Be as critical as you'd like about spaghetti westerns, but one thing they didn't lack was creativity. With titles like 'Heads You Die, Tails I Kill You' and 'A Minute to Pray, A Second to Die' and crazy gunfighters both good and bad, the genre did everything it could to put a spin on the same old, same old western formula. This combination of Italy and Hong Kong takes that even further with action, comedy and a twist on the story that allows for some gratuitous nudity. Honestly, how can you go wrong?
Robbing an intricately wired safe, saddle tramp and drifter Dakota (Lee Van Cleef) finds something surprising instead of the treasure he expected to find. There's no money or gold, just pictures of four women in various stages of undress. As he blows the safe, the owner, Wang (Al Tung) stumbles upon Dakota and is killed in the explosion. Thrown in prison and sentenced to hang, Dakota is rescued by Ho Chiang (Hong Kong martial arts star Lieh Lo), Wang's nephew sent to America to find his lost fortune.
So working together, Dakota and Ho start to look for the four women in Wang's pictures, and the clues start to come together. Apparently Wang gave each of the women a tattoo on their backside and when read together, the tattoos point to the location of the treasure. Pretty highbrow humor if you ask me. As the unlikely buddy tandem goes through the process of getting these women to undress (some easier than others), another duo is on their trail, Yancey Hobbit (Julian Ugarte), a bible-thumping, leather-clad preacher, and Indio (Goyo Peralta), a strongman Indian warrior.
With the situation as presented, the script can't help but Dakota and Ho into some perilous situations. One of the women is a prostitute so finding a way to see her tattoo is easier than say, the wife of an English aristocrat traveling through the west. But making the situation even worse, Ho isn't exactly clear on American customs and doesn't understand why he can't just ask 'May I see your ass?' to all the women concerned. It sounded kind of stupid funny when I Netflix'd the movie, but I was surprised by how funny the premise actually is.
Still a very bankable star in Europe with the huge success his spaghetti westerns were having, Lee Van Cleef gets to do a more comedic role here as Dakota, a drifter quick with a gun with an eye for an easy buck. Van Cleef became a huge star in the second half of his career and with his hawk nose, gravelly voice and let's face it, awesome mustache, was not the typical western star, but I've yet to see a movie he's in that is not worth watching, typically because of his performance. Hong Kong star Lieh Lo is a good counter to Van Cleef, playing more of the straight man who still has his fair share of good moments.
Combining spaghetti westerns with kung fu, there's obviously some very cool action scenes, including several over-the-top cheesey fights as Lieh Lo takes out large groups of nameless henchmen in slow motion with a funky musical score playing. The finale pulls out all the stops as Dakota and Ho break into Yancey's hideout in an abandoned mission and shoot it out and punch their way through all his goons as they go for the last clue.
Clearly not on the level with The Good, the Bad and the Ugly or Once Upon a Time in the West, but this East meets West western/kung fu action movie was never intended to be a classic. It's just good, old-fashioned action/adventure with an odd couple buddy pairing of Lee Van Cleef and Lieh Lo. I'd also recommend 1971's Red Sun which uses a similar story to equally enjoyable results. As for Blood Money, take advantage of a high-quality DVD release and check it out.
Blood Money<----trailer (1974): ***/****
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