From Dusk Till Bong – review

Director: James Balsamo

Release date: 2022

Contains spoilers

This one left me rather confused with regards release dates. It follows on from 2015’s Bite School and was released before (and seems to come before chronologically) Bite School 2. In fact Bite School 2 is mentioned as a movie, in a meta piece of Coda, and lead character Tony (James Balsamo) mentions going on to fight Robo-Dracula – which is the basic premise of Bite School 2. It was released three years before Bite School 2 but, I suspect, shot after it. It is disc 3 of the Blu-Ray set “James Balsamo’s Thrilling Three Pack”.

using a prayer scroll

So, after moments of Tony riding a bat (we’ll get to that) and a brief cameo by Eric Roberts, it starts with vampire hunter Screaming Jay Pigeons (Charles Wright) taking on a vampire. He splashes him but the holy water doesn’t seem to work (its daylight, outdoors in the dessert by the way) until Jay declares that it is holy gasoline and sets the vampire alight. As the vampire runs around in flame we see a kyonsi/jiangshi, Broccoli Bob (Bill Victor Arucan, Bite School 2 & the Last Slay Ride), hopping towards him. Also appearing is Jay’s very naked dead wife Lanorea (J.E. Scripps) saying, “Save me, Jay”. She has vanished by the time Broccoli Bob arrives and Jay has time to go through a set of prayer scrolls and affix one to his head.

Spat and Tony

Tony and Spat (a talking side-kick bat) are driving through the Nevada desert – and there is something very Hunter S Thompson/Fear & Loathing about Spat. This offers exposition (and that it is exposition is mentioned). Vicky, who turned millionaire playboy Tony into a vampire, was killed by vampire hunters – later confirmed to be Jay and his partner Father Gill O'Teen (G. Larry Butler, also Bite School 2), Her death made him become human again (he is still getting used to the idea of eating food again) and the subsequent mansion fire burnt all his money (he didn’t trust banks) and so he’s broke. At the start of the film the hunters are still after him and by the end they are allies. Tony stumbles into a vampire outbreak and Jay is collecting vampire eyes so he can “pass through the spiritual event horizon” and rescue Lanorea – who, we discover, was turned and subsequently killed by Jay.

flying by bat

There isn’t too much more to say. Tony is further aided by billionaire Bill Diamond (Robert Felsted Jr.), we get a staking by screwdriver flicked in a condom, some gratuitous nakedness, fighting vampires, and lots of crap bats including the bat I mentioned that we see Tony riding. The bat is actually Mayan bat God Camazotz, summoned in an identical way to that in Bite School 2 in a sequence that involves Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe having his flesh stripped by drawn bats. The model for Camazotz is different, however. When we see Tony riding it is when he declares he has to kill Robo-Dracula. The film itself meanders, jumps back in time and Broccoli Bob seems to reappear even having been seen to be killed (though that could just be a non-linear appearance). It is more stream of consciousness than story. Like the others in the series James Balsamo fans will know what they’re getting and enjoy it. The narrative wasn’t there for me but really that’s the point of his filmmaking – caveated that many do get it, 3 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Carmilla Volume 2: The Last Vampire Hunter – review

Author: Amy Chu

Illustrations: Soo Lee

First published: 2024

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Before Dracula, before Nosferatu, there was...CARMILLA.

In the second volume of this feminist tale of murder, monsters, and mystery layered with dark Chinese folklore, social worker turned vampire hunter Athena Lo has just lost everyone she loves—and it's all her fault.

Hoping to put her life back together, Athena travels to San Francisco’s Chinatown on a quest to uncover the secrets of her mysterious family history. But her journey escalates into a nightmare when she‘s violently introduced to a new, ruthless gang of Asian American vampires and its unlikely leader, who hold shocking truths. As she navigates this dangerous territory, Athena can't escape the ghost of Carmilla...and neither can the vampires. Athena must decide—whose side is she on?

Inspired by the gothic novel that started the vampire genre, this queer, feminist murder mystery graphic novel is a tale of identity, obsession and fateful family secrets.

The review: It would have been easy for this sequel to Carmilla: The First Vampire to have ignored the titular vampire as vampire hunter Athena Lo destroys her in the first volume – but, as we know, you can’t keep a good vampire down. Though, her presence in the book is fleeting (and she seems to have taken the form of a monk). Primarily it follows Athena to San Francisco, where she hopes to piece together her family history.

