Five Golden Dragons (1967)iMDB Rating: 5.0
Date Released : 4 August 1967
Genre : Action, Drama
Stars : Robert Cummings, Margaret Lee, Rupert Davies, Klaus Kinski
Movie Quality : BRrip
Format : MKV
Size : 700 MB
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A naive young American playboy in Hong Kong finds himself caught up in the middle of an international crime.
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Review :
FIVE GOLDEN DRAGONS (Jeremy Summers, 1967) **
Going into this, I knew not to expect too much from it (having watched any number of low-brow espionage fare from the era) but I was still disappointed by the way it wastes a star cast and is compromised besides by the fatal miscasting of the central role! Harry Alan Towers made several colorful thrillers during this time, often set against an exotic backdrop and filled with beautiful girls; oddly enough, then, he went and repeatedly shot himself in the foot by choosing a Hollywood veteran (read: way past his prime and usually forgotten) for leading man – I thought this practice had died with the British B-movies of the previous decade! In this case, we get Robert (sorry, Bob!) Cummings – introduced sunbathing near a pool! – who really must have thought he was appearing in a comedy, since he never takes the mayhem going on around him seriously (despite the constant threats to his own life)! The producer probably felt he had made a coup by securing the services of a two-time Alfred Hitchcock hero (albeit perhaps his lightest ever): on his part, the actor probably merely thanked his lucky stars he could still ogle gorgeous half-naked chicks at his age and, for better or worse, this turned out to be his final theatrical film!
Anyway, the titular figures are 5 powerful industrialists from different areas of the globe who join forces – without, however, knowing one another's identity! – intending to control the world's economy (or some such grandiose scheme obviously doomed to failure by the generally oblivious intervention of our happy-go-lucky hero!). When they finally appear, or rather 4 of them (as the fifth remains a mystery till the very end), they are supposed to justify the presence in the film of Dan Duryea, Brian Donlevy, George Raft and Christopher Lee – who subsequently do nothing but present themselves to one another (after removing their golden-dragon masks) while sitting at table and opening a box in front of them with one of two keys which, were they to adopt the wrong one, would end up shot dead! Convoluting this basic plot is the interaction between Dragon minion Klaus Kinski, a couple of sisters (Maria Perschy, who had fled from service with the Dragon conglomerate, and Maria Rohm, the producer/writer's wife), two vaguely antagonistic others involved in running a nightclub (the girl being "Euro-Cult" babe Margaret Lee), not forgetting the Shakespeare-quoting British Inspector stationed in Hong Kong (played by Rupert Davies) who, when he gets stuck or slips on the Act/Verse front, a local aide butts in half-mockingly (yeah right, like I know Confucius!).
Though the Widescreen print looks very good, it all goes for naught when one is never really drawn into the various intrigues, not due to its proving mystifying but rather because it is so sketchily-presented as to barely matter! Along the way, Cummings receives a cryptic note from a man killed by Kinski's henchman, is chased by the latter and his men along the river banks and later atop a temple (cue totally inappropriate cartoonish sounds accompanying the dull and protracted action itself!), framed for Perschy's murder and eventually sent, in the guise of No. 5 Dragon (pardon the lapse into Charlie Chan lingo!), to be eliminated himself at the climactic meeting of the charade-happy big-wigs! Like I said, very few of the stars are given anything substantial to do – of the Dragons, only Duryea gets to utter more than a few dumb lines; Kinski, too, is underused; as for the girls, Rohm's basic lack of experience is evident (this was only her third film), Perschy does what she can with the frightened-lady stereotype, whereas Lee sings and plays the sultry villainess adequately enough but, entering proceedings at the 45-minute mark and appearing thereafter only intermittently, it results in a 'too little too late' scenario!
Los chicos del Preu (1967)iMDB Rating: 5.8
