The 7 golden vampires

Movie
German title	The 7 golden vampires
Original title	The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires
Country of production	United Kingdom , Hong Kong
original language	English
Publishing year	1974
length	83 minutes
Age rating	FSK 16
Rod
Director	Roy Ward Baker ; Chang Cheh
script	Don Houghton
production	Don Houghton ; Vee King Shaw
music	James Bernard
camera	Roy Ford ; John Wilcox
cut	Chris Barnes
occupation
	Peter Cushing : Prof. Van Helsing; Shen Chan : Kah; John Forbes-Robertson : Count Dracula; David Chiang : Hsi Ching; Julie Ege : Vanessa Buren; Robin Stewart : Leyland Van Helsing; Szu Shih : Mai Kwei; Robert Hanna : British Consul; James Ma : Hsi Ta;
chronology
	← Predecessor ; Dracula needs fresh blood

The Seven Golden Vampires is a 1974 horror film from the British Hammer Films . It was directed by Roy Ward Baker and starred by Peter Cushing . Hammer tried to give the Dracula series a new direction: the plot was moved to the Far East and martial arts fighting techniques were incorporated.

The advertising line read: "The first kung fu horror thriller!"

action

Transylvania in 1804. Kah, the high priest of the Order of the Seven Golden Vampires , travels through the Carpathian Mountains to the tomb of Count Dracula . The prince of the vampires is trapped here and ekes out his unworthy existence. Kah offers him a pact to free him if he can help restore the order to its old greatness and power. Dracula, however, has other plans and takes control of Kah's body. With this new body, and thus no longer tied to his mausoleum , he travels to China and begins a new reign of terror with the seven golden vampires.

In the Far East in 1904. Professor Van Helsing, an expert in occultism, is at a seminar in Chongqing with his son Leyland . He holds a lecture on the vampire myth in China at the local university and tells, among other things, of the legend of the seven golden vampires. But he is not taken seriously and so he is only scorned and ridiculed.
Only the student Hsi Ching believes him. The young man is the grandson of the only man who ever succeeded in destroying one of the golden vampires. A hundred years have passed since then, but his home village is still being punished for this outrage. Again and again the golden vampires, half-rotten creatures with golden masks and amulets , attack the village and kidnap the most beautiful virgins to feed on their blood.

Van Helsing and his son agree to help. With the help of Ching's siblings, all of whom have mastered the fine art of kung fu , you can smash the cult of the seven golden vampires until the professor comes face to face with his old archenemy, Count Dracula.
In a showdown, Van Helsing succeeds in driving a silver spear through the heart of the prince of vampires and destroying him once and for all.

Reviews

Lexicon of international film : "Horror à la Hammer meets Kung-Fu à la Shaw-Brothers - European and Asian popular cinema in an eccentric mixture."

Cinema : “The legendary Hammer Studios were already on the decline when they came up with the glorious idea of crossing vampire horror with martial arts. Unfortunately the result is so half-baked that no cult could emerge. "

Allen Eyles / Robert Adkinson / Nicholas Fry: The House of Horror: “Except for a well-done sequence in which David Chiang and a lustful female vampire are staked from the same stake, the fighting scenes between the Chinese villagers and the scruffy western vampires are neither kung Fu still convincing. Not even Peter Cushing in his usual role as Van Helsing was able to bridge the gap between Hammer and Hong Kong. Somewhere east of Malaysia [...] Dracula passes away at sunrise. For Hammer, however, the sun went down. "

Others

In this film, Hammer tried to combine elements of classic Gothic horror with the increasingly fashionable martial arts films from Hong Kong .

Christopher Lee was offered the role of Count Dracula again. However, he refused after reading the script. Instead, Hammer signed John Forbes-Robertson for the part. Peter Cushing played the character of Van Helsing here for the last time.

The era of hammer productions came to an end in 1974. The film The 7 Golden Vampires should only be followed by two more awesome films before the production company finally closed its doors.

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ The 7 golden vampires. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
↑ cf. Ronald M. Hahn and Volker Jansen: Lexicon of Horror Films , Bastei-Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1989, ISBN 3-404-13175-4

[1] The 7 golden vampires. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .

[2] . Ronald M. Hahn and Volker Jansen: Lexicon of Horror Films , Bastei-Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1989, ISBN 3-404-13175-4