There she discovers a whole bunch of Asian vampires (and a werewolf), we get Nukekubi (a Japanese Yokai that the book identifies as a Filippino vampire), the Indian Brahmarakshaa (a type of rakshasa), Korean Dokkeabi Goblin (which I have not seen connected with vampirism before) and the Japanese Nure-Omna (another Yokai). Without identifying it, we see a penanggalan and Taki who is a Geungshi (which is the Korean variant spelling of Jiangshi or Kyonsi). The leader is Wing, a young boy who had been attacked by a vampire and was saved by Taki – causing Wing to become a hybrid of western vampire and Jiangshi – Wing happens to be Athena’s older brother though she doesn’t remember him. He tells her of their parents, and their deaths, the Jiangshi hunter heritage and that a Taoist priest had taken her and protected her – the man she knew as her grandfather Yeh Yeh. Unfortunately, Wing has plans for Athena.

Of course, the first volume used Athena’s queerness and Asian identity as lenses for othering. This volume concentrates on the American historic, and more modern, treatment of Asians, and the Chinese specifically through Taki. The redemptive element around him was really rather well done and moving. The story is neat, the appearance of Carmilla fleeting but it was a good, solid little volume. 7 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Carmilla: The First Vampire – review

Author: Amy Chu

Illustrations: Soo Lee

First published: 2023

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Before Dracula, before Nosferatu, there was... CARMILLA.

At the height of the Lunar New Year in 1990s New York City, an idealistic social worker turns detective when she discovers young, homeless LGBTQ+ women are being murdered and no one, especially the police, seems to care.

A series of clues points her to Carmilla's, a mysterious nightclub in the heart of her neighborhood, Chinatown. There she falls for the next likely target, landing her at the center of a real-life horror story--and face-to-face with illusions about herself, her life, and her hidden past.

Inspired by the gothic novel that started the vampire genre and layered with dark Chinese folklore, this queer, feminist murder mystery is a tale of identity, obsession and fateful family secrets.

The review: Moved to the twentieth century and America, this graphic novel was inspired by Carmilla but also features the book within it. Strangely, in this New York, it is only available in a rare book section of the library (so the protagonist, Athena, steals it to read it, rather than picking the novella up from any good bookstore). The book becomes almost a reference work rather than story as young women are found murdered and Athena becomes obsessed with finding out by who.

The sense of othering is embedded in the novel with Athena’s Chinese heritage and lesbianism offering lenses that the vampire 'other' stands against, and her sexuality mirrors the original story but also makes this a great queer story. During the story Athena discovers, from her grandfather, that she is from a line of guengsi (a variant spelling of jiangshi/kyonsi) hunters – we see her watching a Chinese vampire film at one point.

The vampire is Carmilla, from the novel, but the naming convention of anagrams does not hold, and she uses a non-anagrammatical pseudonym. We do see a transformation, but it is into a (Chinese style) dragon rather than a cat.

The artwork is competent, suits the story but wasn’t my favourite style unfortunately. That said it will appeal to many, I am sure. The story itself was interesting and as Amy Chu has done a further story I hope it does explore Athena’s heritage as that has much potential. 7.5 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Mr. Midnight: Beware the Monsters – My Class Vampire – review

Director: Sean Masterson

First aired: 2022

Contains spoilers

Mr. Midnight: Beware the Monsters is a Singapore originating series, filmed in English primarily and aimed at teens. It concerns itself with a group of friends who become aware of strange supernatural goings-on in their town, Tanah Merah, and set out to investigate. Mr Midnight is a mask wearing avatar they use to post videos about their exploits.

The friends are Tyar (Idan Aedan) a young man who is, by birth, a dukun, but who is unaware of his heritage. A dukun is a shaman of sorts who spirits are attracted to. His friend Ling (Chen Yixin) is the daughter of Uncle Tan (Yu-Beng Lim), who runs an antique store and is the source of their knowledge of the occult. Third is Nat (Caleb Monk), who is used frequently as a comedy character but who also wears the mask and acts as Mr. Midnight and finally there is English exchange student Zoe (Nikki Dekker).

lamppost leap

One of the issues I had with this episode is, because I look at one-of vampire episodes as standalones, it was light on plot, relying more on the wider story that was being built in the season to carry it. Great in that context but perhaps weaker as a vampire episode. In the episode before, the gang had been embroiled with a ghoul who had lured Zoe off and locked her in a coffin. Though they rescued her, at the end of the episode we see the vegetarian eating raw meat. This episode begins with a scene of a man in a car park at night, down from a lamppost jumps a thing, clearly in the funeral garb preferred by the kyonsi.

