. Van Helsing’s also son finds himself enamored with Hsi’s younger sister. But don’t worry, this isn’t a date movie. Of course, that depends on your definition but I digress.
The special effects such as dissolving corpses and transforming vampires is handled by the folks at Hammer studios with the same attention to cheese as seen in all their previous efforts. Sorry folks, it’s all smoke and mirrors but then its quite hard to hide that fact anyway. Luckily, they were smart enough to not take themselves too seriously. While the film doesn’t intentionally play for laughs like Mr. Vampire, the underlying tone screams, “Its just a joke.” That said, the film succeeds admirably. There are lots of grotesquely misshapen creatures, virgin sacrifices, and good old fashioned kung fu. There is literally nothing of interest in the fight choreography but since we rarely see scuffles involving vampires and undead, it doesn’t really matter.
Hammer Studios and Shaw Brothers created a real monster of a film when they came together. While it took others such as Sammo Hung to really jumpstart the kung fu / horror sub-genre, The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires succeeded in combining not only two genres but two cultures. From a critical standpoint, the film falls flat despite the filmmakers’ ambitious intentions. But then, how come I still find this film to be so dang entertaining? It’s got to be the cheese.
by Mark PollardRelated Topics:
Genre: Kung Fu
