MR. VAMPIRE (1985)
Time for an old favourite from the archives of Hong Kong cinema; one that's a great blend of all the usual martial arts stunts and humour you get in many of these Golden Harvest features, plus some of the weirdest vampire lore out there. If you like strange supernatural rules (and inept people breaking them) this is worth checking out. Forget the garlic and the holy water, these are not your usual bloodsuckers. They hop about on two legs because of rigor-mortis, and their state of death also leaves them blind. Hold your breath or they'll smell you hiding... somehow. Apparently the dead have improved senses elsewhere. They also have a strong dislike for certain kinds of rice...
There are also vision enhancing plant leaves, knives made from coins, and magic ink made from blood. It's a fresh take on all the tired old clichés and once things get moving all these eccentric items fit together in the film's own world. Master Kau, (Lam Ching-ying) a Taoist priest come exorcist has to deal with the physical and ghostly forms of the living dead here, plus problems caused by his two incompetent assistants and a corrupt police inspector along the way. It's often played for laughs and there's a lot of slapstick nonsense, including a voodoo/possession style sequence in which the inspector is forced to hit himself.
What sets this apart from something like The Haunted Cop Shop (also with Ricky Hui) is that Kau is the hero of the story. His stoic and often harsh demeanour prevents the antics of others from becoming too much. While there are some jokes early on with Chau (Chin Siu-ho) and Miss Ting (Moon Lee) everyone gets punished in different way for their stupidity and must be saved. It never focuses on fish out of water subplots or the typical guys being lewd humour for too long thanks to excellent pacing. Soon enough living corpses pose a deadly threat and must be destroyed without sympathy.
Beyond all the gags it still has plenty of atmosphere thanks to the main storyline. Kau's re-burial of a man who was not at rest goes awry, apparently thanks to a feud between a local family and a feng-shui master, leading to cursed bloodlines and mutating corpses. Soon a new breed of long nailed creatures of the night comes to town and the gang must work past their petty issues and incompetence. Which introduces another vampire attribute; the finger nails. Which is also a thing apparently; they grow long blue claws during the transformation process.
As a result there's far less biting with fangs and instead a lot more neck stabbing action. Their rigid arms trying to slash the living is another arresting visual in a film full of generally interesting weirdness. Elsewhere wandering bodies must be zapped with magic spells written on pieces of paper, captured in nets made from string dipped in the same magic ink, or fought with mystical wooden swords and other objects. That's without going into the subplot in which Chau is seduced by a headless ghost. The spectacle is sometimes ropey looking but it has plenty of charm.
The elder vampire (Yuen Wah in most cases but sometimes a weird stunt corpse) is the main attraction of course. A weird shrivelled looking dead body at first, then a weird lumpy looking vampire, then a stronger more agile version in the finale. Which is also pretty weird looking. The undead curse (spread to his victims via wounds by a poison) works in a similar way to most other stories like this but the burial origin and his slow transformation is interesting. It seems that disrespect for the dead causes a lot of surprising changes, and some odd weaknesses; particularly the aversion to sticky (or glutinous in some translations) rice.
Not all the rules make sense but it's fun anyway; why some other dead people are kept out of the ground for so long (to be used in the last scene) by different priest isn't explained. But in the end it's a good time that has similarities with Sammo Hung's Spooky Encounters, and Tsui Hark's A Chinese Ghost Story. Perhaps it's not as refined or original as either of those, and the sincerity of the latter is absent entirely, but it's just as entertaining. It's a smaller scale affair with just enough crazy special effects and a memorable hero. The action is good but brief and it's a shame Moon Lee doesn't get to do any kung-fu. But overall it's still a classic from this creative era.
4/5
