Five Golden Dragons
Five Golden Dragons
| 03 August 1967 (USA)
Five Golden Dragons Trailers

While travelling through Hong Kong, Bob Mitchell accidentally stumbles into the middle of criminal negotiations between a mean gang, the Five Golden Dragons and the local mobsters.

Reviews
Scott LeBrun

Silly, sometimes juvenile, but generally amusing adaptation of the Edgar Wallace story by producer Harry Alan Towers, using his screen writing pseudonym of "Peter Welbeck". Fading sitcom star Robert Cummings plays Bob Mitchell, a naive American playboy on vacation in Hong Kong. He soon gets dragged into various matters of international intrigue, while a dedicated police commissioner (Rupert Davies) and his associate (Roy Chiao) work the case. The "five golden dragons" of the title are criminal masterminds who are due to meet each other in person for the first time.This is a moderately fun, rather lightweight mystery. It's not a great one by any stretch of the imagination, but it sometimes delivers some entertainment. It lessens its impact by going on too long, and losing some momentum, and it really does get too positively goofy for its own good. (The falling death of a henchman is played for laughs, for one thing.) What helps matters a fair bit is the exotic setting. The movie is shot in Techniscope and Technicolor and looks absolutely gorgeous. And now that the word "gorgeous" has been brought up, it must be said that the female cast looks ravishing: Margaret Lee as the devilish singer Magda, and Maria Rohm & Maria Perschy as a pair of sisters. The songs & score are catchy.The international cast of superstars gives it curiosity value. Cummings supplies both heroics and comedy relief, and he's likable enough. Davies and Chiao (the two of them utter quotes from Shakespeare appropriate to various situations) are excellent. Klaus Kinski is a hoot as always as the nefarious Gert, but fans might bemoan not seeing him get to do more. Giving the film a shot in the arm late in the game are the special guest star appearances by Dan Duryea, George Raft, Brian Donlevy, and Sir Christopher Lee, who play four of the five golden dragons. Still, one may rightly think that to see them so briefly is a waste of talent. Japanese pop star Yukari Ito makes a musical appearance.Enjoyable, to a degree, but also largely forgettable. One highlight, or low point, depending on your point of view, is seeing a supposedly dead body blink several times.Six out of 10.

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johnd-jasper

As others have mentioned, this can only be described as a comedy as any dramatic moments must have wound up on the cutting room floor. I mean, really! A woman's sister has been murdered only 2 days before and she consoles herself by water skiing in the bay? Another few days and she's jetting off with the hero? Did this woman even leave a forwarding address for the ashes? The low-speed chase scenes, one on oar-driven water taxis and another on rickshaws were light relief to the mind-numbing dialogues. As is always true to form with this genre, it includes a ridiculously elaborate hijack attempt, this time trying to grab the bereft woman on water skis rather than just kidnapping her on her return to dock.If you've got time to kill and nothing better to hand, this would be better than watching a blank screen but only marginally. There is plenty of colour and some pleasant songs at least in the version I saw.

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bkoganbing

I'm sure that Bob Cummings and the guest stars who played the Golden Dragons must have looked forward to a nice trip to Hong Kong as the main reason for signing on for this film. In the case of George Raft his troubles with the IRS are well documented. It's as good a reason as any to appear in this dragging film.Five Men who are the Golden Dragons are operators apparently on both sides of the law and unknown to each other they meet in Hong Kong to dissolve a successful partnership and split their accumulated loot. They wear these silly dragon masks and have a key that opens a lock for admission. If they're not a dragon, they got shot with a turn of said lock.Four of them make it, Dan Duryea, George Raft, Christopher Lee, and Brian Donlevy. The fifth doesn't show up, he's been eliminated. They can't start without him.In the meantime kind of like Cary Grant was sucked into some espionage plot in an infinitely better film, North By Northwest, Bob Cummings gets involved in this whole business. He's an aging playboy in Hong Kong for some fun and frolic. Of course he's not what he seems.Cummings tried to make light of the whole business. Everyone else mouthed the dialog with all the satisfaction of players whose salary checks have cleared.All of you I'm sure have better memories of all the name players in the cast. Keep them.

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malcolmgsw

Watching this film you get the impression that they were writing the film at the same time that it was being shot.Sequences don't seem to join together.Events happen for no reason.So in the end it makes very little sense.Robert Cummings,in his last theatrical film,looks totally out of place.He looks old and tired.He seems to behave rather strangely as if he has St Vitus dance.Then we have the guest stars.Watching them is rather like watching wax replicas.Basically all they have to say is "Number 2".The only real interest in this film is viewing Hong Kong as it was in 1965 before the construction of so many skyscrapers.Also planes coming into land at the old Kai Tek airport.that was truly a memorable experience.This film is truly awful but entertaining for that reason.

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