Hello Dracula 2 (Ha luo jiang shi) – review

Director: Wang Chih-Cheng

Release date: 1987

Contains spoilers

The sequel to Hello Dracula, this has many of the same cast though adds in a Western thread and eschews much of the comedy – though comedic threads are still there.

It starts, however, with a corpse herder leading his customers through the night as a narrator explains the concept to the audience. One thing it adds is the idea that the lamp the herder carries contains the souls of the corpses and, should it go out, they will become vampires. We are also warned of the little vampire and that, whilst looking for his father, he will lure them away. The little vampire makes an appearance.

corpse herding

This then leads to a set of slapstick acrobatics as the herder tries to regain control of the corpses and drive the little vampire away. For his part, the little vampire is much more successful than he was against the herder in the first film. Also through the woods comes the wagon that brought the kung fu kids into town in the last film, with them are Grandpa (Chin Tu, Magic of Spell) and Tian Tian (Shadow Liu Chih-Yu). They are transporting the corpse of the kids’ master (Huang Chung-Yu) but the little vampire gets in and frees the vampire from his coffin. This is after Grandpa tells the kids the child kyonsi’s backstory (of his father dying in the forest and him falling and dying also).

Chin Tu as Grandpa

They try to recover the Master, but to no avail. The corpse herder is bitten and Grandpa makes the horse bolt before the vampire can bite it. We see them the next morning bringing the corpse herder into town to treat him as he has been bitten. The treatment goes wrong due to Xigua Pi. Firstly he is told to bring a child’s pee, fills a bowl and brings it to grandpa… who drinks it thinking it tea and so he brings tea to replace it. Then, when killing a chicken for its blood he cuts his finger and his blood mixes with it, giving the herder a taste of human blood. The herder turns.

the herder becomes a vampire

The new vampire is funny, if only for having one top and one bottom fang. The next day the town are putting protective scrolls on their homes when one is removed and a cross placed where it was. The lady of the house wants nothing to do with the person who has done this… a western priest who is there with a nun and another man. The priest wants to study vampires and is sent to Grandpa’s house but the Taoist won't have anything to do with him. However, after the three westerners break into the mortuary and see Tian Tian dancing with the corpses, they undertake to steal a corpse.

the westerners

During the break in, when hiding after making a noise, the nun accidentally kisses the corpse of the police captain (Pang San, Mr Vampire) from the first film – this causes him to bond and follow/mimic her. Meanwhile, of course, the herder’s wards have been left in the forest, no prayer scrolls and the lamp (we can assume) burnt out. Therefore, the town is visited by a group of vampires and there are several casualties.

the Master vampire

What is the motivation for the actions of the Westerners? Well, the priest claims he wants to study vampires but the man says he will take the corpses to America and make a fortune, so their connection to each other doesn’t really gel. Suffice it to say that their actions put the town, generally, and Grandpa and his wards in peril and, of course, the Master is still out there as well.

blessed skull

As I mentioned at the head, a lot of the comedy is gone – there is still some but this is of a much darker tone and that fits with quite a downbeat ending. Despite throwing the westerners in, this is reminiscent of the first film but with a lot more vampires. The lore is much the same, except that some western variants are added most notably the little vampire is playing baseball using a (red) skull and the priest puts a cross in it, and pours holy water in for good measure, and the skull does injure the little vampire. A good entry to the series. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.