There is a statue that everyone is after, because inside it are the golden needles - acupuncture needles that, if placed in exactly the right spots on the body, can turn any man into a superman (according to the poster's tagline, they can rule the world). Since Felicity (Ashley) isn't willing to buy it for 250,000 dollars, she hires Dan (Baker), an adventurer based out of Hong Kong, to get it for her. He agrees, and brings on board his friend Jeff (Kelly) to help him out. But it's not going to be easy, because everyone from Lin Toa (Chiao) to eccentric millionaire Winters (Meredith) is hot on the trail of this mysterious statue as well. Every trick in the book is used to obtain the statue, including inexplicable teams of guys in gold protective suits with flamethrowers torching where they think it is. Will Dan and Jeff prevail? Man, we're really getting tired of these PG-rated actioners. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that rating, but you can't really pull out all the stops. While there are some fights and some intrigue, and even some mild torture (inflicted on legendary actress Ann Sothern of all people), the film lacks drive and is filled with...well...filler.For example, Jim Kelly is painfully underused here. He doesn't show up until 47 minutes in, and does one very brief fight. Even the end credits say "Jim Kelly's Fight Sequence Choreographed By Himself". Fight SEQUENCE? This really shouldn't be in the singular. There should have been multiple Jim Kelly fight sequences. But we are treated to some Joe Don Baker-Fu, and it's nice to see him looking so young, and, by his standards, vigorous.While the film is shot very well and has a nice Lalo Schifrin score, and a cast of familiar faces, it's really hard to overcome the slow pace. It would be perfect for a young kid who wants to see an action-type film, but it seems a kid would be bored by much of the proceedings. So the film is caught in a bind. Yes, it was directed by Robert Clouse, who has a lot of famous films to his credit, but Golden Needles was not released on VHS (at least not in America) during the heyday of the video store, so it never had a chance to become a cult classic. Not that it definitely would have, but it never even got a fighting chance. This happened a lot with AIP (American International Pictures, not Action International) movies. I don't know if it was rights issues or just bad business practices, but a lot of their movies didn't get the attention they deserved during the VHS era. This was just one of those casualties, it seems.And, in the final analysis, despite the presence of Burgess Meredith and his awesome bowties, Golden Needles is Saturday afternoon stuff which left a lot to be desired and, sadly, is ultimately unsuccessful. It's not without some merits, and we've seen much, MUCH worse, but ultimately it did not deliver the goods.for more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

Despite bringing together a newly-born film star – Joe Don Baker, fresh from the box-office smash, WALKING TALL (1973) – and action director – Robert Clouse, of ENTER THE DRAGON (1973) fame – this a lamentably lackluster martial arts flick about the search for (or rather the chase after) a bronze statue which contains seven golden all-curing acupuncture needles which is craved by various parties.Baker is a retired detective slumming it out in Hong Kong who is hired by an enterprising ‘cowgirl’ (Elizabeth Ashley) to look for the titular commodities on behalf of her mysterious employer. Baker comes in possession of the statue early on in the game but it is subsequently stolen from the house of an old Asian teacher of his who is murdered; consequently, he teams up with his colored partner Jim Kelly (saddled with an Afro hair-do typical of the era) in L.A. to go after the bad guys – with a little help from a butt-kicking Asian policewoman and her colleagues. Hollywood veterans Burgess Meredith (as the villainous old businessman who seeks immortality) and Ann Sothern (as a Hong Kong madam who takes punishment like a man to protect Baker) bring some much needed spice to the largely indifferent proceedings.

Joe Don Baker headlines in this Robert Clouse directed, minorly interesting tale concerning the hunt for a priceless golden statue that reveals the hidden acupuncture points that will when stimulated, rejuvenate any man into a super stud! Well it's certainly an intriguing plot device to be sure but the film itself is a sadly decidedly minor effort and is furthermore, mostly unengaging throughout.Although fans of Jim Kelly may initially scramble to get hold of this to see the great man in action, I should warn you all that he actually hardly features in this and only gets to show off some of his skills in one sequence (which is decidedly badly staged I might hastily add at that).Still to be fair, having stated the above negative points the film does have a rather good final twenty or so minutes and features a rather exciting chase sequence wherein our hero is pursued through narrow streets by an angry mob who are baying for his blood.Certainly not one of director Clouse's finest moments (nor it's stars for that matter) but may just about merit a watch if you are a Clouse completest.Note: I've got to commend the casting of the beautiful Frances Fong as Shu Lin - although not a great actress by any stretch of the imagination, her stunning beauty absolutely shines like a diamond in every single scene she appears in.

Director Robert Clouse's career has been overshadowed by 1973's "Enter the Dragon" which was in part, an attempt to incorporate elements of Chinese and Hong Kong cinema into the American formula. Some two decades before John Woo et.al made the leap to Hollywood, producer Raymond Chow (head of Golden Harvest) teamed with Clouse many times in the 1970s, repeatedly spiking cross-cultural martial arts and detective actioners. "Golden Needles" was another such attempt to fuse American and Hong Kong action film conventions: this film being a comedic, actionful, fantasy version of the classic "Maltese Falcon". Joe Don Baker starred as an American in Hong Kong, who for a favour and a price, attempts to track down a priceless idol. This idol is one of the strangest McGuffins in the movies: it is pierced by needles in a specific pattern, and if the acupuncture is performed on a man, in the same pattern as marked on the idol, renewed sexual vigour results. Thus, it is sought after by all manner of older men (including Burgess Meredith in one of his funniest roles). Whilst meant as entertainment, the film succeeds also as one of the strangest treatments of the theme of drug addiction so prevalent in 70s American film, and even Clouse's other work (especially "The Amsterdam Kill"). Boistered by an excellent, comical, music score by Lalo Schifrin, featuring piercing sounds to mimic the acupuncture motif, the film is an immensely enjoyable generic hybrid, free from pretension, and a shining example of B-movie pleasures. Self-consciously, and never heavy-handedly, Clouse uses the genre conventions to frame a study of the US cultural appropriation of foreign practices (the Asian connection being the supplier of heroin ironically enough). Progressively weirder and with a protagonist whose easy-going sense of adventure becomes ever more sobering as he proceeds, this film is a true oddity, and all the better for it. Clouse's handling serves as a neat reminder of the time when he was still an innovator in B-movies, instead of the mere imitator he had become by the beginning of the 1980s.