This a prequel to The satanic rites of Dracula. The it is great movie. It is very scary. If you do not get scared of this movie. Then no movie will scary you. It is the ninth hammer Dracula movie. It takes please after the first six hammer Dracula movies. But before the seventh and eighth hammer Dracula movies. This movie has a great story line. It also has great acting. It also has great special effects. See this a movie. It is a must see. The first eight hammer Dracula movies are a little better. But this is one of the best horror movies ever. This a 70's horror classic. Dracula kills a c.h.i.n.e.s.e man. He shape s.h.i.f.e.s into a him. He goes to China to rise seven vampires that where gold mask and suits. Very scary.

Hammer's Dracula series is nothing more than a bunch of old dusty vampire films with pathetic low budget, laughable effects, and ridiculous plots in which the vampires are nothing more than a bunch of weak-ass turtles. This belief was firstly established by watching the trashy "Horror of Dracula" (a film that should be called "A Horrified Dracula"), and a few follow-ups (a series of rubbish) like "Brides of Dracula", and further made solid by this abomination.The story had potential. The idea of Dracula having cross-cultural communication with the Chinese vampires seems interesting. Watching a Chinese priest who's dressed like a Chinese monk speaking Chinese to Dracula and Dracula having no trouble with communicating got me intrigued and made me laugh. A vampire film with Chinese elements would be fun, I thought.Oh gosh. How wrong I was, thinking this piece of crap could have been fun!

This is the ninth and final Hammer "Dracula" film and the only one to feature an actor other than Christopher Lee in the role of Dracula. It's a decent film but not a great one. I've never been a fan of martial arts films so I found those (endless) scenes rather boring but at least they tried something different, which is why I enjoyed it more than "Scars of Dracula". I thought that that film was just a rehash of the best bits from the first five films. Even though Dracula had relatively little screen time in the previous films (bar "The Brides of Dracula" in which he doesn't appear at all), his presence was felt throughout and, consequently, anticipation and tension are built. That's not the case in this film, the only one in which he isn't the title character. His inclusion seems more like a late addition to the storyline. His final Hammer death is very underwhelming and rushed. Peter Cushing is as excellent as ever but it's just not the same without Christopher Lee. The series deserved to go out with a stronger film.

Van Helsing goes to China...and the result is ripping good yarn!When this movie first came out, many Hammer fans were appalled at the idea of Hammer producer Michael Carreras teaming with Hong Kong movie mogul Run Run Shaw to create a Hammer/Kung Fu hybrid; it seemed like a desperate attempt to revive the declining Hammer brand by grafting it onto the ascendant Kung Fu craze. Looking back from the vantage point of 2011--after seeing Batman, Hellboy, Iron Man, The Mummy franchise, et. al. go to China--Carerras's cross-cultural gambit looks like genius, and 40 years ahead of its time...perhaps literally so, since the revived Hammer company is now talking about doing a remake.If you fear this movie will be a Kung Fu actioner with lots of bone-crunching sound effects and nuggets of inscrutable wisdom, think again. It's pure Hammer from start to finish, with a reliable anchoring performance by Peter Cushing as Van Helsing. It seems the venerable doctor is doing some anthropological field work in China; when he lectures at a university, his unwelcome discussion of vampires draws catcalls but finds one receptive listener who knows the truth of the Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires. Add a traveling European heiress with a taste for adventure and a fortune to fund an expedition into the hinterland, and the plot is off and running.This is a work of high fantasy that draws not just on Bram Stoker but on a long tradition of English literature. The narrative brio reminds me of the adventure stories of H. Rider Haggard (here set in China instead of Africa). There's also a bit of Tolkien in the storytelling, with the 7 Golden Vampires reminiscent of the Nazgul, Dracula of Sauron, and Van Helsing of Gandalf, leading a motley fellowship on a journey to destroy evil. As the travelers draw ever nearer to their goal, they engage in repeated battles that take a terrible toll, right up to the final confrontation with the Evil One himself. (Lest you think the Tolkien parallel is a stretch, consider that the character of Van Helsing was one of Tolkien's inspirations for Gandalf, the keeper of secret knowledge who advises and motivates those who would rid the world of its greatest evil.)The action scenes look quite dated, but only because we've grown used to seeing aerial martial arts performed with guy-wires against a blue-screen; in the old-fashioned Kung Fu films, acrobats were still subject to the laws of gravity.