Hammer tried to get a bit more life out of it’s Dracula series by putting him out East, allowing them to cash in on the kung fu craze as well. It’s actually a terrific idea, and this starts brilliantly with a Chinese man servant going to Transylvania to ask for help of Count Dracula – here not played by Christopher Lee, which is a major shame (personally I think if they couldn’t have gotten him they shouldn’t have bothered, just had another vampire).
But Peter Cushing is back as Van Helsing, touring China and asked to help fight vampires in a visit. He’s accompanied by his son (Robin Phillips from Bless this House and Aussie sex comedy non-classic Pacific Banana), who actually spends a lot of the film being beaten up by Chinese; more useful assistance comes from a family from the village who are all excellent at kung fu (including a kung fu-ing girl). There’s also a blonde Swede who tags along for some extra glamour.
This has an energy lacking in so many later Hammer films – there’s great production value, heaps of kung fu, impressive vampires. There is also some laughably gratuitous breast action (during a raid on a town the vampires randomly rip the shirts off girls).
It’s a shame they couldn’t have put a bit more thought into the story – they don’t use the Dracula factor at all (the could have just used Van Helsing and Chinese vampires), Van Helsing is passive a lot of the time. It’s a bit of a mess but a lot of fun.
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