The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974)

User Rating:

5.9/10   

Director:

Roy Ward Baker

Writer:

Don Houghton (screenplay)

Release Date:

June 1979 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Fantasy | Horror

Tagline:

Deadly Horrors! Dragon Thrills! The First Kung Fu Horror Spectacular!

Plot:

Count Dracula journies to a remote Chinese village in the guise of a warlord to support six vampires...

Plot Keywords:

Village | Vampire | Dracula | Cult | China

Cast

Peter Cushing	...	Prof. Van Helsing
David Chiang	...	Hsi Ching
Julie Ege	...	Vanessa Buren
Robin Stewart	...	Leyland Van Helsing
Szu Shih	...	Mai Kwei (as Shih Szu)
John Forbes-Robertson	...	Count Dracula
Robert Hanna	...	British Consul
Shen Chan	...	Kah (as Chan Shen)
James Ma	...	Hsi Ta
Chia Yung Liu	...	Hsi Kwei (as Liu Chia Yung)
Fong Lah Ann	...	Hsiu Sung (swordsman) (as Feng Ko An)
Chen Tien Loong	...	Hsi San
Wong Han Chan	...	Leung Hon

Also Known As:

7 Brothers Versus Dracula
7 Brothers and a Sister Meet Dracula
7 Brothers of Dracula (UK)
7 Golden Vampires (UK)
Dracula and the Seven Golden Vampires
Seven Golden Vampires: The Last Warning (UK)
The Last Warning (UK)
The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires (UK) (alternative spelling)
The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula (USA)

Runtime:

USA:83 min

Country:

Hong Kong | UK

Language:

English | Mandarin

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

New Zealand:R18 | UK:15 | UK:18 (original rating) | Finland:K-15 | Argentina:18 (re-rating) | Argentina:X (original rating) | Australia:M | USA:R

Company:

Hammer Film Productions

Trivia:

Although Christopher Lee was offered the role of Dracula, he declined after reading the script.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: During the battle with the bandits, the archer shoots one of them in the neck. The angles of entry and exit of the prop arrow are clearly different.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Dracula: A Cinematic Scrapbook (1991)

Hammer's enthusiastic Eastern experiment.

In 19th century China Count Dracula takes the form of a Chinese tyrant who has control of a cult that contains six sword -wielding vampires and hordes of zombies. The legend is said that they mount a bloody reign of terror on a cursed remote village by taking young woman from the village to feed on them. Professor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) leads an expedition with some martial art experts, his son and a wealthy widow to the village to prove the legend is true and to rid the undead from this earth.

Hammer production gives us something a bit different in this film by making a far journey to the east: Honk Kong. Hammer horror meets Kung Fu for this outing, with a lot of exorbitance and flair to show. It might be a bizarre mix and ridiculously over-the-top hokum, but you can't deny the shocks and fun factor it achieves. It's rather silly stuff and that makes it enjoyable viewing. What's a Hammer film without Peter Cushing as Van Helsing, but Christopher Lee didn't return to play Dracula and John Forbes-Robertson took his place. He just lacked the charisma and gave a rather odd, if dour performance. Cushing on the other hand gave a solid performance and some value-added class to the film. Julie Ege is fine as the elegant Vanessa Buren the wealthy lady who funded the expedition. This film gives us what we expect, a lot of horror, flesh and blood.

The premise is a rather engrossing adventure even though it has a very formulaic narrative. The plot might be flawed, make not much sense and come across as disjointed. But it totally makes up for it with some unpredictable sequences of suspense and an intriguing mythology involving vampires of the East. Showing how their customs are far different to those of the traditional vampires. The colourfully taut action sequences are well set up and are terrifically paced. When these rather hectic martial art battles start they really do go on, but still don't overshadow the horror element of the film. The battles involving the golden vampires are dazzling and the zombies coming out of the ground was well established and a sight to see. The final set-up for the grand battle scene reminded me very much of "The Seven Samurai" and "The Magnificent Seven", especially in protecting them from an onslaught. The difference is that they weren't asked or paid to protect them. One thing it lacked was a seductive female vampire (there was one for 10 seconds or so). The plot's thin love story felt out of place in the overall context and so did Helsing's son Leyland who came across as nothing more then a annoying bystander. So was Dracula, as he didn't do that much and only had a small amount of screen time. The climax between Dracula and Helsing isn't much of a tussle. It was that brisk it felt like they wanted to get the film over pretty quickly.

The film was very atmospheric, especially at night with the howling wind, blankets of mist and menacing shadows. On the journey to the village the scenery provided by the countryside is fairly graceful. Ranging from the grassland, rocky terrain and the woodlands. The heart pounding score goes in hand to hand with the scenes. The production valves weren't great, but not bad. The set designs of Dracula's domain and the village are somewhat vivid. The effects were rather shoddy (rubber bats on strings) and props looked ludicrous (the weapons). The make-up and costumes on the vampires and zombies were rather fair. You get some close ups of rotting vampire's faces after dying. This is when you get some oozing, bubbling and steaming skin decay. Also there are cheesy sound effects and a glorious amount of blood splattering.

Rather entertaining, if unconventional horror by Hammer productions.