En busca del dragón dorado (1983) Poster

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3/10
What is going on?
BandSAboutMovies14 February 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Jess Franco never seemed satisfied. How else do you explain not only making Vaya luna de miel in 1980 as an adaption of Edgar Allen Poe's The Gold Bug yet also making a movie for kids with the same inspiration?

A child movie from Franco? I'm as surprised as you.

Also, not surprising: Franco would try to make this again in 1993 as Jungle of Fear!

What can we say about a movie where Franco is the wise ascetic who advises our young heroes and gives them assistance in the form of a Bruce Lee look-a-like? There's also a chimp, a map-stealing tortoise and Antonio Mayans' kids getting to star in a movie and facing off with stock footage jungle horrors.

Stephen Thrower has mainlined more Franco than anyone - I'm trying but he's walked the same steps that Jess was once in and his lifetime of expertise is one to be in awe of, not one to challenge - and he said of this film, "If you're so deep into your Jess Franco safari that you no longer need sex, violence or the vestiges of storytelling, En Busca Del Dragon Dorado possesses much to tickle the senses."

There are no CGI cartoons in the Jess Franco Cinematic Universe, but there is this movie, one where Mayans and Lina Romay are the voices of other characters and that's the best we're going to get. I can't believe that this movie exists and am awash in the wonder that it is real, that I've seen it and that i am telling you about it.
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10/10
The craziest Poe adaptation ever?
Jessfrank5 July 2001
Once more, Jess Franco makes an incredible film out of nothing. With some Chinese-looking people, two elephants, a tiger, a snake, a monkey and a turtle he succeeds in adapting Poe's classic "The golden beetle". The story is about a little girl (Flavia Hervas, in a pretty good performance) who becomes involved in the search of an ancient treasure, hidden by oriental natives in order not to allow strangers to take it. So the immortal original tale is crazily moved into a kids-oriented martial arts movie, which mixes the Tarzan classic spirit with the gruesome humor from its Spanish director.

No joking. This is one of the funniest, craziest, most revolutionary films ever made in Spain. Its mixture of genres and influences shows Franco's master hand. A cult classic. 10 out of 10!
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