Vampire Vs Vampire – review

Director: Lam Ching Ying

Release Date: 1989

Contains spoilers

On the surface Vampire Vs Vampire is just one of many Hong Kong vampire movies. It does have a couple of factors that many do not however, firstly in the fact that the star of the show Lam Ching Ying also directed the film and that it crosses Chinese and Western vampire lore.

Of course, we have already reviewed one film that did that, Exorcist Master, which was some four years after this movie. However I think, lore wise, Exorcist Master did it better and was more clever in its premise.

We start off with an eclipse of the moon, and the pupils of One-Eyebrow Priest (Lam Ching Ying), Hoh (Siu-hou Chin) and Fong (Fong Liu), have to ensure that the moonlight does not touch the jars as it will cause the spirits to become restless – a little lore that vaguely resembled, probably accidentally, that first used in The Vampyre. One of the jars breaks slightly and some ectoplasmic ooze (with teeth) tries unsuccessfully to bite the pupils.

They realise that the vampire stored is probably being affected by the moon and get upstairs as the coffin is smoking. There is a fight with the coffin sequence and then they realise that the vampire has escaped. They look around and spot him and he is a child kyonsi. This leads to a slapstick sequence trying to capture him – complete with slapstick sound effects.

Eventually One-Eyebrow Priest comes in and realises that there is a green glow to the vampire’s eyes. Using a little Taoist ritual he gets the child under control. Interestingly the child seems to be able to shrug off prayer scrolls using his own cartoon variants stored in his hat.

A man interrupts with a ghost problem and they go help him fix it within a long sequence that adds little to the film and seems to be an excuse for some wire work and special effects (though the cartoon effects aren’t that special). Be that as it may, it is also clear that having a female ghost involved is almost a pre-requisite to these films, this one has two as we shall see.

Crux of the problem is that One-Eyebrow Priest is asked to work out why misfortune is hitting the village and it seems to be a problem with the water. Bats are noticed and the General (Billy Lau) – who appears to be the law – wants to burn down the foreign temple – a catholic church being rebuilt by nuns – as he believes it the source of the bats.

One-Eyebrow Priest manages to get into a locked meditation room in the church and discovers garlic and the skeleton of the previous priest. His partner priest is missing. The other priest is our vampire, currently buried and staked but not out for the count. He is manipulating the bats and causes the villagers to dig up his body when digging for a new water supply.

He is revived through the General's greed and soon One-Eyebrow Priest is fighting a creature who seems impervious to his Taoist ways.

The Vampire vs Vampire aspect of this seems to be in the fact that the child kyonsi helps One-Eyebrow Priest in his task. I mentioned there was another ghost and it appears, at first, to be a sub-story about the murder of a prostitute – one that seemed superfluous until we realise it was a device to get the priest near the vampire and discover what is going on.

Whilst the Catholic vampire is immune to Taoist ways he reacts much like a standard Western vampire. He had been staked, fire will kill and sunlight burns. He has control over bats – though he cannot turn into one. The reason exorcist master works better than this is because they don’t have to have the two religions working together in order to defeat the vampire – One-Eyebrow Priest quickly works out how to fight the creature.

Lam Ching Ying is always a pleasure to watch but he does not seem as good in this as perhaps other movies. I suspect he was curtailed slightly by the task of directing as well as starring – that isn’t to say that his performance is bad, just not as rounded as it could be.

The comedy is a little obtrusive in this, a lot more reliant on slapstick than it really should be.

All in all this is above average, but it isn’t the best Hong Kong vampire flick I’ve seen. 5.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Vamp or Not? Mr Vampire 5

Like Mr Vampire 3 this 1990 film ends up as a ‘Vamp or Not?’ rather than a review and to be honest probably suits the alternative title ‘Magic Cop’ than the Mr Vampire moniker. Like that movie and films Mr Vampire and Mr Vampire 2 it stars Lam Ching Ying, who was only missing from the fourth instalment. A new director, Wei Tung, was at the helm.

