Sunday, October 18, 2015

Short Film: You don’t know My Secrets

An interesting short film, which I can’t find any IMDb details for, this is a vampire film of Chinese origin but uses a Western style of vampire rather than the kyonsi. As such I am afraid I am unsure of the date of release, the director or the actors’ names. It begins in Hongkou in Shanghai in 1995 and a woman carries washing as she sings.

feeding
Turning a corner she sees a vampire feeding on someone. The vampire launches at her – and we realise that she is elderly. We then see a young woman on the rooftop, crying in the rain but holding a baby bottle containing blood. It is clear, to us, that the vampire has become young – and indeed that was a prime piece of Stoker lore, that the vampire when fed could become young.

female vampire
What follows is the story of a male vampire tracking down a woman, who is the female vampire from the prologue. She appears to be looking after an elderly man (at home) and working as a hostess in a bar (with a strange performance of Its All So Quiet occuring on stage). The story leaps to points in time and we discover that she kills reluctantly but did so in the 1940s when she was raped (and became pregnant through the rape).

fangs
The aging and becoming young is taken to quite an extreme by the story, which is interesting. I was a little unsure about the burning in the sun rules in this. Was it only if a vampire had been killed/drained or, if not, why didn’t the victor of the battle also burn – perhaps they were in the shade? You can check for yourself by watching the short.

2 comments:

Khaia said...

Nice little film, though I reject the idea of pregnant vampires. As for the sun burning the body, I think there was a passage of time (indicated in the shot with the lamp going out) that allowed the girl and her kid to get away.

Taliesin_ttlg said...

I can go for the idea round the passage of time - though they are stood in the alley watching the body burn, but its a nice lyrical idea.

The idea of a pregnant vampire has been played around with before, of course... That said the traditional folklore, which led to dhampyrs, was a male vampire impregnating a living female.

Cheers for stopping by and commenting Khaia, its always appreciated.