Review: Who'd a thunk the kings of European horror and the masters of kung fu cinema would ever make love and give birth to a movie so outrageous and unbelievably cool? Because if you really think about it, kung fu fighting vampires is pure gold. Hammer Films and The Shaw Brothers have come together and unleashed upon the world a movie that breaks all the rules of genre films. Not only does it crosses the lines, but blurs the entire spectrum of cult cinema, shattering it in one fall swoop into the world if reinvention. If I didn't know any better, I'd call it a cinematic blowjob.

With all the movies coming out of Asia right now, you'll notice the trend of having either zombies or vampires in your films. It's like back in the 80's when all you had to do was have the word "Ninja" in your title just to sell a martial arts flick. These days, you have to have vampires or zombies to stir a similar form of hype. I'm quite sure you'll know what I'm taking about when I bring up these next two words:

Bio Cops : The pain. The agony. You know you're in a world of hurt when you have Sam Lee fighting zombies.

As I was saying, The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires was way ahead of its time. And in my last viewing, I was praying to the Movie Saint up in the sky and I asked him, "Movie Saint, why are The Shaw Brothers and Hammer films so brilliant and why isn't Jaymee Ong sitting in my lap right now?" Though the Movie Saint didn't answer my second question, he did give me a glimpse into the brilliance in how The Legend fo the 7 Golden Vampires came about.

-Time Machine-
You see, both The Shaw Brothers and Hammer Films went into a time machine and travelled fifteen years into the future to see what was the big trend in genre pictures. They found movies like Bio Zombie and Wild Zero. They fell in love with films like Versus and Mr. Vampire. Heck, they even stumbled upon a old bootleg copy of Kung Fu Zombie and nearly pissed their pants. With all the inspriration being found, they warped back to their present time and utilized their newfound influences to create the genre bending masterpiece that we know of today.

What makes The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires so much fun is that it's essentially a Shaw Brothers movie... with real English speaking roles and no dubbing! Not only is it full of zoom ins and zoom outs that have become the staple cinematography in Asian cinema for years, but it's as if the characters came straight out of Invincible Shaolin or Chinese Super Ninja or any other Shaw Classic, because each kung fu brother had a special ability or specific martial arts talent. For instance, they had a specialist in archery, twins who held hands and fought with long swords, a girl who fought with two daggers, and even a double wielding axe man of death. Throw in a big breasted blonde and you have yourself colorful characters who give the action sequences a panache of excitement and thrills.

Peter Cushing is always great as the stoic-looking and wise know-it-all in the role of Van Helsing. And even Julie Ege playing Vaness Beren who's sole purpose was to look hot and to flirt with the Asian men is extremely well portrayed. But the gem in this flick is Shaw Brothers sensation, David Chang for his great performance of Hsi Ching. Reminds me much of Wang Chi from Big Trouble in Little China. Both looking very peaceful and gentle, but when needed to, they'd throw down the gauntlet and spoon feed every bad guy to kung fu zombie to ancient vampire monkey a can of whoop-ass and then some.

But what I like about the movie isn't because of the fighting sequences (generic) or the performances (sub par), but because The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires is the epitome of a shlock flick, the ultimate in cult films. With things like chop-socky vampires and John Forbes-Robertson playing Dracula disguised as an old Chinese man to posing in a wicked positions with your weapon every chance you get, I can't help but die laughing and drowning in the coolness that is this movie. And I'm kind of sad that I don't see many tongue-in-cheek films like these anymore. Even though The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires is more than twenty years old, it still carries a universal theme for cinema, not only for its genre, but for all catagories and facets of film. And that is:

Every movie needs a big breasted blonde.