|
|
|
|
|
December 2001
Download the word version, perfect for printing and handing out on street corners!
The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires *****
|
Ash
|
|
Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "Wow, there's a
British/Hong Kong kung-fu vampire movie out there and I haven't hear of
it?". Well, I've got news for you, pal. There's actually several. The Legend
of the Seven Golden Vampires is just the most accessible, as the rest deal
with really unfortunate looking creatures with yellow eyes that hop around
on all fours like Chinese rabbits. The 'Hopping Vampire' series aside, the
kung-fu vampire movie is a subgenre of horror films that definitely deserves
some respect. After, all, who doesn't enjoy a good, Hong Kong-made kung-fu
movie? You get all the action and excitement of a Stephen Segal flick,
without all that pesky English dialogue and DMX guest spots to get in the
way. Plus, due to the immense perversion that anime has assured me rests
within the heart of Japanese society, you're guaranteed a bared Asian bosom
or two, if not at least one tentacle rape. In terms of the British vampire
movie, the partial nudity rule still holds true, due the bizarrely Freudian
penetration theme of the villains, and you're also guaranteed at least one
appearance by either Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee. Cushing, whom less
educated, Starlog-addicted readers might know only as Grand Moff Tarkin from
Star Wars, is the star of Legend..., putting in his umpteenth performance as
Dr. Van Helsing. He is joined by his son, possibly named Reginald, and a
troop of Ninja Turtle-esque kung-fu brothers, each armed with a different
weapon and all bearing a striking resemblance to Jet Li. Van Helsing and the
brothers are on the trail of a group of seven vampire lords who have been
terrorizing a remote village by forcing the local women to parade around
topless. The vampires are led by none other than Van Helsing's nemesis,
Dracula, who for some reason has taken the form of Fu Manchu, the Yellow
Peril himself, presumably because Chinese actors come a lot cheaper that
British ones. Needless to say, the dispatching of the seven vampire lords
requires a great deal of kung fu from the brothers, and an impressive amount
of standing around and looking old from Peter Cushing, who by that point in
his career was probably relishing the thought of nice, quite productions of
Twelfth Night at a dinner theatre joint. The vampires, however, are not to
be outmatched in terms of crazy Chinasian kung fu, and call up legions of
undead slaves to join the battle, all of whom strongly resemble the zombies
from Spain's Blind Dead series. Parenthetically, in regards to that last
comment, I don't know what's more upsetting to me, the fact that you, the
reader, doesn't know what I'm talking about, or the fact that I do. Being
able to reference an obscure Spanish zombie series like The Blind Dead is
both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing, in that occasionally useless
film trivia will impress a video store clerk enough to score some free Twin
Peaks rentals, but also a curse, since taking up valuable memory with
endless Vincent Price quotations uses brain space perhaps better suited to
remembering phone numbers, birthdays, and how to tell time using a 24 hour
clock. Sure, you might interest the odd skirt you meet at a bar by claiming
Bride of Chucky as your favorite romantic comedy and proceeding through a
scene by scene re-enactment of its finer moments, but once you get her back
to your apartment, she'll quickly discover that memorizing the entire movie
pushed out some other vital information, like exactly how infrequently you
can clean your kitchen before you officially live in squalor. And have you
ever tried impressing a potential employer by miming female mutilation
sequences from Herschell Gordon Lewis movies? Very unsuccessful, unless you
happen to be applying for a position as either a butcher's assistant or
Henry Lee Lucas. It's not that this kind of information is useless, it's
just that we live in a society so screwed up it values practical skills and
knowledge over 1970s exploitation movie trivia. We live in a world where
it's easier for a philosophy major to find meaningful employment than it is
for someone who has put a lifetime of effort into categorizing zombie
movies. Think about it, who would you rather have by your side during the
inevitable coming zombie apocalypse: me, with an encyclopedic knowledge of
undead extermination techniques, or some fancy pants college boy who thinks
he's hot stuff just because he's read most of the Marx brothers' communist
manifesto? I'm telling you, we're setting ourselves up for a fall here. It's
a well established fact that we're due for a major catastrophe sometime
soon, be it zombie-related or otherwise, and quite frankly, we're not ready
for it. Even if it's somewhat pedestrian, like a global flu pandemic, we're
going to need someone in power who has seen Outbreak at least 6 times, and
who is intimately familiar with the Stand miniseries. But do the platforms
of current politicians even mention Steven King movies in their speeches and
debates? No, they barely even mention cult films at all, although the Green
Party tends to get dizzy and start quoting Dazed and Confused every once in
a while. I swear, if George W. Bush had seen Cold War epic Red Dawn even
once, he'd know exactly what to do in these current times of international
crisis, namely hire Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen as guerilla warfare
experts. There's no doubt that Swayze could use his commando skills, as well
as the good ol' fashioned American brawling techniques he picked up in Road
House, to single-handedly defeat that dastardly Osama Bin Laden and his
terrorist network, but lousy Bush is too busy listening to his prissy,
experienced, West Point-educated military advisors, who wouldn't know how to
use 235-trioxin gas to create zombie soldiers if their life depended on it,
to listen to my advice. Well, that ends here. I'd like to take this
opportunity to announce my candidacy for President of the US in the next
elections. I pledge that I will conduct myself with the utmost dignity, and
base all my decisions upon the teachings of Martin Sheen, or more
specifically, President Sheen of The West Wing, not the crazy President
Sheen from The Dead Zone. And I swear that along with mixing preachy,
patriotic rhetoric and down home wisdom with every breath, I will do my best
to assure that each and every citizen of this fine country will have access
to free health care, and enough higher education to know exactly how to deal
with kung fu vampires.
|
|
| 
| | 
| 
|
Warning: require(): http:// wrapper is disabled in the server configuration by allow_url_include=0 in /home/public/pulp/includes/footer.php on line 3
Warning: require(http://www.tangmonkey.com/includes/ads.php): Failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /home/public/pulp/includes/footer.php on line 3
Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Failed opening required 'http://www.tangmonkey.com/includes/ads.php' (include_path='.:/usr/local/php/8.0.30-nfsn2/lib/:/usr/local/php/lib/') in /home/public/pulp/includes/footer.php:3
Stack trace:
#0 /home/public/pulp/2-12/cult.php(137): require()
#1 {main}
thrown in /home/public/pulp/includes/footer.php on line 3
| |
