Five Golden Dragons

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.

To call this a strange thriller would be an understatement. The strangeness comes from the story itself. In the blurb for this flick, it declares a young naive American Playboy in Hong Kong finds himself caught up in international crime. Even though, at first glance, Bob Mitchell is just that - and he plays the part - he's actually a middle-aged Doctor. Bob, for some reason that is never explained, is to meet up with a businessman he talked to onboard his cruiseliner. This man is followed from the moment he disembarks. He rushes to an abandoned apartment in a block on the outskirts of the city and is promptly thrown over the balcony to his death. On his way to the apartment, he hands the taxi driver a cryptic note for Bob, which just reads Five Golden Dragons.

From here on in we enter a cat and mouse chase as Bob tries to find out about the dragons while staying out of the reach of assassins.

This film sports a marvellous cast. Christopher Lee, George Raft, Brian Donlevy, Klaus Kinski, Roy Chiao, Rupert Davis, Margaret Lee, Maria Rhom, and Robert Cummings. However, the majority of the talent, though consistent, is underused, Even the supplemental cast is strong in their portrayals. It's just the story that lets them down.

I cannot believe for a second that the Dragons are not Chinese and yet they run and control every illegal operation in Hong Kong. Let alone that these five crime lords are about to sell their enterprises to the Mafia. In fact, as the story progresses you begin to wonder if the writer, Peter Welbeck, wasn't just bolting things on as he went along. "Oh, I've had an idea, let's throw it in an see if it sticks." If this is the case then I take my hat off to the director, Jeremy Summers, who still created and crafted a nicely shot movie.

However, I'm not too sure if this was meant to be a comedy or a straight action spy thriller. There are times when everything is played as straight as a ruler. Then Summers throws in a curveball, such as a chase scene where Bob is being pursued by some assassins up one of the iconic period towers in Hong Kong. For some reason, the music being used is lighthearted and uses the "Shave And A Hair-Cut, Two Bits" refrain... Da... Da-Da Da Da... Da Da. As well as having a comedic sound when one of his pursuers is tossed over the parapet. Also, a lot of Bob's narrative has humorous overtones. All of this keeps the film light and makes it enjoyable in a weird kind of way.

This is pretty much your standard sixties action spy affair - though nowhere near James Bond's calibre. It's entertaining in its way and the peculiarity of some of the scenes will keep you watching. The ending may leave you feeling a little cold. This could have been so much better. It's one of those scenes that feels and looks rushed and "bolted" on. You should never do that at the climax it can easily ruin a film, which this so nearly does.

If you like lighthearted action thrillers with beautiful scantily clad ladies and a pinch of humour and a smattering of oddness then this could be your film. I enjoyed it but I doubt I'll watch it again - even though I now have a crush on Margaret Lee and Maria Perschy... Ah, if I could only time travel...

"Five Golden Dragons" is a very odd film that was made at the Shaw Brothers Studio in Hong Kong. It's odd because although the studio is known for its martial arts movies, this one is a crime film jam-packed with over the hill American stars of the past. Bob Cummings stars in it but it also features Dan Duryea, George Raft and Brian Donlevy! Additionally, Christopher Lee is there...and like all but Cummings, he barely has a line in the film and spends much of the movie wearing a silly golden dragon mask!

Cummings plays an American businessman, Bob Mitchell, who is in Hong Kong on business. However, his path crosses a vicious gang run by the Golden Dragons syndicate and he spends much of the film running from these jerks....and, inexplicably, running from the police who are trying to save him!

The plot to this film quite often makes no sense. However, the location shooting looks nice and the film never really takes itself seriously, so it's still a decent time-passer...even if the notion of the older American actor somehow defeating crime lords!

There are four golden reasons to watch this lightweight comedy- thriller from B-movie programmer king Harry Alan Towers alias Peter Welbeck. 1) the on-location photography of 1960s Hong Kong 2) Margaret Lee who also sings "Five Golden Dragons," a good little tune 3) Maria Rohm 4) Maria Perschy. If not for the latter three, I'd have turned off this movie after 20 minutes. I can't see any reason to actually buy the DVD if you've seen it on TV or Amazon Prime.

