Die Höllenkatze des Kong-Fu

Secret Agent "Martin Stevens" (Roger Browne) returns this time with an assignment to track down and eliminate three men who have knowledge of a special electronic device which has an enormous amount of power yet to be revealed. His first mission takes him to Paris where he is almost stymied in his efforts by a young blonde woman named "Genevieve Laffont" (Emma Danieli) who unknowingly warns his target of his attack. However, having completed his errand he then ventures to Geneva where, once again, he is almost prevented from carrying out his assignment by the same woman. Having now become extremely suspicious, he then forces Genevieve to accompany him to Athens in order to keep a close eye on her. What he doesn't know is that his movements have been closely monitored and she is now the least of his worries. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film was an okay sequel to "SuperSeven Calling Cairo" with a better plot but somewhat hampered by mediocre acting all around. Along with that, several of the action scenes seemed much too scripted cheapened the overall effect. In any case, while this was certainly not a great spy movie by any means, I thought it was adequate for the time spent and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

The pacing is sometimes slow, though the movie is only 93 minutes; but there are some worthwhile points about the film. They include: Roger Browne; suave, and very powerful physically. He's always watchable. Emma Danieli, his Italian co-star. She has a charming and very Italian face! And a striking, 1960's hairstyle. Some of her outfits are also classic 1960's. An Asian actress, Yoko Tani, has a significant role and does a good job.

Also, there is some very good location filming; and look for a most interesting floor show in a nightclub. Not as much action as in some Euro-spy movies, but still entertaining. Just don't expect a fast pace!

Run-of-the-mill, full of action , tongue-in-cheek Euro-spy movie with usual components: pursuits, crossfire , struggles, international conspiracy , explosive women and other tippings that used to show up in the genre. Dealing with a two-fisted SuperSeven (Roger Browne) who's assigned by his chief Stan Harriman (Daniele Vargas) to a dangerous mission who he'll execute at whatever cost, even killing mercilessly his enemies. After retrieving an electronic device that can shut off the power of entire cities, secret agent SuperSeven is assigned to eliminate the only 3 remaining persons who have knowledge of the device. SuperSeven must allude the state authorities and the international underworld ring while attempting to locate the enemies.

Ordinary Euro-spy movie with usual ingredients: thrills , noisy action, plot twists, double-crosses, several villain roles, cat-fight, various international locations , shootouts with high body-count and being middlingly entertaining from start to finish. The story is a fun mess starting with some spectacular locations from Madrid, with its the always habitual bullfight, London, Genoa, Paris and specially Athens (including Acropolis) where the action is mostly set. Happening mutual spying and silly confrontations with a lot of georgeous women, violent fights, leaps and crossfire. Colorful and so-so rendition about European spy subgenre, a prolific genre during the sixties, not taking any situation seriously . A fashion , but pedestrian spy film at the time, meaning it stuck to a lot of what was currently popular, but here including some embarrassing and nonsense scenes. Inspired by the success of the James Bond films, as this spy sub-genre borrows heavily from the OO7 series that at the time starred Sean Connery, such as : Dr No, From Russia with love, Thunderball, and Goldfinger. The content remains the same as the title: a two-fisted secret agent, an unknown villain as mastermind, beautiful mini-skirt girls , along with ridiculous , uptight and extremely silly action set pieces from today's point of view. A Sixties-style film usually has a short sell-by date, and this flick isn't exception. The leading role was ordinarily played by Sword and Sandals regular Roger Browne who was a popular as well as untalented player at the time, a mediocre actor who couldn't carry a rickety product like this. He starred some spy movies , such as: Rififi in Amsterdam, Operazione poker, Operation Mogador and 'Superseven chiama Cairo' that was the previous entry of Superseven also directed by Lenzi . The script doesn't help either, as it consists of the habitual intrigue to take on three thieves of an electric artifact and a powerful organitation, while our starring go around european countries and actually tells no more than different people spying on and beating up each other in the hope of getting their nasty purports. Of course , with such a film from nostalgic and botcher ways, one does not count on high art work . It is staged in a hopelessly amateurish way, it shows us rows of bare fights and several confrontations with a number of dead people in the worst choreography. As our starring behaving in such an tough activity and so stupid manners so that committing usual mistakes on their own way. The screenplay works with unnecessary contradictions and implausibility , including hilarious or absurd moments , and the story is thinner than it usually is in works of this kind , the Euro-spy sub-genre. There are colorful outdoors by cameraman Augusto Tiezzi showing sightseeing from the typical European cities with sights from sunny coasts and Mediterranean beaches . It has some flaws and gaps , as it does tend to get a bit old, including repetitive nature of some fight scenes , and excessive nonsense , but it has a bit of fun, at times, so it cares . The main and support cast -with everyone having amusement- are regular, slightly adequate to their functional characters . Appearing some familiar faces from the Sixties who worked in the habitual 60s , 70s sub-genres : Peplum, Spaghetti Western , Giallo, horror, Euro-thriller as Spanish actors, such as : Fernando Cebrián and Pilar Clemens and Italian ones : Daniele Vargas, Marino Masé, Sal Borgese, Tallio Altamura and the always essential Sal Borgese.

