Cleopatra Jones And The Casino Of Gold

Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold (1975)

Runtime: 94 minutes

Directed by: Charles Bail

Starring: Tamara Dobson, Stella Stevens, Ni Tien, Norman Fell, Shen Chan

From: Warner Bros./Shaw Brothers

What a team up of two sets of brothers...

A few years ago I watched and reviewed Cleopatra Jones; it was a fun blaxploitation film which regrettably had a garish over the top lesbian villain (played by Shelley Winters!) but she was only in a few scenes and there were such things as a nice car chase, Bill McKinney as a racist cop and Antonio Fargas playing a character named DOODLEBUG SIMKINS to balance that out. Finally, I am watching its sequel, filmed in Hong Kong and made in conjuncture with Shaw Brothers.

Two minor characters from the first film-Matthew and Melvin Johnson-go missing in Hong Kong, and Cleo teams up with a local detective to track them down, who happens to be a young lady. Various other characters are involved as it turns out the Johnson brothers were unwittingly involved with a scheme where an underling attempts to go it alone against a heroin dealer, who happens to be played by Stella Stevens, is known as The Dragon Lady... and oh yeah, is also a lesbian. Thank goodness that character wasn't as grossly offensive as what Winters did in the original film.

For me it was nice to see the swingin' Hong Kong of the mid 70's alongside the funky music, the amazing outfits, and all the other trappings of the genre. The movie at times spins its wheels yet for me was always engaging and was never dull. I mean, there's another car chase, a guy running away from a motorcycle, and martial arts; the involvement of Shaw Brothers definitely was an asset in this case. Plus, there is Norman Fell, who wears fine period clothing in his few scenes.

The finale is actually pretty great; I mean, it's utter lunacy. It happens in the titular casino, which is a large, beautiful set. That set gets utterly destroyed due to all the brawls that happen, along with machine gun fire, explosions, etc. It was done to a high standard and I know more people would rave about that sequence if they knew it existed in a random blaxploitation sequel. I now wish there would have been more films in the 1970's where the Shaw Brothers worked with an American studio.