A cop, Feng (Lam Ching Ying), is also a Taoist and takes on cases that are perhaps a little too unusual for the rest of the force. When we first meet him he is helping Auntie Sam and his niece Lin (Mei Way Wong) who are having a little trouble with a ghost after Auntie Sam inadvertently puts out a brazier used to burn offerings to the ancestors.

In the city Detective Lam (Wilson Lam) and Sergeant 2237 (Kiu Wai Miu) – his name is never actually given, just his badge number – are undercover at a restaurant trying to uncover a drug smuggling ring. Lam becomes suspicious of a girl at a table who has not moved for two hours. She ignores them and when she tries to leave will not be stopped, even when she takes a bullet to the leg. She is only stopped when a truck hits her.

As she is related, in some way, to Auntie Sam, Feng comes to the city to identify the body, with Lin in tow, and realises that something was very wrong. The girl was dead prior to being shot and there is a hole in her skull. The autopsy confirms that she died 7 days before the incident. During this we get our only mention of vampires, a glib remark about how moving corpses were once called such.

Anyway, Feng gets assigned to the case and much of the film surrounds the clash between Feng’s old fashioned techniques and spiritual beliefs and Lam’s modernistic approach – plus the fact that he is a letch he clearly fancies Lin. There is a nice cameo by Ma Wu as Inspector Ma, chief of police and Feng’s erstwhile partner.

The corpses are being enchanted and controlled by a mysterious sorceress (Michiko Nishiwaki), who is adept in the black arts but, to be honest, they are not really vampire like – in fact they are probably more akin to a voodoo type zombie. They have no sentience of their own, simply carrying out orders, and there is no blood thirst nor fangs to speak of.

It is, like film number 3, a fine film and well worth watching in its own right but it is not a vampire movie.

The imdb page is here.

Mr Vampire 4 – review

Director: Ricky Lau

Release Date: 1988

Contains spoilers

After the lack of vampires in Mr Vampire 3, this movie returns back to the kyonsi (Chinese hopping vampires) seen in the first and second instalments – though perhaps instalments is the wrong word because, again, the film has little character wise to do with its predecessors and even lacks the presence of actor Ching Ying Lam.

One thing that struck me about the third film was the excellence of the action sequences and this, whilst there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the action, never manages the sweeping vistas of film number 3. It does, however, firmly embed the comedy elements and as a rule the comedy works really well.

The comedy is based around two rivals, neighbours out in the countryside. One, Sifu Yu Yi (Wu Ma), is a Buddhist priest and his neighbour is a Taoist. The neighbour is only ever referred to as Four Eyed Taoist (Anthony Chan Yao) – a reference to the fact he wears glasses. As the film starts Sifu Yu Yi has returned home with a new pupil, Ching Ching (Loletta Lee Lai-Chun). Four Eyed Taoist is away but his pupil Chai Le (Chin Kar Lok) is at home. The introduction sequence is essentially a comedy of errors that presupposes a blossoming romance between Chai Le and Ching Ching. That romance never occurs and the premise is a launching pad for comedy moments.

We meet Four Eyed Taoist as he is vampire herding (the act of leading corpses from one locale to another, causing them to hop along behind the herder). It is a strange sequence, though amusing, and the only time I can recall having seen limboing kyonsi. However, a ghost (Pauline Yuk Wan Wong) watches and tries to steal a kyonsi. Four Eyed Taoist fights her until she tries to use feminine wiles to seduce him. This fails and we realise that she is a fox spirit.

Once home the film then concentrates for some time on the rivalry of the two priests. This includes a protracted scene involving controlling each other with fetish dolls, which is funny and narrowly escapes being too long.

Of course we have seen films from China that use rivalry between religions before. Foremost in my mind is Exorcist Master - a film that was actually directed by Wu Ma some five years after this. The rivalry in this is less bitter than that between Christianity and Taoism as portrayed in the later film and seems more based on personality than religious viewpoint.

