Rhapsodies

Well the Halloween season has begun. So to start things off, my first theme is what I like to call Monsters; east meets west. That is to say eastern monsters meet, and possibly fight, western monsters. At least that was the plan.

So the first movie on my list, Tomo-O Haraguchi’s Kibakichi, tells the story of  Kibakichi, (Ryuji Harada) a wandering Werewolf Ronin arrives in a gambling town. It turns out to be run by yokai who are hiding from humanity. While at the same time using the their gambling house as a trap for unwitting humans. What can a sword fighting werewolf to do?

This was… okay. Not much of a story, but fairly good monster effects. As far as this week’s theme was concerned it more or less fit. While Kibakichi is very much a western style werewolf in the context of the film, werewolves are treated like another kind of Yokai. 

The next film Chang Cheh and Roy Ward Baker‘s The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires has Dracula contacted by the minion of seven chinese vampires for help. Instead Dracula takes the form of the of the minion and travels to China to take over. One hundred years later Professor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) is lecturing in China where he is contacted by Hsi Ching (David Chiang) whose village is being attacked by the vampires. Van Helsing has to travel with Hsi Ching and his brothers and sister to fight dracula and his associates.

A joint venture between Hammer Studios and Shaw Brothers Studios, this was pretty much an excuse for Hammer Studios to do a martial arts film and it does not work. There’s a reason this was Hammer’s last Dracula film.