Golden Needles (1974)

User Rating:

4.5/10   

Director:

Robert Clouse

Writers:

S. Lee Pogostin (writer)
Sylvia Schneble (writer)

Release Date:

17 July 1974 (USA)

Genre:

Action

Tagline:

Whoever owns them can rule the world

Plot:

Various factions are fighting each other to gain possession of a very special statue. The statue itself is not worth much...

Plot Keywords:

Hong Kong | Acupuncture | Flamethrower | Safecracker | Switchblade

Cast

Joe Don Baker	...	Dan
Elizabeth Ashley	...	Felicity
Ann Sothern	...	Fenzie
Jim Kelly	...	Jeff
Burgess Meredith	...	Winters
Roy Chiao	...	Lin Toa
Frances Fong	...	Su Lin
Tony Lee	...	Kwan
Alice Fong	...	Lotus
Clarence Barnes	...	Claude
Pat E. Johnson	...	Winter's man
Edgar Justice	...	Bobby
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Tiet Wo Chu
Yuen Fang	...	Acupuncturist
Yue Fong
Li Jen Ho	...	Patient
Richard Ng
Shan Tai

Also Known As:

The Chase for the Golden Needles (USA) (reissue title)

Runtime:

92 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Netherlands:16 | Norway:16 (1975) | Sweden:15 | USA:PG

Company:

Sequoia

Strange martial arts/fantasy/detective concoction.

Director Robert Clouse's career has been overshadowed by 1973's "Enter the Dragon" which was in part, an attempt to incorporate elements of Chinese and Hong Kong cinema into the American formula. Some two decades before John Woo et.al made the leap to Hollywood, producer Raymond Chow (head of Golden Harvest) teamed with Clouse many times in the 1970s, repeatedly spiking cross-cultural martial arts and detective actioners. "Golden Needles" was another such attempt to fuse American and Hong Kong action film conventions: this film being a comedic, actionful, fantasy version of the classic "Maltese Falcon". Joe Don Baker starred as an American in Hong Kong, who for a favour and a price, attempts to track down a priceless idol. This idol is one of the strangest McGuffins in the movies: it is pierced by needles in a specific pattern, and if the acupuncture is performed on a man, in the same pattern as marked on the idol, renewed sexual vigour results. Thus, it is sought after by all manner of older men (including Burgess Meredith in one of his funniest roles). Whilst meant as entertainment, the film succeeds also as one of the strangest treatments of the theme of drug addiction so prevalent in 70s American film, and even Clouse's other work (especially "The Amsterdam Kill"). Boistered by an excellent, comical, music score by Lalo Schifrin, featuring piercing sounds to mimic the acupuncture motif, the film is an immensely enjoyable generic hybrid, free from pretension, and a shining example of B-movie pleasures. Self-consciously, and never heavy-handedly, Clouse uses the genre conventions to frame a study of the US cultural appropriation of foreign practices (the Asian connection being the supplier of heroin ironically enough). Progressively weirder and with a protagonist whose easy-going sense of adventure becomes ever more sobering as he proceeds, this film is a true oddity, and all the better for it. Clouse's handling serves as a neat reminder of the time when he was still an innovator in B-movies, instead of the mere imitator he had become by the beginning of the 1980s.