Black belt versus black magic. So claims the movie poster for Dynamite productions The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula. Also known as The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires, this movie stars Peter Cushing as Dr. Van Helsing in China, presumably there to deliver a series of lectures to Chinese college students who skoff at his teachings and leave the lecture hall en masse. But one student remains behind and tells Van Helsin g his village has been plagued for centuries by Seven Golden Vampires who raid the village every so often to cause mayhem and suck blood. Interestingly, this student has seven brothers and one sister who are duty bound to eradicate the village of this ancient scourge. Thus ensues one of the greatest vampire movies of all time, and guess whose two thumbs are pointed in his own direction to indicate that he is a proud possessor of the movie poster for said movie.
ME! Dracula, Van Helsing, seven golden vampires, zombies, kung fu, and a chick with heaving breasts.
Julie Ege and her screen presence. She's in the movie. But despite what she'd have you believe the movie isn't about her breasts. see, there's this Chinese Dracula who wants to be a Romanian Dracula, so he goes to visit this English actor Dracula imitating a Romanian Dracula so he can ask the English imitator Dracula to transform the Chinese Dracula into the Romanian Dracula the English Dracula is imitating so he can go back to China and tell Chinese vampires what is what.
I don't remember ordering Chinese.
You forgot my egg rolls, Suzuki. That would actually be Japanese and doesn't make much sense, but it's par for this magnificently off beat and awkward gem of a movie directed by Roy Ward Baker who brought you the classics The Monster Club, Vault of Horror, And Now the Screaming Starts, Asylum, The Vampire Lovers, and Five Million Years To Earth to name but a few. Well, actually to name the bulk of his best horror movies, but that's quite a list. The martial arts in this movie are well done. It's a legitimately entertaining hybrid of a kung fu and a vampire movie. Did I mention I have the movie poster?
Does this ridiculous plastic mask make my fangs look fat? Yes. Yes it does. The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula they don't really meet him but they could have if they'd gone up the Buddhist temple at the top of the hill maybe they could have worked this whole thing out without so much bloodshed. Four stars from me and you'll have to figure out out of how many possible stars by watching the movie yourself. I have to go vote so outro.
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