What a waste of my time!!!

Lack of good storyline.

Absolutely brilliant

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

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.

B grade British film set (and made) in Hong Kong, although the leads are American. The Five Dragons are a confederate involved in illegal activity in Hong Kong, when they decide to dissolve the confederate. A professor meets some young women at the pool and becomes involved. The story is simple comic book stuff, and not particularly carefully made, but the film is livened up by many period scenes in Hong Kong and the comely Magda. There is a song by a contemporary Japanese star called Yukari Ito. In one scene a (new) Toyota Corona turns into an (old) Morris Oxford before blowing up.

Going into this, I knew not to expect too much from it (having watched any number of low-brow espionage fare from the era) but I was still disappointed by the way it wastes a star cast and is compromised besides by the fatal miscasting of the central role! Harry Alan Towers made several colorful thrillers during this time, often set against an exotic backdrop and filled with beautiful girls; oddly enough, then, he went and repeatedly shot himself in the foot by choosing a Hollywood veteran (read: way past his prime and usually forgotten) for leading man – I thought this practice had died with the British B-movies of the previous decade! In this case, we get Robert (sorry, Bob!) Cummings – introduced sunbathing near a pool! – who really must have thought he was appearing in a comedy, since he never takes the mayhem going on around him seriously (despite the constant threats to his own life)! The producer probably felt he had made a coup by securing the services of a two-time Alfred Hitchcock hero (albeit perhaps his lightest ever): on his part, the actor probably merely thanked his lucky stars he could still ogle gorgeous half-naked chicks at his age and, for better or worse, this turned out to be his final theatrical film! Anyway, the titular figures are 5 powerful industrialists from different areas of the globe who join forces – without, however, knowing one another's identity! – intending to control the world's economy (or some such grandiose scheme obviously doomed to failure by the generally oblivious intervention of our happy-go-lucky hero!). When they finally appear, or rather 4 of them (as the fifth remains a mystery till the very end), they are supposed to justify the presence in the film of Dan Duryea, Brian Donlevy, George Raft and Christopher Lee – who subsequently do nothing but present themselves to one another (after removing their golden-dragon masks) while sitting at table and opening a box in front of them with one of two keys which, were they to adopt the wrong one, would end up shot dead! Convoluting this basic plot is the interaction between Dragon minion Klaus Kinski, a couple of sisters (Maria Perschy, who had fled from service with the Dragon conglomerate, and Maria Rohm, the producer/writer's wife), two vaguely antagonistic others involved in running a nightclub (the girl being "Euro-Cult" babe Margaret Lee), not forgetting the Shakespeare-quoting British Inspector stationed in Hong Kong (played by Rupert Davies) who, when he gets stuck or slips on the Act/Verse front, a local aide butts in half-mockingly (yeah right, like I know Confucius!).Though the Widescreen print looks very good, it all goes for naught when one is never really drawn into the various intrigues, not due to its proving mystifying but rather because it is so sketchily-presented as to barely matter! Along the way, Cummings receives a cryptic note from a man killed by Kinski's henchman, is chased by the latter and his men along the river banks and later atop a temple (cue totally inappropriate cartoonish sounds accompanying the dull and protracted action itself!), framed for Perschy's murder and eventually sent, in the guise of No. 5 Dragon (pardon the lapse into Charlie Chan lingo!), to be eliminated himself at the climactic meeting of the charade-happy big-wigs! Like I said, very few of the stars are given anything substantial to do – of the Dragons, only Duryea gets to utter more than a few dumb lines; Kinski, too, is underused; as for the girls, Rohm's basic lack of experience is evident (this was only her third film), Perschy does what she can with the frightened-lady stereotype, whereas Lee sings and plays the sultry villainess adequately enough but, entering proceedings at the 45-minute mark and appearing thereafter only intermittently, it results in a 'too little too late' scenario!

Singapore looks great. The rest of this film is so incredibly bad that its a wonder that Mystery Science Theater 3000 never found it. Equally amazing is that this film isn't high on the list of inept movies made by people who should know better. Forget the plot, it makes no real sense (it has something to do with a fat man being thrown off the balcony of a 12th story apartment thats empty, a note he leaves behind for a guy he met in Manila, and a group of people known as the Five Golden Dragons). Mostly its an excuse to have Bob Cummings (a fading sitcom star who's career faded even more after this) wander through various dangerous situations and say stupid things that are suppose to be funny. This is a comedy right? Actually most things I've seen about this film list it as a drama, which it never could be except in a drug addled mind. The dialog is awful. the performances are even worse. Its as if no one cared.(Maybe Klaus Kinski did since he's the only one not sending in a note that their performance couldn't come in because it was sick) Cummings is beyond bad.I mean beyond beyond (way past the land of hope and fear bad). The big name stars, George Raft, Brian Brian Donlevy, Christopher Lee and others, seem somnambulant in their very very brief appearances. Shall we talk about the continuity? Actually we could if there was some but there is not. Watch how things jump from shot to shot to shot . Nothing, and I do mean that, nothing matches. Who was the editor of this? Watch as people and objects move around a set with the greatest of ease.There is a drinking game waiting to be created here. I've read a couple of things since I watched this last night that described it as jaw dropping...and it is I could feel my jaw opening as I watched this and an incredulous expression go across my face. I also kept wondering what the heck I was watching. This is awful. I mean its bad. And if you can get drunk with some friends I think this is probably a laugh riot. In the words of Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now "The Horror the horror." (If you must see this try to get the full version which can be had from Sinister Cinema since its got an extra half hour of truly awfulness from the version thats floating around on tape. I mean if you're going to abuse yourself, do it right)