Zoe vamping

In the morning we see Zoe plastering makeup on, eating a sliver of raw meat and then acting strangely, and seductively, towards son of her host family, Ben (Maxime Bouttier), before leaving the house. The news is full of the murder of a man, exsanguinated and found in the car park. At school Nat is practicing with the cheers squad when Zoe enters the gym and starts dancing. The dancing is infectious. Everyone bar Tyar are affected, and he breaks the spell for Ling. The gym students collapse at the end of the dance, Zoe pushes Ling to the floor calls Tyar dukun and leaves with Nat. We’ve seen that her teeth have sharpened.

stiff limbs

School is cancelled due to the mass hysteria (of the dancing) and unable to contact Zoe or Nat, Tyar and Ling go for a coffee, hear more about the murder and decide to sneak into the morgue. They manage to look at the corpse when he awakens and comes after them, his limbs, as he pursues, stiffening and he beginning to move in the famous hop from Hong Kong cinema. They manage to escape, get supplies from Uncle Tan’s shop to deal with Chinese vampires (and make the point that they react to things differently from Western vampires) but then Nat and Zoe lure the other two to where they are…

prayer scroll

Why the kyonsi is in Singapore is not discussed. Prayer scrolls will paralyse the vampires, bagua mirrors force them back and vinegar burns. Sticky rice aids the journey of the trapped spirit at the core of the vampire. What is less clear lore-wise is the hopping. The main kyonsi seems quite fluid of movement, the newly created one in the hospital quickly becomes the stiff corpse of the traditional depiction. However, Zoe shows no stiffness and all I can think of was that she was bitten (unseen in the previous episode) but not killed. This is probably why she could be turned back when the main kyonsi is defeated.

bagua mirror

There was so much more they could have done with this episode – indeed in referencing Hong Kong movies, as they did, I expected some more set pieces (like a holding the breath set piece). The episode wasn’t terrible but probably does not hold-up as a standalone. That said I was rather taken with the series as a whole and, for an audience of the target demographic, it seems like good fun. For the vampire episode, as a stand-alone, however 4 out of 10.

The episode’s imdb page is here.

Crocodile Fury – review

Director: Godfrey Ho

Release date: 1988

Contains spoilers

It’s a Godfrey Ho and so you know what to expect – he has three films in my worst 100 (two in the worst 10) under pseudonym, them being Devil’s Dynamite, Robo Vampire & Counter Destroyer. Ho had a little trick of buying films and stitching them together and then having them dubbed.

In this case he took the Thai film Kraithong 2, in which a man can turn himself into a man-eating crocodile, and (I suspect) shot some footage to stitch into it. It’s in this footage that we get the vampires. However, for the majority of the film we get crocodiles, who seem to be reincarnations of people, attacking a village on a river bank.

bitten by a croc

This involves footage after footage of people being got by the crocs and it is amusing (but not for the running length of the film). It might be sick gallows humour, but the scene of playing kids in a tree and one diving head first into the open mouth of a patiently waiting croc did make me giggle. Some are ripped apart in ok (given the fuzzy transfer) sfx, others are dragged along in the croc’s moth, screaming help… We get some story going on concerning Jack. He was in love with Marie, who is now a crocodile, and spends some time talking her out of killing (the crocs can appear as humans).

Monica and her kyonsi

She and the others are controlled by Mr Cooper, the Master of the Sea, and he aims to take over the world. Marie, however, teams up with a male crocodile who is very rapey and gets him to kidnap a woman who is now Jack’s wife, using the promise of sexual favour to persuade him to help and then teaming up with him to take over the Master’s kingdom. The Master, in the meantime is in league with a sorceress named Monica (Trudy Calder), who controls vampires.

prayer scrolls

She has a couple of kyonsi (which she saved her co-criminal Rudolf (Ernst Mausser, Robo Vampire) from) and she and Rudolf are students of a dead master who was in the vampire business. They are hunted by agent Bruce Thompson (Kent Wills, also Robo Vampire) and he gets attacked by Rudolf occasionally and has vampires sent after him – though the ones he fights, in the main, look more zombie than vampire. There isn’t really a story beyond this with these guys.

