[HorrorScience] Kung Fu vs. the 7 Golden Vampires (1974)

Reading time: 9 minutes

Qualification

The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires

Year

1974

Duration

83 minutes

Director

Roy Ward Baker, Chang Cheh

Script

Bram Stoker (original work), Don Houghton

Distribution

Peter Cushing, John Forbes-Robertson, David de Keyser, Robin Stewart, Julie Ege, Robert Hanna, David Chiang, Shih Szu, Chan Shen, Lau Kar-wing, Huang Pei-Chih, Wang Chian, Hsu Hsia, Feng Ko-An

And finally, I come to the eighth and final Hammer Productions film in the Count Dracula saga that began in 1958 with Horror of Dracula.

After that film, the character of Van Helsing was used for the sequel (or spin off) Dracula's Brides (1960), and later the saga continued with Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1966), Dracula returns from the grave (1968), The power of Dracula's blood (1970), Dracula A.D 1972 (1972) and The satanic rites of Dracula (1973).

The film that closes the Dracula saga at Hammer Productions is The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, known in Spanish with the picturesque name Kung Fu against the 7 golden vampires (sometimes called The legend of the 7 golden vampires). In some American versions it was also called The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula.

Due to the enormous wear and tear that this series suffered sequel after sequel, and after having tried with strange ideas in the two previous films (where the action was moved to the 70s), this time Hammer Productions decided to do an even more daring experiment and mix the characters of this franchise (Van Helsing and Dracula), with the martial arts films that were so successful at that time.

The film begins by showing us a man who has traveled halfway around the world to meet Dracula, who he will beg to help him spread terror in the town he comes from. Dracula will use the body of this servant to travel to Asia and spread terror through some villages on the enormous continent.

For his part, Van Helsing is giving a talk at an Asian university about vampirism and is tremendously disappointed to see that no one takes him seriously, except for a boy, who claims to come from a remote village called Ping Kwei, where vampires mercilessly attack the poor people who have lived there for years.

[HorrorScience] Kung Fu vs. the 7 Golden Vampires (1974) — Dracula about to possess the Chinese priest

The expedition to the boy's town will be possible thanks to the fact that Professor Van Helsing's son has made friends with a wealthy woman, who has read the books of the famous vampire hunter, so our group of protagonists meets with their guides and also bodyguards, since the 7 Asian brothers master different styles of martial arts with incredible ease.

As they advance towards the distant town, the protagonists are attacked by some of the golden vampires and their army of zombies, so they will have to improvise how to face them, since it seems that they do not have exactly the same weak points as the European vampires. Can the veteran Van Helsing bring peace to the remote Chinese town?

The first time I saw this movie I didn't even know it was related to Horror of Dracula, I thought it was an Asian film where Peter Cushing had been hired to attract horror film fans. Its picturesque Spanish title (Kung Fu against the 7 golden vampires) made it very striking, because it tells you that you are going to see a bad movie, which you can laugh at.

That first time I took it that way and it was quite enjoyable. Many years later I was watching for the first time all the Hammer Productions films that make up the Dracula saga and when I saw that the last one was The 7 golden vampires, I shook my head since I considered that this film was of very low cinematographic quality to be part of the same saga as Horror of Dracula either Dracula, Prince of Darkness.

As I watched the rest of the films in the saga, I realized that the series was going downhill and when it reached Dracula A.D. 1972 and The Satanic rites of Dracula, I no longer had any hope of seeing something that had the quality of the first in the series. That's when I saw again Kung Fu against the 7 golden vampires.

This second viewing showed me that although the film had a stupid and forced story due to the popularity of the films at the time, it was also very entertaining, which made it more enjoyable than some of the previous films.

A few years later, I decided to start this project on the web and talk about all the Dracula movies from Hammer Productions so I watched again Kung Fu against the 7 golden vampires to write these lines.

The third viewing showed me that all the prejudices I once had about the story and the addition of martial arts to the film were unimportant, because this film is undoubtedly much more enjoyable than several in this saga. It may have become a “guilty pleasure” for me, but the truth is that I enjoyed it a lot.

The decline of this saga had led it to repeat ideas without getting anything particularly good and do stupid things like taking Dracula to the 70s to show scantily clad girls dancing and music bands of the time. That is why this film is so enjoyable despite its shortcomings, as we go from seeing stories of rebellious kids or police officers investigating a cult to seeing a bunch of martial arts experts fighting an army of zombies led by Chinese vampires.

Obviously we are not facing the best of the saga, but we are facing the most original and crazy, and all this trying to maintain (as much as possible) the serious tone thanks to the character of Van Helsing, who acts the same as he would have done in any other film, giving credibility to a script that years ago would never have been approved by Hammer Productions.

Of course the film has bad things, for example, the special effects are much worse than in other films (the Chinese vampires are horrible). The inclusion of 7 similar characters (The Brothers) means that you don't even remember their names and that they don't have any type of development, since of the 7 only 2 are important. The attempt to make Dracula appear as little as possible and use the excuse that he possesses the Chinese priest is also very pathetic and of course, this film also falls under the "obligation" of offering us forced romances (not one, but two) and not only are they extremely forced (the characters in love barely speak 1 or 2 times in the entire film) but on top of that one of them reaches unsuspected limits that increase the absurdity to incredible levels (it almost gives the feeling that there are scenes missing where these characters They know each other and find things in common. Even some of the martial arts scenes have very unfortunate shots (which clashes with most of these scenes, which look pretty good).

All this shows that the decadence of the Dracula saga was still there, but because the story is totally different from the rest of the films, it makes Kung Fu against the 7 golden vampires stand out from other films in the saga, which were perhaps more serious or contained, but which were boring or tedious.

However, we must admit the obvious, Christopher Lee's departure seriously affected this film (which leaves Dracula as a secondary character) and the atmosphere of films like Horror of Dracula either Dracula, prince of darkness conspicuous by its absence. This saga would never again have the quality of the first films that make it up, but I think it is much better to say goodbye with an original and crazy film like this, than to continue extending it with products like Dracula A.D. 1972 either Los Ritos satánicos de Drácula.

Curiosities:

Para hacer esta película, Hammer Productions se asoció con la productora Shaw Brothers, que estaba especializada en películas de artes marciales. Al parecer la relación entre ambos equipos no fue especialmente buena.
Según algunas fuentes, la versión oriental de esta película tiene más escenas de artes marciales.
Algunos temas musicales de la película son muy similares a los de Horror of Dracula, lo cual parece demostrar que cuando estaban haciendo la película, ya sabía que iba a ser la última de la saga, y aprovecharon para homenajear a la primera.
Gordon Hessler iba a ser uno de los directores de la película, pero abandonó el proyecto, de manera que la labor de dirección quedó en manos de Roy Ward Baker (que se encargaría de las escenas de diálogos) y Chang Cheh, (que se encargaría de las de artes marciales).