Dorathen
Better Late Then Never
Quiet Muffin
This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.
Married Baby
Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?
UnderworldRocks
Hammer's Dracula series is nothing more than a bunch of old dusty vampire films with pathetic low budget, laughable effects, and ridiculous plots in which the vampires are nothing more than a bunch of weak-ass turtles. This belief was firstly established by watching the trashy "Horror of Dracula" (a film that should be called "A Horrified Dracula"), and a few follow-ups (a series of rubbish) like "Brides of Dracula", and further made solid by this abomination.The story had potential. The idea of Dracula having cross-cultural communication with the Chinese vampires seems interesting. Watching a Chinese priest who's dressed like a Chinese monk speaking Chinese to Dracula and Dracula having no trouble with communicating got me intrigued and made me laugh. A vampire film with Chinese elements would be fun, I thought.Oh gosh. How wrong I was, thinking this piece of crap could have been fun!
Claudio Carvalho
In 1804, in Transylvania, a Chinese walker heads to the castle of Dracula. He awakes Dracula from his tomb and explains that he is Kah, the High Priest of the Seven Golden Vampires in China that are powerless. He needs Dracula to restore their power and the vampire takes Kah's body and image. One hundred years later, Professor Laurence Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) gives a lecture at a Chinese university about the legend of the Seven golden vampires but the students leave the auditorium finding that the all the exposition is superstition. However the student Hsi Ching (David Chiang) meets Van Helsing at home and tells that the legend is true and he knows the location of the vampires. Van Helsing accepts to travel to the village in the countryside to help to destroy the vampires and the wealthy widow Mrs. Vanessa Buren (Julie Ege), who has befriend his son Leyland Van Helsing (Robin Stewart), offers to sponsor the expedition provided she may go with them. Soon they embark with seven siblings skilled in kung-fu in a dangerous expedition to destroy the Golden Vampires and Dracula."The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires" is the worst Dracula's movie produced by Hammer, with a ridiculous story that combines vampires with martial arts. This movie is a co-production of the Shaw Studio from Hong Kong and was released with different titles. The Anchor Bay DVD presents also the American edited version "The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula" that I did not see. It is also funny to see Vanessa Buren and Leyland in a hard expedition dressed like they are going to a party. My vote is five.Title (Brazil): Not Available
ma-cortes
Vintage Kung Fu/Dracula flick with very well staged scenes , colorful ambient and stunningly directed . Hammer Film's last Dracula yarn was a co-production with Hong Kong's Run Run Shaw Brothers known mainly for their Chop-Socky pictures . Transylvania 1804 : Kah (Shen Chan), High Priest of a temple in Pang Kwei in the Szechuan province of China, has obviously traveled a long way on foot to look for the Prince of Darkness . Kah's temple has fallen out and he asks for Dracula's help (John Forbes-Robertson was furious when he discovered that he had been dubbed by another actor . Chung King 1904 , while lecturing in the Far East, Professor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) tells his students of a doomed village in China that becomes cursed every year at the time of the 7th moon . Van Helsing is persuaded by Hsi Ching (David Chiang) and his brothers , all of them Kung Fu experts , to rid the village of the 7 vampires that torment its citizens . Then , Van Helsing , his son (Robin Stewart) , a gorgeous wealthy woman (Julie Ege) and the Chinese brothers set out in pursuit Dracula and the seven golden vampires . As the motley group fighting a vampire cult located on a cursed village in China . This classic flick was well produced by the famous British production company along with Run Shaw Brothers , as Hammer Films meets Chop-Socky Hong Kong . It displays creepy scenes , lots of violence , nudity , action filled , zooms , thrills and fierce combats . It is an exciting as well as original attempt to revive the Dracula long series , mainly played by Peter Cushing and Christophel Lee . This luxurious Kung Fu/horror film was wonderfully filmed with good production design , glimmer cinematography by John Wilcox , impressive combats and breathtaking scenes . This is a colourful , Hong-Kong set , mostly filmed in outdoors and quite budget movie ; leave no cliché untouched , though the fighting are magnificently staged . The picture is full of tumultuous sequences with terror scenes , frenetic action , surprises , climatic combats and groundbreaking struggles . Overwhelming and rousing fights with deadly use of fists , feet and palms , along with such weapons as swords, sticks , and lances . Highlights of the film are the notorious struggle between Kung Fu brothers and the seven golden vampires and and of course , the breathtaking final confrontation between Dracula and Van Helsing . Some critics have panned this film explaining that unless you are Kung Fu aficionado this outing will seem all too silly . This is the first of two Hammer productions shot back-to-back in Hong Kong, and the fifth and last time Peter Cushing would play Van Helsing. Although Christopher Lee was offered the role of Dracula, he declined after reading the script and he is is sorely lost . This is the first Dracula film from Hammer Film Productions to feature an actor other than Christopher Lee playing Dracula, although Lee was also absent for ¨The brides of Dracula , which did not feature the character . ¨The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires" also titled "Dracula and the Seven Golden Vampires" or "The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula" is a fine horror movie but isn't as good as the precedent films . It's the sixth part of Dracula series , the first is ¨Horror of Dracula¨ , the second is ¨Dracula , prince of darkness¨, the third ¨Brides of Dracula¨ and is followed by ¨Taste the blood of Dracula¨ and ¨Dracula has risen from the grave¨, continuing with two low budgeted , TV sequels directed by Alan Gibson : ¨The satanic rites of Dracula¨ and ¨Dracula A.D. 72¨ , most of them starred by the great Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing . The cinematography by John Wilcox and Roy Ford is excellent and brilliant . James Bernard musical score is rousing as well as eerie and spooky . This Hammer film was rightly directed by Roy Ward Baker . Roy was a good professional , his first opportunity to direct a film, The October Man (1947). He then went to Hollywood in 1952 and stayed for seven years, returning to Britain in 1958, when he directed one of his best films, A night to remember (1958). During the 1960s and 1970s, Baker directed a number of horror films for Hammer and Amicus. He also directed in British television, especially during the latter part of his career.