Jack and Marie (as a croc)

Oh, it is bad… the croc footage might have saved a short but gets tedious for a feature. The bad dubbing is really bad, the dialogue atrocious and the rapeyness very rapey – though one such character does get eaten by a crocodile and the rapey crocodile gets defeated by another crocodile man. It isn’t good, and it never was going to be. There are a couple of versions floating around. The one with English dub is a worse transfer than the French dub (which is still poor). 1 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Zombie World – first look

Director: ? (Fang Yinghua)

Release date: Possibly 2020

Contains spoilers

This is one of a slew of Chinese films, running in at just over an hour, that have appeared on YouTube through a couple of channels. The film, at time of writing, has no IMDb page. The Q1Q2 YouTube posting (now deleted) was 2020, and so that is what I have used as a date but this may be wrong. The Moxi movie channel page suggests that Fang Yinghua is the director. There is a director of that name (who did a couple of the Detective Dee films) but whether it is the same director or just the name used in vain I don’t know. The film is called Jiāngshī Shìjiè, with the Jiāngshī translated to zombie rather than vampire, but these are definitely kyonsi (to use a Japanese derivative of the word, and the word I have consistently used on TMtV).

Now, I will look at the film but I have decided a fully scored review is unfair as, whilst the film is usefully hard-subtitled, the English is a literally translation, without thought of form or sense and this makes the film hard to follow.

lined up

The film starts with a group of kyonsi hopping through woods and then lining up. We here a voice address them and already the subtitles make things difficult, confused even. It seems that humans are coming and that the damage was done to the kyonsi (and their king) 100 years before. It isn’t clear as to whether the subsequent Taoist attack is what they referred to but one of their number is protected and sent somewhere (equally, it isn’t clear if he is turned human and sent to the future or past, or just turned human). His mission is to kill the Taoist and his daughter, thus restoring the kyonsi king.

the robbers

So he wakes on a road, to the sound of weeping and mourning from nearby graves. He walks into town and is confronted by three robbers but is rescued by an intervention from Hong Pei Ling (known as Linger), the daughter of the Taoist priest Hong Tian Xiang. The robbers vow to get him later and he goes with her, saying he is looking for family as his parents are dead. She takes him to a house and suggests he bathes (and then is embarrassed when she later walks in on him).

Hong Pei Ling

His name is interesting, suggested at one point as Ah Rong it often comes up in the subtitles as Aaron. She gives him food once out of the bath and he questions what it is, to be told it is gelatinous rice (or sticky rice). He, of course, doesn’t eat it as this is a traditional anti-kyonsi foodstuff and, indeed, it was used due to the kyonsi attacks in the area. He has given the family name Qin as his distant uncle’s name (the name of the kyonsi king, and the same actor plays both roles), and he is introduced to a man of that name and calls him uncle. When her father arrives he realises that Linger and her dad are those he is meant to kill.

Kyonsi King

He does try to attack her a couple of times but always stops himself, due to circumstance, and – of course – with him currently human he falls in love with her. We get a group of kyonsi hunting police who are the comedic element in the film (though the dialogue based comedy falls flat due to the literal translation) and when they (nearly) capture a lone kyonsi, which then seems to bat off the Taoist’s moves, it manages to transport Ah Rong away, so they can have a conflab – in subtitled growls. He fakes an injury at that point, leading to being made to bathe in rice water (which steams when he is in it).

conversing with the kyonsi

I finally want to mention the ending, which seems to jump to a point where the Taoists (though perhaps they are no longer of that religion) have captured a kyonsi – or monster – in the graveyard and Linger is there in uniform with a troop also in uniforms. She suggests that the communists are going to wipe out all freaks and monsters and they lead a ‘burn him' chant, after which the film ends – which I guess was a little bit of pro-government posturing at the end of the film. Beyond the rather strange ability to appear as human, the lore sees black dog blood and sticky rice being used, prayer scrolls deployed (at the end of the film) and the kyonsi cops dressing as vampires and using kyonsi oil so they appear not to be human to the actual vampires.