The story proper starts about half way through the running time as a Taoist, Crane (Fat Chung), passes the houses with a procession. He has charge of a coffin containing a vampire, though there are princes and guards in the procession and he must offer deference to the princes. The night after they pass there is a storm that washed the black die from the string surrounding the coffin and the vampire escapes – killing most of the entourage. The survivors race back to the houses.

The film then sees the pupils battling turned guards and then pupils and masters working together to defeat the vampire. This is one powerful vampire however and they will have their work cut out for them.

Lore wise most things are standard to the kyonsi genre. We discover that when the vampire poison has gone so far into a victim’s system that sticky rice can no longer help then snake wine might still be able to draw the poison out. We also discover that, if bathing in rice milk to draw the vampire poison out, putting actual snakes into the bath will speed healing.

There was a strange and yet highly amusing section when Four Eyed Taoist prays to his ancestor for help and is possessed. This possession takes the form of becoming highly muscled – think a Taoist version of the hulk. It was a small help, however, because when punctured (in this case by standing on a broken piece of crockery) the muscles deflate!

There is a nice description of the sensations of turning – going cold and then itching, the growth of nails, of fangs and the overwhelming desire for blood. The method of killing the powerful vampire was highly unusual as it involved stuffing its mouth with a variety of poisons (whatever they could get their hands on) and a snake which had been bathing in rice milk.

This was good fun and all in all deserves a 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Mr Vampire 2 – review

Director: Ricky Lau

Release date: 1986

Contains spoilers

Whilst this is a sequel to Mr Vampire the film has precious little to do with the original – bar the appearance of kyonsi (traditional Chinese hopping vampires). There are no character connections and the story is moved into the modern day.

The tone of the film has changed also, much more action/comedy – with a family element – and less the subtle mix of styles that graced the first movie.

It begins with Professor Kwok (Chung Fat), with two of his assistants on an archaeological dig. They find a few plates, worthless as they were made in Hong Kong, but then a cave is spotted. They enter (and following a literal trouser snake gag) discover that it was a burial area. Kwok is not a moral archaeologist and is taking gold teeth from skeletons, when they find three coffins. In one is a woman, in another a child. The third is empty, its supposed occupant nearby in a death grip with a skeleton. All three are perfectly preserved and have prayer scrolls on their heads.

Kwok removes the corpses to sell and his buyer wishes a sample – the small one will do. Leaving one assistant behind, he takes the child to his seller. As the two grave robbers drive along the prayer scroll is blown from the child’s head. He revives but is more fascinated by a toy than blood and is then entranced by the radio, using magic to switch it on when Kwok switches it off. This leads to his discovery. The men run from the car but, when they return, he is gone. They head back to base.

Meanwhile assistant number one removes the scroll from the females head to study it – we discover it is called a corpse appeasing talisman. Of course she revives and is hungry. This leads to an extended comedy fight scene, where we discover that bright artificial light hurts a kyonsi. Unfortunately the prayer scroll is ripped during the fight.

To stop her he removes the other scroll and the male revives. We end up with an almost tag-team sequence and discover that the vampire won’t touch a mortal wearing the scroll. Eventually he is bitten on the arm but manages to get away, leaving the female wearing the scroll and the male hunting a bird.

The professor returns and they capture the male. They must find the child however. As for the child, he is hiding in a greenhouse and is discovered by a young girl. The child kyonsi seems friendly and just as scared of her. When she hears about child refugees she assumes he is one and retrieves him into the house – we see he has a power to levitate things (toys in this case, and her brother).

The child kyonsi is scared of the sun but they get him to go play by dressing him up in shades and a scarf. The entire hiding him in a cupboard and dressing him up had an overtone of ET, and this entire sub-plot became a little tedious. The vampires are a family unit, thus we are expected to have a little sympathy for them, and this distracted from the horror aspects.

Meanwhile the bitten assistant goes to see a traditional doctor (Lam Ching Ying) as his bite has necrotised. The doctor recognises the bite for what it is and as such he, his daughter, GiGi (Moon Lee Choi Fung), and her boyfriend and reporter Jen (Yuen Biao) become involved and try to stop the kyonsi.

