Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires (1974) is such an awesome film. How can you go wrong when you have Roy Ward Baker, Chang Cheh and the Liu brothers all working on a film together? This film has everything, the eeriness of a Hammer film with the red paint spraying, bone crunching action scenes of a Shaw Brother’s flick!
Peter Cushing reprises his role as Professor Van Helsing who’s in China to prove the legend of the Seven Golden Vampires. After a lecture he finds someone who actually believes in the legend (David Chiang in a dual role). After local run in with some angry triads (thanks to Van Helsing’s no good son who falls for a Scandinavian beauty. Will the good professor and friends find something that’ll get them into a nasty situation that’s way over their heads?
Hammer films at this time was pretty much on their last legs when they went on a joint venture with the Shaw Brothers. Run Run and Run Mei Shaw at this time were also trying to find a worldwide market for their two biggest stars David Chiang and Ti Lung. Ironically, Hammer and Shaw studios were just like each other in many ways (beautiful sets, a staff of great directors and actors. They also cranked out very diverse product and most of their films sadly were never given their proper due overseas, their films usually ended up being hacked to pieces and shown in grind houses or sliced and spliced for matinée showings). Sadly after a couple of collaborations the two companies never worked together again. Hammer Films would slowly fade away whilst Shaw Brothers Studios would last another ten years or so before concentrating on T.V. soap opera (a majority costume operas). But for a brief time in history Shaw Brothers and Hammer (two of my favorite movie studios, especially when I was growing up) collaborated on a couple of films. Sadly they never worked with each other again.
Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires was filmed in Shawscope (a.k.a. Panavision). Avoid Seven Brothers Meet Dracula, it’s a horrible grind house re-edit of this grand production.
