203) The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires; aka The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula (1974)

Son of Halloween 2024's spectacular and not random vampire movie review extravaganza! (Part Seven) 

"It's the darkness that brings them out." 

Directors
Roy Ward Baker
Chang Cheh

Cast
Peter Cushing - Prof. Van Helsing
John Forbes-Robertson - Count Dracula
David de Keyser - the voice of Count Dracula (uncredited)
Robin Stewart - Leyland Van Helsing
Julie Ege - Vanessa Buren
Robert Hanna - British Consul
David Chiang - Hsi Ching/Hsi Tien-en
Shih Szu - Mai Kwei
Chan Shen - The High Priest, Kah

It's East meets West in this last vampire movie in Hammer Productions' line-up of Dracula movies - "The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires." It follows eight previous Dracula films I mentioned in my review of "The Brides of Dracula" - the second Dracula movie from Hammer Productions.  

I've already reviewed that movie, along with the first movie, "The Horror of Dracula" and skipped the rest to get to this unique gem of a flick. 

No doubt I'll come back to the previous movies I have yet to watch. 

"The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires" is unique both in my lineup of this year's Halloween reviews as well as among vampire movies in general. 

This movie is difficult to find. And the version I was lucky enough to come across was the 1979 wide-release from Dynamite Entertainment re-titled "The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula." I found it on the fantastic streaming app "Cinema Box."

It has a 75-minute runtime, and I don't know how the 1979 version differs from the original cut. 

Unfortunately, it's the second Hammer Dracula movie that doesn't feature Christopher Lee as Dracula. As I mentioned in my last post, Lee doesn't appear in "Brides of Dracula" neither. 

John Forbes-Robertson bears the fangs and dawns the cape of Dracula in this movie, making him the only other actor aside from Lee to portray Dracula in Hammer Film Production's movies. 

In the plus-column, Peter Cushing returns as Van Helsing which ties this to the previous Dracula movies.  

In this film, a Taoist monk named Kah (Chan Shen) who is also a high priest within the Temple of Seven Golden Vampires in China, travels to Transylvania to summon Count Dracula. 

The Golden Vampires of his temple are growing weak. So, Kah wants Dracula to restore their power and give them the strength they need to be as powerful as they used to be.

Peter Cushing as Van Helsing.

Dracula agrees to help only if Kah will permit him to use his body to escape his castle which has become a sort of prison for Dracula. 

Kah is reluctant but allows Dracula to use his body and takes his form to escape his castle. Dracula then heads to China. 

A hundred years go by. Prof. Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) actually lives up to his title of professor as he lectures at Chungking University on the legend behind Chinese vampires. During his lecture, Van Helsing mentions a Chinese village that has been tormented by a cult that calls itself the "Seven Golden Vampires." 

As he explains, a local farmer had tried to take down the cult himself. During the fight, he managed to grab a gold medallion in the shape of a bat off the next of one of these vampire cult members. It turns out the vampires need the medallion to live. 

The farmer escaped with the medallion, and the cult's high priest sent the seven vampires after him. 

They caught up to the farmer and cornered him. The farmer placed the bat medallion around a statue of Buddha just before they killed him.

One of the vampires tried to take the medallion off the Buddha statue only to ignite into flames as soon as he touched it. So, the seven Golden Vampires are reduced to six. 

Van Helsing thinks this village still exists and that the six remaining Golden Vampires are still preying on the villagers. It's just a matter of finding where it's located. 

After his lecture, all the students and professors think it's just an urban legend, and don't take Van Helsing seriously. But one student named Hsi Ching (David Chiang) knows it's true because that farmer was his grandfather. To prove it, Ching has that same medallion his grandfather took. So, he's completely on board with Van Helsing in finding the village and killing off the vampires once and for all. 

So, Van Helsing and Ching, along with Van Helsing's son Leyland (Robin Stewart) as well as Ching's seven siblings who are masters in kung fu venture off to find that long lost village and take on the six Golden Vampires. 

The tagline reads, "the first kung-fu horror spectacular!" That's really all I liked about this movie. Well, Peter Cushing, too. I've never seen a Peter Cushing role I didn't like. 

John Forbes-Robertson as Count Dracula

And to think that just three years after starring in this movie, he would appear in "Star Wars." Within that time between "The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires" and "Star Wars," Cushing appears in six movies. 

Anyways, this movie packs in three things I love into one film - vampires, Hammer horror, and kung fu. I don't really know much of anything about kung fu. I just know I love a good martial arts movie. In fact, while watching this, I could barely follow the story. I just wanted to see more fighting and vampires. It was a trip watching these fighting scenes as Peter Cushing stood off to the side also watching on screen. 

Everything else doesn't seem like it was thoroughly thought out. There's so much slow motion where it doesn't need to be. All that slow motion makes the movie feel like it's dragging.

The first twenty minutes contains a lot screaming and little to no dialogue. It opens with 23 minutes of gore and ghoulish blood sucking. 

Once Peter Cushing shows up, the film finally picks up and starts combining classic gothic style vampire with Chinese martial arts. 

I wish the final fight between Van Helsing and Dracula went on longer. It's the stuff of classics. Watching Dracula die marks the end of an era, or so it seems. 

A sequel called "Kali, Devil Bride of Dracula" was planned but was never executed. What a bummer! 

Otherwise, this movie has intense imagery that veers into a different mythos of vampires based in Eastern lore. And the scene with Cushing as Van Helsing explaining the differences between European vampire versus hunting Asian vampires, to Chinese vampire hunters is a real iconic vibe. If only the storyline had some stronger writing to support it, this would be a fantastic movie!