This film begins late one night with a notorious gunman by the name of "Dakota" (Lee Van Cleef) breaking into a bank vault where a fortune is believed to be stored. Oddly enough, rather than finding any money, he comes upon 4 pictures of attractive women instead. To make matters even worse, while he is in the process of lighting a stick of dynamite to open the last vault door, a Chinese gentleman by the name of "Mr. Wang" (Tung-Kua Ai) rushes into the bank--and he is subsequently killed by the dynamite blast. Minutes later, Dakota is arrested by the town sheriff and taken to jail to stand trial for murder. The scene then shifts to a young man in China by the name of "Ho Chiang" (Lieh Lo) being told that his recently deceased uncle owes a vast sum of money to a local warlord and that, if he doesn't recover it by a certain time, his entire family will be put to death. That said, he immediately sets off for the United States in search of the 4 young ladies in the photographs who each have vital information tattooed on their bottoms which will reveal the location of the fortune--and he needs the services of Dakota to help him find them. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was a rather strange picture which combined the elements of a kung fu movie with that of a comedy framed within a Western setting. And while the acting of Lee Van Cleef and the presence of some beautiful ladies certainly helped the film to a certain degree, neither the overall plot or the humor was really that good, and for that reason I have rated this movie accordingly. Slightly below average.
Review of The Stranger and the Gunfighter
