VividSimon Simply Perfect

BeSummers Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Wizard-8 Around the time this movie was made, the spaghetti western was just about on its last legs. Also, the craze for kung fu movies was starting to die out as well. So it must have seemed logical for the Italians and Hong Kongers to team up and make a movie that mixed both genres (though this movie was not the first to do so.) Though it's perhaps inevitable that a mix of genres would have mixed results. Certainly, the movie has solid production values, and its light-hearted nature is welcome after so many serious spaghetti westerns and kung fu epics. There's also some nudity, unusual for both genres at this time. But the movie feels kind of drawn out, taking its time when the pacing should have been a bit more snappy. Even more surprising is that there isn't a terrible amount of kung fu in the movie, though this may have been because the choreography and direction of the martial arts fights are sub par. Also, the two leads don't manage to generate that much chemistry, though the language barrier might explain this. I'm not saying this is an awful movie, but it is disappointing. If you want to see a good spaghetti western / kung fu mix, watch "The Fighting Fists Of Shanghai Joe" instead.

zardoz-13 This lightweight international co-production between Hong Kong's Run Run Shaw and Italian producer Carlo Ponti amalgamates chop-socky martial arts combat with gritty Spaghetti western violence. An Asian kung fu master teams up with an American gunslinger to find his uncle's treasure. Variously known as either "Blood Money" or "The Stranger and the Gunfighter," this tame 'East Meets West' oater is predictable but amusing nonsense. The humor that lies at the bottom of the plot is that four women have tattoos on their backsides that reveal the whereabouts of a fortune in gold. "Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye" director Antonio Margheriti and scenarists Miguel De Echarri and Barth Jules Sussman have incorporated a sex comedy in this Kung Fu/Spaghetti western. The running joke is that our heroes must obtain permission from four women to eyeball their butts. Veteran western villain Lee Van Cleef twirls his six-gun, while the often outnumbered Lo Lieh performs gravity-defying kung fu. Incidentally, Lieh emerged as the first martial arts superstar before Bruce Lee.Martial arts movies were increasingly going mainstream by the early 1970s, and "Blood Money" exemplified one of a handful of Italian westerns with Kung Fu. Not only did producer Run Run Shaw co-produce this hybrid horse opera, but he also co-produced the Hammer vampire epic "The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires" during the same year in 1974. Mind you, "Blood Money" premiered in Spain in 1974, but illuminated American screens two years later in 1976. Initially, the Tony Anthony western "The Silent Stranger" should have qualified as the first 'East Meets West' Kung Fu/Spaghetti western. Produced in 1968, "The Silent Stranger" was not released by MGM until 1975, so it beat "Blood Money" to the draw. Earlier, James Bond director Terence Young had helmed a European western with Charles Bronson as an outlaw who reluctantly joins up with Japanese samurai warrior Toshirô Mifune to recover the Nippon ambassador's valuable ceremonial sword. Director Mario Caiano's "Shanghai Joe" (1972) followed "Red Sun" and concerned a Chinese immigrant Chin How (Chen Lee) who helps Mexican laborers from their sadistic boss. Sergio Corbucci even got into this genre in 1975 with "Shoot First... Ask Questions Later" (1975) as a samurai warrior helps a lawman find a treasure.Dakota (Lee Van Cleef of "Barquero") arrives in Monterey by train. A conductor confronts our protagonist as he slips out from under the passenger coach. Before the conductor can do anything to him, Dakota escapes in a cloud of steam. Breaking into the local bank, Dakota picks the lock to the safe but he finds only photographs of women. Meantime, one of those women alerts Wang (Al Tung), a short fat Asian fellow that somebody is in the bank. Wang scrambles over to the bank. Dakota relies on explosives to blow the vault. As the dynamite explodes, Wang is blown off his feet. Dakota finds a fortune cookie and the photographs. He queries Wang about the contents, but Wang has died. The authorities arrive and arrest Dakota. Meanwhile, in Asia, kung fu teacher Ho Chiang (Lo Lieh of "Five Fingers of Death") is escorted by the warlord's troops to his headquarters. The warlord questions Ho's father about his deceased brother who left behind nothing valuable. The warlord confronts Ho. "I was tricked by your uncle. Unwisely, I entrusted him with a vast fortune and all he did to repay me before he died was to send me that wooden figures." The warlord indicates the statue of a noble Plains Indian chieftain. Since nobody can satisfy the warlord's curiosity, he gives Ho's sister to the guards. Ho intervenes but to no avail. Nevertheless, Ho's martial arts skills impress the warlord. "You're brave and intelligent and I believe you can be useful in recovering my fortune," he informs Ho. "Find my gold in one year or all of you will --," the warlord completes his sentence with a slashing motion at his throat.Ho arrives in Monterey. He meets with Wang's lawyer and learns his uncle left behind a $1000 and four photographs of women. According to the lawyer, Wang's death was ruled accidental. Nevertheless, the authorities sentenced Dakota to swing. The lawyer (Paul Costello of "Cannibal Apocalypse") adds that Dakota's trial lasted several months. Not surprisingly, Ho encounters racism in a saloon and defends himself against two gunslinging bouncers. The sheriff (Barta Barri of "Horror Express") arrests Ho for hitting him. Ho lands in a cell next to Dakota. Dakota assures Ho that he didn't murder his uncle. Moreover, Dakota acquired no fortune. The sheriff releases Ho. Later, the Asian rescues Dakota as he stands poised on the gallows' trapdoor with his noggin in a noose. Together, Dakota and Ho embark on an unusual search for Wang's four mistresses. Along the way, they incur the wrath of a hypocritical preacher, Yancey Hobbitt (Julian Ugarte of "Autopsy"), who wears a long, black duster with a ridiculous hat. Yancey quotes scripture and wields a devastating six-gun. Yancey abducts the Chinese mistress (Karen Yeh of "The Iron Dragon") with the aid of a Mexican bandit (Ricardo Palacios of "Return of the Seven") and his gang. They take her to an old mission. Dakota and Ho follow. Calico captures Dakota and whips him to get information about Ho. Ho helps Dakota escape, and Dakota appropriates a Gatling gun to exterminate half of Calico's gang, while Ho releases the Chinese mistress. Yancey has tried to torture her to translate the tattoos.Margheriti directs with customary aplomb. Everything unfolds fluidly. Clocking in a 107 minutes, "Blood Money" looks like a Spaghetti western, but the sex comedy often undercuts the usual high body count violence. The ending may surprise those who aren't expecting it. "Goliath against the Giants" lenser Alejandro Ulloa gives everything a larger-than-life grandeur. "Secret Agent Fireball" composer Carlo Savina drums up a snappy, non-western orchestral score. Savina's music has nothing in common with the quintessential Ennio Morricone Spaghetti western music with whistles, bells, and whipcracks.