Affable Bob Cummings basically plays his TV character from "Love That Bob." Evasive, easy-going, constantly chattering small talk, nervous, clumsy and too-cool-for-school, Bob overdoes wiping his face with a handkerchief in the second half. I don't know what that was all about. An endless stream of beefy Chinese thugs in matching Polo shirts chase him around Hong Kong but can't kill him but they do kill off one of the cast sleeping in his hotel bedroom, while he's on the couch snoozing. The rest of the cast in small roles is a Who's Who of movie legends, well-known faces and international actors.

Bob was lucky not to have any scenes directly opposite mad man Klaus Kinski, unusually subdued here. It has the same kind of fun-B movie time-killing, ambiance as another Towers production, Bang! Bang! You're Dead! (Our Man in Marrakesh) with Tony Randall who supposedly turned down the Cummings role. Towers had a yen for these Sax Rohmer/Edgar Wallace-style films in the 1960s, ultimately producing and writing over 100 films during his lifetime, adding production value with exotic locations like Beirut and Hong Kong. The editing of the night club performances by Lee and Yukari Ito is poor, interrupting their singing for some meaningless cut-away and then back again to the singers.

I've gone back and forth on how to rate Five Golden Dragons. On one hand, I really want to like this movie. It's got an infectious 60s vibe that really worked with me. On the other hand, it's got a lot of problems and is, in all honesty, a mess of a movie. So, I'm stuck with giving it a wishy-washy 5/10.

I'm not going to do the normal plot summary. There's no point because there's not much of a coherent plot. None of it makes any sense at all. I'll just say that there is a lot of super-secret spy type stuff going on in Hong Kong and it all surrounds a group of five guys who call themselves the Five Golden Dragons (hence the title). What they do or who they are is as unknown to me now as it was before I watched the movie. All I know is that they want to sell-out to the mafia (I think) for $50 million. And there are some other people who would quite naturally like to get their hands on the money. Be warned that all or part of this could be completely wrong - I just don't know.

One of the big draws of Five Golden Dragons is the cast. George Raft, Dan Duryea, Brian Donlevy, and Christopher Lee are prominently listed in the credits. However, their combined screen time is about 10-15 minutes and all they do is sit around a table, put on and take off some goofy looking gold dragon masks, and spout some of the most inane dialogue I've ever heard. The whole thing looks like it might have been filmed in an hour. Their acting is also pretty funny. They all seem to go through a range of emotions ranging from bewilderment to confusion to amusement to impatience. It's obvious they realize how bad this thing really is.

Most of the rest of the cast is, however, very enjoyable. I really enjoyed seeing Klaus Kinski, Maria Perschy (wow), Maria Rohm, Rupert Davies, and Sieghardt Rupp. All are capable and do the best with what they have. But the highlight for me was Margaret Lee. Any movie with Margaret Lee is automatically better than it would have been without her. A lot of the movie is more than competently filmed with some very nice shots of Hong Kong. The chase scene through the harbor was especially nice. The movie's pacing is all over the place. In spots the action is great and the movie has a nice flow to it. But, in others, the film really drags.

Finally, after going through some of the good and bad I found in Five Golden Dragons, I'm left with writing about the one thing that almost ruined the movie for me and keeps me from rating it at least a point higher. And that is Robert Cummings. He's so bad! I don't know when I've seen an actor irritate me like this. Part of the problem is that much of the time he seems to be acting like he's in another movie. The comedy he brings to the film is most often completely out of place. His reactions to most everything going on are usually the exact opposite of what you would expect. Also, he's 100% wrong for the role. Here's the IMDb summary for the movie, "A naive young American playboy in Hong Kong finds himself caught up in the middle of an international crime." Young! Are you kidding me? At 57, Cummings isn't young by a long shot. And his bad dye job doesn't help. Some of his scenes with Maria Perschy and Margaret Lee are embarrassing. Also, at 57, he's way too old play "naïve". His stammering, stuttering schoolboy is laughable. Completely and utterly ridiculous! I'm willing to forgive a lot of the faults in Five Golden Dragons, but Cummings isn't one of them.