The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974)
Directed by Roy Ward Baker, Cheh Chang

Film Review

By jumping on the band wagon of the short-lived craze for Kung Fu in the mid-1970s Hammer Films hoped to achieve at least a postponement of the inevitable as the company slid ever closer towards insolvency whilst the British film industry went into a seemingly irreversible decline.  The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires is Hammer's last flirtation with vampirism, an enthusiastic but pretty shambolic attempt to marry Gothic horror (which had given the company a healthy income stream for over a decade following the success of Dracula (1957)) with the sexy new phenomenon of martial arts.  It's as crazy as its sounds and the film is one of Hammer's weirdest.  If only a little more care had been given to the script it might even have been one of the company's better later offerings.

Despite the scrappiness of its premise, The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires has much to commend it.  Peter Cushing is back, as compelling as ever, as vampire hunter Van Helsing.  The martial arts action scenes are superbly well choreographed, the work of veteran Hong Kong director Chang Cheh.  Roy Ward Baker directs the rest of the film with his usual flair for visual drama.  The production design is, overall, excellent.  The film's one major let down is its script, which is marred by uneven pacing and fails to make any of the characters (other than Cushing's) remotely likeable or convincing.

Without strong, sympathetic characters to drive the narrative the film just becomes a series of grand set-piece events, impressive in themselves but not enough to make this a rewarding piece of cinema.  Cushing aside, the cast is a pretty lame ensemble, although it is hard to know whether it is the lack of acting talent or lamentably poor script that is to blame.  John Forbes-Robertson's Dracula is a poor substitute for Christopher Lee's vampiric count and the ease with which Peter Cushing polishes him off (just by picking up a stray piece of metal and sticking it in him) lacks, shall we say, a certain finesse.  The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires is worth watching for its sheer mad novelty value, but it is, tragically, just one more missed opportunity from a company that just couldn't keep up with the times.

Film Synopsis

Transylvania 1804.  Kah, a Chinese monk, revives the spirit of Count Dracula so that he may resurrect the Seven Golden Vampires in his home country.  Dracula agrees, providing he can take over Kah's body.  A hundred years on, Professor Van Helsing is in China, hoping to muster support for his efforts to find a village which is reputedly terrorised by vampires.  A student named Hsi Ching agrees to guide Van Helsing on his expedition, revealing he is the grandson of a farmer who once slew one of the seven vampires.  With Hsi Ching's band of kung fu warriors to protect him, Van Helsing need have no fear - until he confronts his nemesis for one final battle...