Movies - The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires

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	Movies - The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires

The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, made in 1974, was very much a movie of its time. It combined the then-new trend of kung fu films from Hong Kong with Hammer's classic Gothic horror.

Professor van Helsing (Peter Cushing) gives a lecture at a Shanghai university on Chinese vampire legend. He talks of an unknown rural village that has been terrorized by vampires for many years. After the lecture, a student (David Chiang) informs him that the legend is true and he knows the location of the village. He then asks Professor van Helsing if he would be willing to travel to the village and destroy the vampire menace. Van Helsing agrees and embarks with his son, the student and his kung-fu trained siblings on a dangerous journey funded by a wealthy widow (an underused Julie Ege). Both Roy Ward Baker, a British director who had helmed several previous Hammer films, and Chang Cheh, a veteran Hong Kong action director, worked on the movie, though only Baker is credited.

Hammer was beginning to struggle at this stage and The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires was a co-production with Hong Kong's Shaw Studio, made in the hope of garnering some of the kung fu movie market share. The mix of the two styles is interesting, though often a strain on plot and dialogue. The movie featured enough kung fu action and vampire thrills to satisfy many viewers.

Interestingly, a number of elements in the film, some refererenced by van Helsing, conflict with the continuity of previous Hammer vampire films.

The movie was released with various titles in different locations, including The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula and Dracula and the Seven Golden Vampires.

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