MartinHafer
This is a rather dumb but enjoyable melange of genres. I don't know who thought to do this, but Hammer Films of the UK (known for Dracula and Frankenstein films) did a joint production with Shaw Brothers Films of Hong Kong (known for their martial arts films)! How and why this occurred is something that IMDb and the DVD for this film never explain--and I'd sure love to know more. Seeing Peter Cushing in such a Chinese film is pretty odd. One thing IMDb did say was that Christopher Lee apparently read the script and refused to play in the film. This make little sense, as he DID agree to be in THE SATANIC RITES OF Dracula the year before--and this probably is one of worst horror films Hammer ever made! Perhaps he didn't want to hang out in Asia to make the film or perhaps he was still to embarrassed over TSROD to do yet another vampire film! While I can admit that this WAS a pretty silly movie, it had plenty of cool Shaw Brothers element--enough to breathe some energy into the moribund franchise--strange as the movie was! The film begins with a Chinese vampire priest meeting Dracula and imploring him to return with him to China. Well, Drac isn't all that hospitable and kills the guy, then assumes his form and goes to China. Shouldn't he have just said "yes" and gone with the priest--as good minions are hard to come by (what a waste).In the next scene, Van Helsing (once again, Peter Cushing) is lecturing to a group of Chinese scholars who think he's some kind of nut (imagine that)! But, one of those in attendance is a man from a village where they've had seven evil vampires terrorizing them for centuries. One of the seven was already dead--killed by this man's grandfather, but his place was taken by Dracula. He begs Van Helsing to accompany him to this rural town to rid them for good of the vampire scourge.Oddly, these Chinese vampires aren't quite like the usual Hammer variety. First, the makeup on them is pretty cheesy and their faces look like a combination of papier-mache and vomit. Second, the vampires ain't so tough--needing to use swords and other weapons to fight. I've never seen Dracula and the like in other films resort to such tactics, as they are too bad to need any weapon! Third, they way they can die is much different--they're a lot easier to kill. So much so that I wonder why they'd want outside help! This representative of the town has brought seven of his own assistants (including, for Chinese martial arts, the required lady kung fu expert) to escort Van Helsing and his son to the town for the final showdown.A sexy Norwegian (Ms. Ege) is brought along to inject some more sex into the mix. She really is pretty irrelevant to the film and blathers about being emancipated (an odd anachronism but typical movie cliché), but seems to be there to show off bosom and cower in fear (so much for feminism). And, speaking of bosoms, since this was a 1970s Hammer horror film, you will also have a smattering of other topless ladies in the film--something the studio did in several of their later films to boost ratings. The only good thing about her was towards the end--this final scene with her was great.Along with Ege, the character of Van Helsing's son is in the film. He's in his 20s and knows NOTHING of kung fu or any martial art--yet he somehow, magically, is able to fend off attack after attack by the minions of the seven vampires. He really isn't all that necessary to the film either--especially since his fighting skills are dubious. He's also pretty dumb, as he rushes into the vampire lair late in the film and doesn't even bother to bring along some stakes or a sword or even a slingshot! And this is the perfect segue into what's best about the film--the fighting. While this is not the best of the Shaw Brothers' films for this, it certainly is very good. The seven good guy fighters from the village are impressive as they fight the relatively wimpy vampires and their undead servants. In fact, they are so impressive you wondered why they traveled so far to see Van Helsing! In fact, the vampires seem a lot less tough than many of the Shaw Brother villains! I think the blind guy from MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE was easily tough enough to kick the vampires' butts all by himself! Heck, the same can be said for any of the One-Armed Swordsmen! Wimpy old Chinese vampires aren't as much fun as Western ones--especially the loser three who were in the first "boss battle"! Overall, while the film is far from perfect (often not making much sense), it is very high on the cool factor and is worth a look--particularly if you love horror AND martial arts films like I do.
