Mr. Vampire: Tai Seng Video Marketing Inc. Rating: USA: Unrated (Probably PG-13 or R for some slight gore)
Here’s yet another classic Hong Kong horror flick, this one dealing with the Chinese version of vampires. The Chinese vampire is quite a bit different from its American and European counterparts. Unlike the western vampire, the Chinese undead don’t turn into fog or bats, they don’t drink blood, and they’re not suave and debonair. No, the Chinese vampire is distinctive for one main reason…its mode of travel. After spending years in the grave, rigor mortis sets in—so when the vampire rises, he’s very stiff. This stiffness makes it so that the only way he can move is by hopping—that’s right…hopping. And while the idea of a hopping vampire seems incredibly absurd, it’s actually pretty cool. It’s certainly one of the main reasons why Mr. Vampire is such a hoot to watch.
Mr. Vampire tells the tale of the "one eyebrow priest" Kau (Lam Ching-Ying: Fists of Fury) and his two bumbling assistants, Man Choi (Ricky Liu) and Chou (Chin Siu-Hou). These three men maintain an ancient monastery—one that houses more than a few of the hopping undead. When Kau is called upon by Mr. Yam to rebury his dead father, Kau discovers that the body has been buried in a way conducive to causing the dead man to rise as a vampire. Kau and his assistants take the corpse and casket back to the monastery in order to perform some Taoist rituals to stop the corpse from rising—all to no avail. The dead man turns into a vampire and kills Yam—an act that Kau is arrested for by Yam’s bumbling cop nephew—which leaves the real killer vampire free to roam the countryside in search of fresh victims. But that’s not all…in a subplot, Chou becomes enchanted by a female ghost—one who wants to send him to an early grave.
Like all Hong Kong horror (except for the gritty and violent category III films that have become popular in recent years) Mr. Vampire showcases far more slapstick comedy than out and out frights. The vampires are blind, so the only way they can find their victims is through homing in on their breath—which leads to several humorous scenes where characters try and hold their breath as one of the undead stands directly in front of them. The vampires can be killed, but not through traditional means. Kau and company must place Taoist prayers written on rice paper on the monster’s heads in order to stop them, or touch them with a string dipped in an ink made from chicken blood. The vampires are also vulnerable to uncooked sticky rice—which absorbs the poison from their system. While all of this probably sounds really silly to western audiences, how is it any sillier than a stake through the heart and a clove of garlic?
The film features a lot of kung fu, as Kau and Chou battle the resurrected vampire on several occasions. The scenes are shot in your typical chop socky style of Hong Kong martial arts flicks, but they’re a lot of fun to watch. Kau and Chou are pretty tough guys, but these vampires are all but impervious to physical attacks.
Ricky Lau’s direction is competent throughout. He gives the film an interesting look in the night scenes, not unlike the later Chinese Ghost Story series. There’s nothing too flashy here, but that doesn’t hurt the film.
What does hurt the film is its pacing. The best scenes are the ones where the hopping vampires are around, or when Kau battles the ghost that has haunted Chou. These scenes are the film’s strongpoint, but they’re too few and far between. Instead, we’re treated to a multitude of scenes with Mr. Yam’s bumbling police officer nephew—who isn’t funny and over acts in a big way. Equally bothersome is the film’s ending. After the climactic battle with the hopping vampire, the film just stops—offering nothing in the way of resolution. Does Man Choi become a vampire? Does Yam’s daughter (played by the enchanting Moon Lee) fall in love with either of the assistants? No one knows, because the film never bothers to tell you.
Mr. Vampire inspired no less than 8 other films with the Mr. Vampire name, as well as a whole subgenre of Hong Kong hopping vampire flicks. By all accounts, this is the best of the bunch. Be careful seeking it out, though—this film was released in 1984, yet there’s another entitled Mr. Vampire 1992 (with Lam Ching-Ying and directed by Ricky Lau) that’s little more than a disappointing sequel.
The film was recently released on DVD, but the version I viewed was a VHS cassette. The picture on the VHS is a bit grainy, but not unwatchable. The subtitles are fair, with the standard usage, grammar, and word choice problems, but they don’t detract from the overall effect. The VHS is a pan and scan print, which means that the beginning and endings of the subtitles get cut off on the edges of the screen in some parts—but not to the point where you can’t tell what was being said (like almost all of the other pan and scan Hong Kong videos out there).
Ultimately, Mr. Vampire isn’t for everyone. I’ve no doubt that most western audiences will find the slapstick elements and the hopping vampires themselves too hokey to actually enjoy the film—which is a shame, because Mr. Vampire is a fun movie that never takes itself seriously, yet offers up an intriguing portrait of how another culture views the vampire. If you’re a fan of Hong Kong cinema, or a fan of vampire films in general, you should check out this film—if for nothing other than to see how another culture views one of the most iconic monsters of all time.
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