Starring Peter Cushing, David Chiang, Julie Ege, Han Chen Wang, Robin Stewart
Directed by Roy Ward Baker
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)
A family of seven brothers and one sister, all highly trained in the martial arts, recruit Professor Van Helsing when he visits China to help them end attacks on their village by vampires.
Hammer Films' collaboration with the Hong Kong based Shaw Brothers studio mixes Hammer's vampire horror and Shaw's kung-fu action into a single production, and it's a pretty entertaining one. Although the character of Dracula appears, played by John Forbes-Robertson, taking over the role from Christopher Lee, he's not really necessary, transforming into the guise of a similar Chinese character for the bulk of the film. Peter Cushing, is welcome however, playing a Van Helsing for the final time, and providing the necessary nobility and gravitas to anchor their mission, while giving Western audiences a familiar character to draw them into the story. There's lots of blood and a bit of superfluous nudity, but the freshness of the setting, and the quality of the kung-fu choreography kept me engaged. The kung-fu sequences also allow for something of a small army to attack our heroes, adding suspense as to who is going to survive and raising the stakes, with the sword-wielding vampires calling upon zombies who rise from their graves to join the fray. Although the vampires are masked and nameless and largely without character, I wouldn't call this a flaw, but a created parallel to a war film in which one side is opposed by a largely faceless enemy.
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