Honourable Mention: Magic Girl

Magic Girl, or Ling Huan Shao Nu, was released in 1992 and was directed by Wang Cheng. It’s technically Hello Dracula 6, given it is the sixth film with Chin Tu (Magic of Spell) as Grandfather and a return of Shadow Liu Chih-Yu as Tien Tien (translated to Candy in the subtitles that I saw). She played her character as a younger version in Hello Dracula 4 (King of the Children) but the character was primarily played by an older actress. The character became younger again in The 3D Army but was played by a different actress altogether. To confuse things more, the HKMDb lists this as Hello Dracula 5, ignoring 3D-Army’s place in the series. The familial background story is again changed.

However, unlike the other films, which all had a large amount of kyonsi activity, this has a single scene at the beginning, making it a fleeting visitation and an honourable mention.

held by the tree

The film starts with Tien Tien in bed; she is woken and thinks her father is moving through the house. A Taoist artefact placed by her flashes a light, and so she gets up to see a figure passing through the outside door and she decides to follow by flying. She lands in the woods and a tree sends out tendrils and grabs her. This causes some creatures to emerge (perhaps spirits, non-vampiric revenants or something else) who are going to eat her. She fights back breaking from the tree and defeating her foes.

kyonsi

They run off but it is likely that their retreat had more to do with the figure emerging from the forest. Tien Tien believes it to be her father but, when she approaches it, she realises it is a vampire and she has to fight it. She eventually punches it and actually punches her adopted older sister Yuan Yuan in the eyes, giving her black eyes. It was a dream and, as it is later implied that her father is dead, could only have been such. That is the only fleeting vampiric activity in the film.

The imdb page is here.

The 3-D Army – review

Director: Chen Chun-Liang

Release date: 1989

Contains spoilers

Although it isn’t titled as such, this could be classed as Hello Dracula 5. It does not follow the previous films but it does have kyonsi and Chin Tu (Magic of Spell) reprising his role of Grandpa Chin (sometimes subtitled as Grandpa Gold), along with his ward Tien Tien – who has become a young girl again. In this he seems to be responsible for two boys, Blackie and Dragonfly, whose background and status are not explained.

the race

The film starts with the kids racing, as part of a rite, in two teams. There are both the wards (plus another couple of kids) of Grandpa Chin and also a group of kids under the tutelage of Magician An (Huang Chung-Yu), including his son An An. The final race sees the teams riding the street on unicycles (with the ability to push and grapple, but not hurt) until reaching a small assault course of some netting and a climbing frame. The first to have a team member reach the flag at the top of the frame wins. It is Grandpa Chin’s kids who win, though An An accuses them of cheating and challenges them to meet him that night.

Tien Tien

The three main kids do enter the forest that night but before they get to the meeting point they hear what sounds like a girl crying. They find a cage, covered in spell scrolls, with a fox in it and so release the fox. They get to the meeting point and An An challenges them to fight (but not Tien Tien, who he has a crush on) and has 4 older fighters with him. They do fight and, eventually, An An comes off worse, his defeat helped by a young girl who fires fabric at him.

kyonsi

The girl is clearly a spirit but the kids don’t realise as they speak to her – her name is Mimi and later she admits to being the fox. Elsewhere Magician An goes to his master, a morally dubious sorcerer, and admits that he had captured the fox but someone released it. The sorcerer is not really bothered, he will get her eventually and is focused on getting hold of another magician called Hung Kun… who is already dead. Cut to a corpse herder (and Chin’s brother) who is taking 7 corpses to the mortuary. One is chained with bells as well as having a spell scroll, he is Hung Kun and is so powerful that they need the extra resource to control him.

the little vampire skimming 

To avenge An An for his beating in the forest, one of Magician An’s household steals one of the corpses from the mortuary, so as to make Grandpa Chin look bad. Of course, he choses Hung Kun and the kyonsi gets out of control and kills. The kids try to cover up the vampire being missing, so they can retrieve it, but it is eventually discovered. A remorseful An An admits it was down to him. Following this An An and the other kids hang out together. Mimi also makes herself known to the kids and she has a little vampire friend who she also introduces them to. However the sorcerer still wants Mimi, Hung Kun and, when he finds out about him, the little vampire. He captures them in a spirit house, eventually, and it’s down to the kids to rescue them, and An An being in danger also puts Magician An onto a redemption arc.

