A western set in America that is filmed in Spain and Hong Kong? An attempt to split gunfighting action with martial arts action? An established genre star with a fast rising action star? An attempt to squeeze in a lot of goofy exploitation and shots of women's butts? Did I enjoy this film?
Film #27 The Stranger and the Gunfighter (aka Blood Money) (1974)
Here is the imdb.com cast listing. Here is the wikipedia page about the production.
This film starts off with Dakota (Lee Van Cleef) riding under a train into Monterey. He has his eyes on a bank vault and what may be inside of it. As he open the vault door, he finds a black and white photo of a woman, close to being fully nude. Another door, another photo. Soon he has four photos, a fortune cookie, and one final door to open. He lights a stick of dynamite and hides from the soon to be explosion. Suddenly, the owner of the vault and the photos, Mr. Wang, rushes in to stop the explosion but dies in it instead. Dakota is immediately arrested.
In China, a warlord that has fronted Wang a large deal of money to invest in America, hears of his death and lack of fortune. The warlord summons Ho Chiang (Lo Lieh), Wang's nephew. He tells Ho that he has one year to go to America and find Wang's fortune or else the warlord will kill Ho and his family.
Dakota is sentenced to be hanged and Wang wants to speak to him about the robbery on the off chance he knows what happened to the fortune (no one believes Dakota when he tells them all he found was just the nude photos and cookie). While talking to Dakota and going over the photos, they open the fortune cookie and the message inside states 'At bottom of every woman is fortune.' Ho believes that his uncle left clues on the asses of the four women in the photos. Ho saves Dakota from the noose (he needs a guide in America) and soon they are off to go look at four women's asses to find clues to Uncle Wang's fortune.
Misunderstandings happen. Cultures clash. Hilarity ensues. Oh, and eventually a bible thumping, verse spewing, man in black with a realllllly wide hat and his Indian strong man side kick start chasing Dakota and Ho, as they know about the money too.
That's your film. A very over the top (not in a great way) East vs West clash of styles and a lot of looking at ladies' asses. I am pretty sure if I had told people that I had a really weird dream and described the plot of this film, people would tell me I have really stupid dreams.
I didn't hate this film. There are bits I enjoyed, some of the comedy does work. A lot of it doesn't though and it is a shame as I think a martial arts master and an aging gunfighter is a great set up for a movie. It is interesting to know that as the American West was going through its growing pains, China and Japan were going through some interesting transitions of their own. Traditions were changing do to technological and societal advancements. What is considered honor in one land may not be the same in another. Maybe that western film exists. I understand that this film did not have its eyes set on such lofty explorations of men, culture, and history. It had its eyes set lower, like around the butt area.
I appreciate that Ho's character had no sexual interest in the women when they were tracked down. He was simply completing his task. I didn't need everyone in the world turning into a cartoon wolf and howling at the moon (pun intended?) whenever a pretty lady had to reveal the next clue in the puzzle. Dakota seemed to enjoy it a bit too much at times, but that at least felt in line with his rowdy by the skin of his teeth character.
At first I was excited at the idea of incorporating kung fu into a western. That is a cool mash up idea. The kung fu in this is very light and ridiculous. What I mean by that is that there are clearly times when they reversed the film to make it look like Lo Lieh was jumping to very high ledges instead of him actually dropping down. I want to see the reality of fluid hand to hand combat and the film never really got there. I think you can get away with a person being an amazing shot with a gun (ala Van Cleef in Sabata) as you don't actually see them making the shot due to trick photography. I don't think you get away with hand to hand fighting where you show your character flying through the air in an almost Mortal Kombat style arc.
Maybe I am being too harsh on this portion of the film, but I think it is a fair point to make. Just because you are making a martial arts/western comedy, the action part of it should at least hold its own. Even the brawling Wrestlemania-like ending to They Call Me Trinity showed some fun moves. The Stranger and the Gunfighter had an opportunity to really leaves its mark as a genre hybrid and it faltered in its execution.
Some positives:
1.) Lo Lieh had a genuine kindness around him and an easy smile. You believe that his character is 100% confident in his ability to beat anyone but fighting was never his first choice. I liked that he was never played stupid or stuck into any stereotype.
2.) Lee Van Cleef is always great. Here he isn't a bad bad guy (though he did rob a bank and blow up a guy by accident) and is more along for the ride. Its a role he could probably play in his sleep but he brings enough charisma to it.
3.) The adventure/journey aspect of the film. It is a trope that the heroes need to find multiple pieces of an item/puzzle in order to complete their task but it is a decent enough structure to get the two main characters together and to keep them working together. It also set up different scenarios that that they needed to figure out how to get to each of the four women and their... information.
This is where I would normally post a video that is of a particular scene I like, but aside from the trailer, there appears to be no individual scenes I can find. However, the entire film is up for 'free' (wink) on a few different streaming platforms. So I can't show you a single scene, but you can go find the whole film to watch if you feel inclined. There are worse ways to spend 105 minutes.
The Stranger and the Gunfighter is a film that tries to serve a number of masters and doesn't quite end up serving any. There are parts to enjoy but I don't think this is one I will be coming back to. If I need an outrageous Lee Van Cleef western with crazy jumping and unbelievable shooting, I have Sabata.
Western Checklist (nowhere near official or scientific):
- Weird gang member names? A guy with a whip was named Calico. You don't want to pet him though.
- Beautiful landscapes? The temple by the water in Hong Kong was pretty. It was not something I was expecting in a western.
- Any terrified horses? Probably but I do have to mention there is a scene by a creek where Dakota and Ho are talking while their horses drink in the background. One of the horses decides to lay down and roll around in the water and have a grand ole time. He stole the scene.
- How many Ernest Borgnines? It was mainly an Italian and Chinese cast. I can't speak to any one person's further works.
- Does Lee Van Cleef have his shirt off for the last 20 minutes of the film? Yes. I will never look that good at any age.
- Does it have a theme song with the name of the film in the title? No, and here is the best video I can find of the score. Someone just pulled the music directly from the film so there are stray bits of dialogue and sound effects over top of it.
Rating:
I am going to give this film 3 out of 5 tin stars. It was not terrible but not great. The two main leads have decent chemistry and there are a couple of decent laughs in it. For an actual quest for booty involving booties, it could have been way worse.
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