The picture was mediocrely directed by the prolific filmmaker Umbert Lenzi. Talented and versatile writer/director Umberto Lenzi has made a vast array of often solid and entertaining films in all kind of genres as horror, comedy, Western, and science fiction in a career that spans over 40 years .Umbert Lenzi used the pseudonym Hank Milestone and Humphrey Logan . Umberto made his directorial debut with ¨Queen of the Seas¨ (1961) . Other pirate/sword flicks followed, starting with ¨Pirates of Malaysia¨ (1964) starred by Steeve Reeves, which was part of the height of the career of fictitious tales of history or mythology, these legendary characters including Robin Hood , Catherine the Great, Zorro , Sandokan and Maciste . He subsequently directed a ¨Fumetti¨ titled ¨The mask of Kriminal¨ (1966) . After directing a war film and two "spaghetti westerns," Lenzi turned to the Giallo genre with ¨Orgasmo¨ (1969). During the 1970s, Lenz filmed a number of Giallo and thrillers , among them : ¨So Sweet, So Perverse¨, ¨Seven Blood-Stained Orchids¨ and ¨Eyeball¨ . Lenzi turned to the police thrillers called ¨Polizieschi¨, which rejuvenated his confidence and his popularity . Titles like ¨Almost Human¨ , ¨Free Hand For a Tough Cop¨ and ¨Brothers Till We Die¨ were the most popular and brutal of the thrillers. Lenzi was an expert on wartime genre such as he proved in ¨Desert commandos¨ , ¨Battle of commandos¨ , ¨From hell to victory¨ , ¨Young Lions¨ and ¨Bridge to hell¨. Prior to the Polizieschi, Lenzi directed ¨Man from Deep River¨ , which was the start of the Italian cannibal sub-genre. Later on , he directed two very gory jungle cannibal features , ¨Eaten Alive¨ and ¨Make Them Die Slowly ¨which was banned in 31 countries, it made Lenzi distance himself from the cannibal genre. Then Lenzi directed ¨Nightmare City¨ (1980) , a zombie flick , and ¨Iron Master¨(1983) . In the 90s his films were extremely low-budgeted and failed at box-office .

Mannix clone Roger Browne returns as Martin Stevens, this time sporting a posh English accent, rather than a gauche American one (only kidding), at least in the dubbed version I watched.

This is the second of Umberto Lenzi's collaborations with Browne ("Last Man To Kill" would be the 3rd) and improves on the first, by having a plot that is a somewhat of a departure from the usual Eurospy template, making it more intriguing.

Roger has just returned from retrieving a stolen McGuffin, but is immediately sent back out to again to murder 3 people, only one of whom is actually guilty of memorising vital information about said McGuffin. Roger initially shows some reluctance to kill apparently innocent men in cold blood, but eventually he gives in and accepts that orders are orders and there is no room for fair play or sentimentality in the spy business.

This got my attention and I was looking forward to seeing how they would handle the moral dilemma of Roger killing an unsuspecting and possibly innocent person in cold blood, however it never comes to that, as it turns out the three men are all professional assassins themselves, and they all seem to be aware that Roger is coming, and try to kill him first. So Roger can claim self-defence and rest easy with clear conscience. On the other hand, after the third near fatal encounter, Roger begins to smell a rat and becomes suspicious that everything is not as he had been led to believe...

Exotic locations visited via the wonders of Stock footage include Madrid (for the initial recovery mission), London (for debrief and reassignment) and Paris (first assassin), before we move on to actual shooting locations, Geneva (second assassin) and Athens (third assassin and the rest of the mission).

There are a colourful assortment of henchmen, including Spaghetti stalwarts such as Fernando Cebrian (with the musketeer beard), Sal Borghese (with the chin dimple) and Claudio Biava (the balding blond). Of the beautiful women, Emma Danieli is engaging and feisty as the photo journalist inadvertently caught up in the espionage machinations, Pilar Clemens is particularly sensual as the "Moneypenny" and Yuko Tani adds the archetypal inscrutable oriental touch. Daniell Vargas and Marino Mase are also effective in their roles.

The same level of technical competence is on display as in the original "Superseven" film, briskly paced, with a good mix of action interspersed with conversation, and with a soundtrack that supports the onscreen action rather than undermining it.

The henchmen in goggles and the strange red light from "Superseven" (that make anyone without the goggles pass out), make a second appearance, apropos of nothing. I mean I like the goggles gimmick, as they look creepy, but they just bare no relation or relevance to anything else in either movie.

Roger doesn't have as much luck with the woman as he did on his previous outing though, he actually turns down Pilar, because work comes first, then he runs into another old girlfriend from a previous mission, but she gets knocked off before he can rekindle that relationship, and Chinese agent Yoko also departs, just as she is succumbing to Rogers charms. However he and Emma do get together in the rom-com epilogue and this time there are no interruptions. I'm not sure if the dialogue was actually any better or if it was just the new posh accent that made Roger seem more suave, but the final scene also felt like an improvement on the previous edition.

Above average this time around.

I don't know what the circumstances were under which Lenzi took the helm of this movie but the fact that he didn't use his own name says something. I'm guessing he did this at the last moment for cash and had no say in the script and even then I'm not sure why he bothered. Yoko Tani is the best thing in this and she has a couple of weak cat fights. That I give this boring so called spy tale anything is down to the way it looked and that we glimpsed several cities and there was the glimpse of a wonderful red convertible at one point. Uncharismatic lead, maybe he thought if he was to appear British, he should appear as bland as possible, who knows? Who even cares and why am I writing about this 90 minutes of wasted time? Just in the remote chance that someone can find and apply that poster!