Hing Kun

This suffered from not backgrounding the characters well. Of course those who know the series will recognise the general strokes and the main characters but, especially as this is not listed as part of the series, it needed more character exposition. The spirit house section pushes the film further into strange – the ghost kids are not utilised in this but the sorcerer has constructed life-sized dolls that come alive and fight and these are kind of the equivalent (but villainous). The kyonsi has the additional power of being able to become invisible – it takes child urine or black dog’s blood to force him to become visible (and the urine damages him). Otherwise it is fairly standard lore. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Hello Dracula 4 (Hai zi wang) – review

Directors: Chen Chun-Liang & Ulysses Au-Yeung Jun

Release date: 1988

Contains spoilers

I have, as I post this, jumped the third Hello Dracula film as, although I have access to it, I have never found subtitles for it and so we move to the fourth film of the series and it is kind of a reinvention or reboot almost. The Chinese title in English is King of the Children.

The film starts with kids on a beach and the sands start moving. From them jumps… I want to say Vampire Thor, but actually he is a demon (Chiang Long-Sheng). He goes around stealing children and killing parents. He is challenged by Yu Tien (Ku Kuan-Chung) though the ritual he uses does not succeed…

one of the thieves

Elsewhere his pregnant wife is worried about Yu Tien. She is the daughter of Grandpa Chin (Chin Tu, Magic of Spell) and he has been entrusted with the Golden Shield Vampires, who he has in the mortuary. Two thieves have broken in, dressed like the vampires (they wear colourful armour-like robes, rather than the traditional funeral garb), trying to steal the controls for the vampires (and thus the vampires themselves). They work out what the controls are as Grandpa manipulates the vampires.

the demon

However, Yu Tien returns and he is possessed by the demon who turns its attention to his wife and the baby in her womb. Grandpa fights for his daughter and manages to stick a sacred nail into the demon’s head, but not far enough (it seems) and the demon gets away dragging Yu Tien into a portal. The daughter has died but Grandpa knows that, as a pregnant woman who has died at full term, her spirit will remain with her body for one hour so that Taoist magic can be employed to allow the baby to be born. He delivers Tien Tien (an alternate spelling from the earlier films' subtitles) but, in the chaos, the thieves have stolen the Golden Shield Vampires.

Lin Hsiao-Lu as Tien Tien

So, this is a new origin story for the pair of Grandpa and Tien Tien. We see her growing up played by Shadow Liu Chih-Yu, who plays her in the earlier films, but the core film has her older and played by Lin Hsiao-Lu. Even as a new born baby she demonstrates that she has powers and as she grows Grandpa trains her to temper the use of them. She also befriends a little vampire child (Hong Ching-Yuan) behind his back. When she is older they hear of a vampire sighting (which is the thieves using the Golden Shield Vampires to rob people) and they go out to find them.

the con man goes looking for kyonsi

Into the mix comes a con man (Chu Ke-Liang) who has a troop of martial arts kids (three boys and two girls who, mostly, are not drawn as characters beyond being martial arts kids). After the snake oil scheme he's running goes wrong, he decides to dress himself and the kids as vampires to rob people (during the day – this works once but the second attempted victim is Grandpa). Also, without his memory, Yu Tien reappears, still host to the demon who, when he manifests, is trying to get the nail removed (though only grandpa can actually do this). There is also a hotel/restaurant where the lady owner is romantically sort after by both a guard captain and the chief robber.

Chin Tu as Grandpa

These disparate threads do come together at the end but feel a bit convoluted through the running time. The con man is drawn for comedy mostly and the kung fu kids are turned into ghosts, as in previous films, to help fight the demon – however no explanation is given as to how and why, and what the dangers are, and I guess the filmmakers just assumed that four films in the audience would get the gist. Of course, as explained, this reboots the story and ignores the already drawn life of Tien Tien, Grandpa and the previous orphans. There is some slapstick, some comedy and a whole lot of the martial art vampire fighting one would expect. In some respects, it is derivative of itself but, then again, it is certainly entertaining enough. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

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.

