The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974)
Reviewed by: cal42 on 2006-11-04
Dracula is visited in his Transylvanian lair by a Chinese man hoping to resurrect his vampires. Instead, Dracula possesses and takes over his visitor (you really can’t trust these evil types, can you?) and travels to a small village in China to escape his exile. Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) is given a lead to Drac’s whereabouts by Hsi Ching (David Chiang) and they embark on a trek across China to rid the world of Dracula and his 7 unholy brothers.

By 1974, the once proud Hammer studio was ailing quite badly. In an obvious effort to latch on to the martial arts “craze” started when ENTER THE DRAGON made it big, they decided to join their usual horror/mild gore stylings with that of the new-fangled eastern type of action. To their credit, at least they went to the Shaw Brothers and tried to do it properly.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t really work. The action scenes seem bolted on, and the horror scenes are pretty laughable. There’s a fair amount of talent on the Hong Kong end of the production - Lau Kar-Wing has a very visible role, Si Si is lovely as Hsi Ching’s sister, and Fong Haak-On is apparently in there somewhere as well, but I didn’t spot him. But it’s David Chiang that’s supposed to drive the film.

It’s a bit of a shock to hear his real voice, I have to say. He sounds rather higher-pitched than I’d imagined. Although not able to speak English, he learned his lines phonetically, and doesn’t come off as badly as you might imagine (although I strongly suspect he says “destroyded” at one point). It’s quite a novelty to hear him speak in English, and one that doesn’t wear off. Unfortunately, he is given very little to do on the action front, and what’s there isn’t all that thrilling.

Arguably, the horror aspect is even worse. You have some unknown actor in the role of Dracula for a start. And I must admit I find the whole Dracula thing really passé anyway.

It’s such a shame that the only UK/Hong Kong collaboration didn’t work out, and the mixing of the genres could have produced a real cult classic. Instead, this vampire movie just sucks – and not in a good way.
Reviewer Score: 3