I mentioned that the child sub-plot fell flat to me and there was one comedy sequence that failed to work, involving Jen, and then the rest of the heroes, fighting the kyonsi in a cloud of sedative – thus everything moved slowly. It was okay at first but then the joke wore thin but continued, and continued. We discovered at the end that sedative can put a kyonsi to sleep.

Other jokes worked well. When offering the police his credentials Lam Ching Ying uses his actual name and says that his master Sammo – referencing actor/director Sammo Hung Kam-Bo – once had a Spooky Encounter and was now involved with the Dead and the Deadly – referencing the 1982 film of the same name – whilst he, the year before, caught a Mr Vampire – referencing the fact that he was in the previous film. It was done so naturally it worked really well.

Generally the film is fun, and above average, despite the problem areas. However it is not a patch on the original movie. To a degree it probably shouldn’t have had the series name, having little in common bar the kyonsi and recurring actors.

6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Ultimate Vampire – review

Director: Lau Wai-Keung

Release date: 1991

Contains spoilers

This was a Hong Kong vampire movie starring the inimitable Lam Ching-Ying as Master Gau – a Taoist priest, with a couple of lame apprentices. So generally it followed a typical Hong Kong kyonsi type vampire film framework. There were some differences though; of course one finds that with a lot of the Chinese vampire films, many follow a standard pattern or set of patterns but change things just a little to make them stand out from the others.

leaves to see ghosts

It begins with Gau printing money for the ghost festival, so that it can be burnt to placate the ghosts of the ancestors. One of assistants, Charleson according to the subtitles I saw but Hsi according to imdb (either way he was played by Chin Siu-hou), helps whilst the other, Wanchi (Ronald Wong), watches a play put on for the ghosts. When Charleson and Gau arrive they put leaves over their eyes to see the ghosts.

surrounded by ghosts

Wanchi believes himself to be alone, but the others can see a whole group of ghosts and the Hell Police, there to take the ghosts back at the end of the performance. A pair of female ghosts show interest in Wanchi and one (Carrie Ng) breaths on him so he can see the ghosts. Charleson is sent in attached to a red cord, to stop his friend being carried to Hell but both fall for the ghost and use prayer scrolls to immobilise the Hell Police. This allows all the ghosts to escape.

Lau Shun as Shek Kin

Gau must get the help of other Taoists to capture all the ghosts and this includes the powerful Shek Kin (Lau Shun). They lure the ghosts using the assistants and some pungent tofu and trap them in an area, allowing the Taoists to recapture them. However Shek seems more intent on destroying them much to Gau’s disgust. Between Gau and the assistants the female ghost escapes capture.

Lam Ching-Ying as Gau

Gau also has to pay all the money he has printed to the Hell Police as reparation. Thus he looks to get a job sorting the Feng Shui of a restaurant. Charleson manages to blow getting the job for him but also spots Shek’s son (Wong Chi Yeung) stealing a hair from the restaurant owner’s daughter – intent on using black magic to have his wicked way with her.

the vampire leader

That night Shek’s son astrally projects in order to molest her. Charleson and the ghost prevent this happening whilst Wanchi hides the wicked man’s body. Unfortunately it is savaged by wild dogs. To heal the body, before the soul is returned to it, Shek asks them to get a coffin mushroom for him. This is actually a trap, as he doesn’t want the mushroom. It is also where the kyonsi come into it.

Kyonsi awaken

There is a place where a load of coffins rest, each containing a vampire. The coffin mushroom is actually a pocket of air stored in the vampire leader’s throat. They have to suck the mystical air out and return it to Shek. Luckily the moon is not out and thus the kyonsi are not active. This, of course, makes for a little bit of vampire/lunar lore. Unfortunately the evil Shek makes the moon come out, hoping that Gau and his pupils will die.

raised as a vampire

Later he raises his son as a vampire, who feeds on blood to sustain himself but can walk around in daylight. To stop him Gau creates a 100 precious soup – a soup made out of 100 precious things (those things including dog poo as it is nutritious for plants) – this acts like holy water on a western vampire – burning him when thrown over him.