Hello Dracula – review

Director: Chiu Chung-Hing

Release date: 1986*

Contains spoilers

*IMDb lists this as 1985 but the Hong Kong Movie Database lists it as 1986 and the more detailed release dates list on IMDb concur and do not show an ’85 date.

A Taiwanese film that was originally called Jiang Shi Xiao Zi or the Jiangshi Kid, the VHS carried the English title Hello! Dracular. The film is now commonly known as Hello Dracula and spawned a series of films behind it.

ready to play Mahjong

It starts with a horse drawn wagon, driven by Master Sha (Huang Chung-Yu) who runs a troop of child performers who do kung fu and acrobatic tricks. They are all sleeping in the wagon. They stop for the night and one of the kids Xigua Pi cooks as the other three, Xiao Hu, Bao Ya and Xiao Hei have a bath behind a curtain. The Master wants to play Mahjong with them – which is a lead in to the fact that he is a gambler, but bad at it.

the little kyonsi

Close by is a corpse herder (Lin Kuang-Yung, Kung Fu Zombie) taking his charges home. They hop along but he doesn’t notice a child kyonsi appear and start to sing at them – he is looking for his daddy and entices them to turn and hop away. The Taoist eventually realises and gets the corpses back under control and we discover that he has previously lost some of his wards to the child – though the boy is not much in the film, to be honest.

corpse herding

Master Sha hears the chant of the Taoist and tells the boys to hide as he is herding corpses. The herder stops at the camp and notices the mahjong, sends his wards to stand away from the camp and suggests a game with Sha. Meanwhile the boys have snuck to look at the kyonsi and, messing around, they remove the spell scroll from the forehead of one, who animates and attacks. They run back to camp and Sha fights with the kyonsi but ends up paralysed until pushed by the Taoist, who then subdues the vampire with another scroll. The reason he couldn’t move was because the kyonsi stood on his shadow and he is subsequently likely to receive bad luck.

struck with ghost hitting powder

In the nearby town Tian Tian (Shadow Liu Chih-Yu), a young girl, is putting rice out with incense put into the bowls. She is in a funeral parlour and the bowls are for the kyonsi who are resident there because they had no family to receive them after their deaths. It was interesting to see this variant of the hopping vampire as they eat rice and do not wear prayer scrolls. They are (mostly) well behaved guests – I say mostly because we do see the hand of one in a solitary confinement later but also because in this scene one large vampire bullies another for his rice. This is subject to punishment by the little girl, who puts ghost hitting powder on a hand-shaped swatter and belts the miscreant. Her grandfather (Chin Tu, Magic of Spell) is a Taoist who runs the parlour and offers a side business giving Feng Shui advice.

Grandpa and Tian Tian

Anyway, the performers lose their gig and Sha gambles the horse and loses. He then ends up arrested for child endangerment. The kids blame the kyonsi and, as the herder passes through town, play a trick and drop one of them into the sewer, missed by the herder who is drunk, and which eventually resurfaces in the jail and so, in an act or heroism whilst saving the police captain (Pang San, Mr Vampire), Master Sha is bitten and killed. The kids are sent to live with Grandpa and Tian Tian and, of course, Sha returns as a vampire.

Master Sha menaces Tian Tian

This was fun – there was some interesting lore, like accidentally (and later deliberately) turning the kids into ghosts that can defeat kyonsi. We get very deliberate bites and old staples like covering up the nose to hold breath and hide from the vampire. There are some fun fight moments too. There are also some not-so-great bits that are uncomfortable making. The kids trying to romance Tian Tian, given their ages, might have been portrayed innocently but the direction became a tad inappropriate, for example in a scene of her with wind blowing her hair that seemed to want to make it less innocent and portray her in a more adult way. There was some humour that just doesn’t hold up to modern sensibility. The worse of this was around Xiao Hei who has a complexion darker than the rest and so is referred to as black kid – it felt like colourism – and body shaming references to little fatso were also there, directed at Xigua Pi. The kid humour (there were a lot of mishaps followed by scene freeze for comedic effect) wasn’t as great as it might have been.

For the action and the interesting lore I think 6 out of 10 is fair but with a health warning around the moments, and they are just moments, that felt socially off. The imdb page is here.