Manulimainen Manuli Jeez, only in the 70's... Antonio Margheriti brings us this quirky hybrid of spaghetti western and kung fu flick evolving around a treasure-hunt. The spices of this trashy co-production between Shaw Brothers and an Italian one-off company include humorous storytelling, off-the-wall happenings and some very tame T&A. Extra campy moments are being served by Lee Van Cleef's obnoxious wig, leather-clad bible-thumping psycho gunman Yancey Hobbitt (loveably hammed up by Julian Ugarte, the man who should've done way more obscure European genre productions than he did), wanna-be-witty dialogue, hilarious background music and completely laughable sound effects accompanying various little events (especially every jump made by Lo Lieh).While this little piece of action falls fare and square into the Turkey Territory, it's great to see Van Cleef and Lo Lieh on the same screen, and you can't deny the charisma of this duo. Don't expect too much, and you'll get plenty out of it.This is my truth. What is yours?

Woodyanders Okay, here's a delightfully oddball and inspired handy-dandy combo genre hybrid: a totally goofy and cheerfully low-brow tongue-in-cheek comedic Italian spaghetti Western romp crossed with a swiftly chopping and kicking martial arts fight-ridden Hong Kong actionfest, shot on location in Spain, done in collaboration with the Shaw Brothers and directed by tireless exploitation flick director supreme Antonio Margheritti.The blithely dopey plot centers on an amusingly unlikely partnership between boozy ne'er-do-well drifter outlaw Lee Van Cleef (doing a disarmingly dippy send-up of his redoubtably stern'n'steely Sergio Leone tough guy sharpshooter persona) and smart, amiable Chinese fish-out-of-water karate master Lo Lieh (the star of the original breakthrough chopsocky hit "The Five Fingers of Death"), who trek across the wild'n'woolly Old West in search of a fortune in gold. Naturally, there's a catch -- and it's a hilariously bawdy one at that: individual parts of the treasure map are tattooed on the lovely bottoms of four luscious young ladies. The fact that three of said beauteous damsels are played by sexy Eurobabe scream queens Erica Blanc of "The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave," Femi Bunussi of "Strip Nude for Your Killer," and the always enticing Patty Shepard of "The Witches' Mountain" -- the latter portrays a couple of radically contrasting Russian twin sisters (a classy rich woman and her kittenishly lascivious prostitute sibling, respectively) -- only makes matters that much more entertainingly tacky and raunchy in comparable measure. Funniest scene: Van Cleef croaks out "Rye Whiskey" in a hoarsely off-key voice as he's about to be hung in the town square. Sure, it's really dumb and unsophisticated, but the energetically asinine fun's still quite enjoyable all the same.