The ultimate vampire

Shek then raises him again (having broken his son’s neck to make it appear that he is a good man) as a purple faced vampire and sends a horde of zombie like ghosts after the heroes. Meanwhile the female ghost has fallen in love with Gau...

The film relied a little too much on comedy for my taste and did follow a general Hong Kong pattern – even if the lore was a little unusual. The film did nothing wrong and is a worthwhile watch if you are a Chinese Vampire and/or Hong Kong cinema fan. However it is also nothing special. 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Chinese Vampire Story – review

Director: Ricky Lau

Release date: 1992

Contains spoilers


The confusing thing about this film is that it is known as Mr Vampire 5. Then there is the film Magic Cop, which is also known as Mr Vampire 5 and was subject to a ‘Vamp or Not?’ a little while ago. As far as I know, the earlier Magic Cop is widely viewed as the authentic Mr Vampire 5 – despite a lack of vampires and the fact that Ricky Lau directed the other 4 Mr Vampire movies but not Magic Cop. Hmmm… confusing…

Unlike Magic Cop this does have kyonsi (Chinese hopping vampires) in it – though they seem somewhat weaker than perhaps in other titles – we’ll get to that, and the ever changing kyonsi lore, later. However I would say that, whilst a major part of the film, the kyonsi are a foil and the main direction is a plot surrounding holy babies. Holy babies are the spirits of children who died, mainly, stillborn. As well as these are those who were aborted and such can become evil spirits due to their hatred of humanity.

Mr Lam (Lam Ching Ying) has a whole shrine of holy babies and, in an early scene, we see the mischievous but good holy babies get their revenge on his disciples Chiu Sang (Siu-hou Chin) and Man Choi (Ricky Hui) for conning them into doing tasks. This involves one peeing on Man Choi’s face whilst another stretches Chiu Sang’s private bits… it is truly odd.

Lam sends the holy babies to local exorcist Birdie (Sandra Ng Kwan Yue), however she becomes distracted by her lust for Lam and a woman accidentally becomes possessed by one of the evil holy babies.

Meanwhile Lam’s old flame Lin (Suki Kwan) calls for him to see her husband General Dragon (Billy Lau) as he is ill. It turns out that the General’s father has become kyonsi and has bitten him and it is here we start getting new lore – I should mention the main plot of the film is that Lin is pregnant and the possessed woman has become her companion, trying to have the evil holy baby born through her.

Anyway, new kyonsi lore. Firstly we discover that a vampire’s coffin cannot be opened during the day. However the more important new lore is a new cure for vampirism. In the past we have seen sticky rice used as a cure and snake wine. In this we hear that to remove and powder a vampire’s fangs and make a potion of it is also a cure.

I say that this is important as it bears a striking resemblance to traditional Eastern European lore where burning the vampire’s heart and mixing a potion with the ashes is meant to be a cure for vampirism. The attempt to get a cure with the father fails – and he is destroyed – and so the disciples have to go to a vampire village and here we discover that large fangs are a status symbol amongst kyonsi.

As for killing vampires it seems a wooden sword to the heart is good enough. Also they seem to back away when threatened with the more Western stake and mallet. It is clear that kyonsi hold a grudge – having stolen fangs from the village it seems that the entire village of kyonsi descend upon the heroes at the film’s climax.

The humour in this is constant but lowbrow, for instance when fighting the first kyonsi the entire action is contrasted against an on-running diarrhoea joke. Thus the humour perhaps lets this down, it is not as subtle as some of the Hong Kong vampire films and for me failed to find the right balance between comedy and the action and horror (not that there is much of that).

All in all 4.5 out of 10, there are better Chinese vampire movies out there – that said there are also worse ones.

The imdb page is here.