Director: Jeremy Summers
Year: 1967
Rating: 5.0
There are times - many of them in fact - when you just want to hit your head
against a wall while watching this film. It's like Marlon Brando in the back
of the theater crying "I could have been somebody, instead of a bum, which
is what I am". Ya, this film could have been a contender. But it goes down
in the third round. Hard. You would have to throw this into the Euro-Crime
genre even with a British director, a load of American actors and it is shot
in Hong Kong. It just has that vibe plus a few actors that showed up in multitudes
of them. The best thing about this film - well other than the well-shaped
actresses - is the location shooting in Hong Kong. Shot in Shaw Studios and
on the streets of the city it has some of the best location shooting of Hong
Kong that I have seen. Including HK films. The street scenes are great with
the rickshaw scene the best.
The film never quite makes up its mind what it wants to be. The plot is typical
over the top silliness trying to control the world - or in this case the
gold market - sort of thing with loads of black clothed assassins, hidden
lairs (though not that well hidden), lovely revealing women and mysterious
leaders called the Five Golden Dragons. As a bonus for Hong Kong film fans
there is also Roy Chiao with a large role as a cop. That's Roy Chiao - The
Touch of Zen and a ton of Cathay films guy. A legend in Hong Kong. A paycheck
is a paycheck.
So they have the makings of a decent wannabe spy/crime film and into this
they throw as the main protagonist . . . Bob Cummings. While everyone else
is playing this straight apparently no one told Cummings that this wasn't
a comedy - as he takes his well-known TV character (at the time) from the
Bob Cummings Show and transfers him into this film. All jokey and smarmy
as an ageing playboy lothario with awful quips and constantly chewing gum
or wiping his forehead with his handkerchief it feels like he accidentally
walked on the set and no one had the heart to kick him off. And his action
scenes? Yikes. Definitely, not choreographed by Yuen Wo-ping as they are
too amateurish for an elementary school production. Cummings fights off these
assassins who literally have to stand still for him to hit them.
But then let's talk about the good parts of the film. The rest of the casting.
The three women are played by icons of Euro-Genre films - horror, spy and
crime. Maria Rohm from Austria, Maria Perschy also from Austria and Margaret
Lee from England but who spoke Italian and appeared in a number of Italian
films. All of them have good sexy roles with Lee even singing two songs in
a nightclub. If you see these three actresses in a film the chances are that
Klaus Kinsky is around somewhere and he is here in his usual sinister walking
dead looking role. Another female nightclub singer is Yukari Ito who was
a pretty popular singer in Japan at the time and I have no idea why she is
in this film.
But I have not gotten to the actual Five Dragons who run the organization.
Four of them gather from all over the world in a room all adorned in these
bizarre dragon masks and one at a time they reveal themselves. A Hall of
Fame of Hollywood Tough Guys. George Raft, Brian Donlevy, Dan Duryea and
ChristopherLee. Holy shit. Yes, three of them were well past their prime
but to get these guys all in one room is amazing. Even if it is only for
ten minutes. If only they had pulled out guns and started shooting one another.
Instead, we get probably the least climatic ending in crime film. These four
must have thought, you us together and that was the best you could come up
with. The film is such a hack job - a couple of scenes like the nightclub
scene had to be at night but it is daylight outside. Was there a clause in
the contracts that they would not work at night? And worst of all, Bob gets
the girl. Ugh.
