Aka - Die Hölle von Macao
Aka - The Peking Medallion
Robert Stack is quite the stud in this Euro film production getting to kiss
Elke Sommer, Nancy Kwan and a sexy German actress (Heidy Bohlen) as well
as being woman-handled by a group of prostitutes that he has to fight off.
He didn't think much of the film and says of the director James Hill (Born
Free, A Study in Terror), "a derring-do, hidden treasure stinker" which he
did for the money and because he admired Hill's Born Free. "He was obviously
more at home with lions,". And I would have done it to kiss Kwan and Sommer.
Forget the money. Stack hadn't been too busy since the four-year run of The
Untouchables ended in 1963. Maybe he was too identified as Elliot Ness now
but he had only been in a handful of films since then and I am sure was happy
to latch on to this film. While he was there, he also acted in a film with
Jean Gabin, Le soleil des voyous. I think he was being hard on the film.
It is a fun if geographically challenged with some location shooting in Hong
Kong and a few well-adorned sets. Certainly, no worse than most of the Euro
spy films of the time. And it looks great.
Wilder (Stack) is a professional photographer and for some reason he is in
Red China surreptitiously taking photos of guards and the prison girls working
in the field. All the women are mysteriously beautiful and flirting with
the men. It looks like a low-rent porn film is about to be made. This has
nothing to do with the film but is an opportunity to get some cheesecake
in the film. Lots more to come. They discover him and he races for a boat
and meets up with the Italian owner. The two of them escape to Macao. In
Macao the Italian hands Wilder a package and asks him to hold on to it till
he sees him later. Well, you know how these things go. Everyone in Macao
is after the package - an American gangster (Christian Marquand) who runs
a casino, the Tongs headed by the lovely Tina (Nancy Kwan) and a curvaceous
blonde that he discovers going through his things in his hotel room. This
is Lilly (Elke) looking sumptuous and well fitted out - but unfortunately
dubbed by someone other than Elke.
No surprise when the Italian was invited to a roast dinner - of him - and
now everyone focuses on Wilder, either trying to kill him or capture him.
For a photographer he is pretty tough knocking guys around like bowling pins.
The package contains a medallion that is a map to an ancient treasure. Tina
is your basic Dragon Lady only too happy to use the old Chinese Water torture
except with acid. The American gangster is nicer - he just drags Wilder through
water in a speed boat. It is corny fun as he is in and out of hot water constantly
and decides to go for the treasure himself with Lily. At one point they find
an underground temple in Macao and find an exit that turns out to be in Red
China. That must have been a long tunnel. Though the German title mentions
Macao and the tagline is "Only Macao, deadliest city in the world today,
could spawn the ultimate evil of...", the location shooting listed was in
Hong Kong and Germany. And the outside location had some good moments but
exterior shooting is minimum. Dusty Springfield sings the theme song.
