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In Hong Kong, Bob Mitchell (Robert Cummings) falls in love with two
sisters, Margret (Maria Perschy) and Ingrid (Maria Rohm), but when he
takes one up to his room, she tells him a weird story about the Five
Dragons - supercriminals who want to rule the world, and who are going
to meet in Hong Kong for the very first time - and is killed in Mitchell's
room soon afterwards. Thing is, thepolice headed by inspector Chiao (Roy
Chiao) and Commissioner Sanders (Rupert Davies) pays Mitchell a visit soon
afterwards, and of course they mistake him for the killer and he finds
himself on the run. Problem is, he soon finds himself on the run from the
Five Dragon's henchmen led by Gert (Klaus Kinski) as well, and realizes
the only thing to do to get out of this situation is to try and solve the
whole riddle on his own - which is why he hooks up with nightclub singer
Magda (Margaret Lee) and her boss Peterson (Sieghardt Rupp), who are
involved with the Fivve Dragons, and who soon turn the tables on him and
make him their scapegoat ... because you see, there are actually only four
Dragons (Dan Duryea, Christopher Lee, George Raft, Brian Donlevy - all
wasted in pointless roles), and Mitchell is to pose as the Hong Kong
Dragon (who was only made up by Magda and Peterson) and probably lose his
life in the process ... and when the fifth Dragon actually tries to
confirm his identity (via a key he has to unlock a contraption linked to a
gun with), he really is shot ... but the fifth Dragon is revealed to be
Peterson and not Mitchell. After he's dead, the police, who have long been
on the Dragons' trail, come in to arrest everybody, and Mitchell gets the
girl - Ingrid, the sister of deceased Margret that is. But why wasn't it
Mitchell who was with the other Dragons? Basically, Peterson and Magda
tried to outsmart each other, and while Peterson thought it would be a
wise idea to replace Mitchell to present himself as Dragon number five,
Magda thought it would be a wise idea to give him the wrong key so he's
shot by this weird contraption. One word quickly comes to mind
when watching this film: Huh? While trying to come across as a pseudo-James
Bond film, shot on exotic Hong Kong locations, the film manages to
tell remarkably little substantial plot while at the same time being
over-convoluted to the point of being unintelligible. And Robert Cummings
as the lead can never decide whether to play the hero or the funnyman of
the piece, so his performance fails to work, while the four greatest
actors in the film (Dan Duryea, Christopher Lee, George Raft, Brian
Donlevy) are given nothing at all to do but show their faces. Truth to
be told though,despite all of its shortcomings the film is at least
competently shot, making great use of its Hong Kong locations, and has
some hard-to-resist 1960's campy flair to it - which is not enough to make
it a good film, but at least its watchable and mildly amusing.
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