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| Lee Van Cleef's furry chest features prominently on this kitschy cool poster for Antonio Margheriti's Blood Money |
QUICK REVIEW:
The pretty sleazy story of Blood Money is that a bank robber and a kung fu-heir from China pair up to get their hands on a great treasure, which is only possible to find through a series of four maps in four different cities, concealed as tattoos on the buttocks of hot ladies! Meanwhile they have to fight off a fanatical priest, who also wants the fortune.
The Stranger and the Gunfighter is an amusing genre-cook-down, but not a very successful film, and not very interesting for anyone besides fans of Lee Van Cleef (For a Few Dollars More (1965)), who plays the bank robber, and fans of obscure genre mixes as this.
It was made as a co-production between Spaghetti western Italians and the Hong Kong-based Shaw Brothers, who were behind Bruce Lee's films among others, as part of their effort at the time to branch out to new markets. They collaborated with the English Hammer studios the same year for The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, a film that mixed Gothic horror with kung fu.
Blood Money also features Indonesian Hong Kong-based kung fu star Lieh Lo (The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978)). It was directed by Italian genre and exploitation director Antonio Margheriti, who also directed such appetizing titles such as The Long Hair of Death (1964), Mr. Hercules Against Karate (1973), Cannibal Apocalypse (1980) and Commando Leopard (1985).
Click to enlarge this other poster for the film, which also features scarcely clad ladies!
Watch the super-cool, original exploitation trailer here
Budget: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown
What do you think of Blood Money?
Do you know any better instances of trying to mend the western with the martial arts genre?
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