re-animatresse i like Juno Mak's Rigor Mortis, so i thought i'd watch the first in the Mr. Vampires series of films, to which the aforementioned is an homage featuring some of the same actors Mr. Vampire is an action horror comedy, with a largely slapstick style of humour and martial arts and a story heavily inspired by Chinese legends and folklore, particularly concerning jiangshi (aka. Chinese 'hopping vampires'). the film was shot in Taiwan and Hong Kong, featuring a beautiful landscape just outside the New Territories of the latter. the monster make-up and special effects are very 80s, simple but effective as a viewer from the US, a lot seems to get lost in translation between cultures, but there does appear to be some transmisogynistic humor in a scene where, after having been attacked by a jiangshi, a character puts on some make-up to hide the paleness of his skin, then dances around and talks in a falsetto voice. be forewarned as well that two animals, a chicken and a snake, are killed on screen, but were later used for food on the whole, it's a fairly engaging and entertaining film that i'll probably watch again; i'd like to check out the sequels too, eventually

Scarecrow-88 An ancestor of the prestigious Yam family(Wah Yuen) rises from his earthen tomb a walking corpse(a bloodthirsty vampire) and a village is in a state of horror and panic. Uncle Yam is the first human victim, his own father the murderer and Ting-Ting(Moon Lee) is left alone. Mr. Wai(Billy Lau), inept head of police, is to lead the investigation and arrests Master Gau(Ching-Ying Lam)just because he has the longest fingernails in the village, the wound on Uncle Yam's neck torn open through the use of such sharp "weapons." Ingredients for "stifling" a vampire are sticky rice, chicken blood, black ink, and yellow paper with a specific spell written as a means to keep the undead at bay(to protect from the corpse's sting). Wai, an imbecilic buffoon, will pull the paper(placed on the head of Uncle Yam as to keep him from moving)from his Uncle's forehead and release him from his slumber. This results in a slapsticky action scene where Wai and Chou(Siu-hou Chin) must outwit vampire Uncle Yam seeking blood, as Master Gau tries to help them from his prison cell. After this is a zany scene where Grandpa Yam comes after Ting-Ting with Master Gau's servant Man Choi(Ricky Hui; blessed with a host of funny expressions which should tickle the funny bone) shaking in his shoes, serving as her cowardly protector, which includes an ingenious use of a bamboo stick. Unlike typical vampire films, if you hold your breath you can briefly bide your time as the undead ghoul stops in his tracks(Granpa Vampire is blind, it seems) wondering where human victims are..but, you can only hold your breath so long. Unlike Uncle Yam, Grandpa Vampire isn't as easy to subdue, even the usually effective use of ink string can not do the trick. Not even the village police with all their rifles can bring Grandpa Vampire down. Also interesting is how the vampires can poison their prey in this movie, through the use of their nails as in the case of Man who is nearly killed when Grandpa Vampire stabs him in his arms while holding him in a death grip. Meanwhile Chou doesn't realize that a female "walking corpse", Jade(Pauline Wong, very, very beautiful)is the one who he falls in love with(and vice versa), but Master Chau notices a bite mark on his neck, understanding that he has to come to his servant's rescue. MR. VAMPIRE is juvenile and cartoony, plays best as a horror comedy for kids. The actors are animated and theatrical. And you get plenty of martial arts, wire-fu, and exciting stunts, particularly in the grand finale when Master, Chou, Man, Wai, and Ting-Ting must band together if they are to rid themselves of the menace, Grandpa Vampire, who will stop at nothing to get its fill.

fred-287 There's a (sub)plot in "Mr. Vampire" that held me in greater thrall than that concerning the title character, namely the "Lady Ghost" (Pauline Wong, unknown to me like the rest of the cast) who takes a shin(ing) to one of the young pupils of the usually exasperated spirit-battling Master. Wong's not as "conventionally pretty" as the other female character ("Ting Ting," which sounds like a better name for a Panda bear than a person) but I think her face has more character to it. She first appears at night in a carriage shlepped by four rather fey ghostly underlings who obligingly disappear (along with the carriage) when she picks out the target of her amorous urgings. Hitching a ride on the back of his transportation, she seems all set to make her move when an inconvenient tree branch knocks her onto her ethereal derriere. Of course it would spoil one's enjoyment of the story to ponder why ghosts are sometimes prone to the same physical mishaps as are we warm folk; it'd be like asking why Chinese eat with chopsticks: well, why not? Later when the Master and the ghost are engaged in combat, the latter detaches her head and flings it at him, thus going Oddjob from "Goldfinger" one better.As for the vampire, who is usually referred to as "the corpse" by other characters, he may prove something of a head-scratcher for devotees of British and American bloodsuckers. He and the other vampires (who physically resemble Fu Manchu and a bunch of clones of same) hop around like bunnies in slow motion and each is rendered ineffective by a piece of yellow paper attached to his head. A mortal can hide in plain sight from them by holding his/her breath, which I thought was the movie's best touch, reminiscent of Schwarzenegger disguising himself with mud in "Predator." Eventually Mr. Vampire morphs into a more conventional (thus less interesting) monster, stops hopping and starts blowing down doors like the Big Bad Wolf. Lots of mayhem ensues laced with the kind of broad slapstick antics that one comes to expect from Chinese action/horror/fantasy flicks, at least until they got "arty" in the last few years. Any viewer who grew up on Hollywood fare got used to having his/her emotional reactions dictated to him/her----"OKAY, HERE'S THE FUNNY PART, NOW HERE'S THE SCARY PART, NOW HERE'S THE SEXY PART, NOW IT'S SCARY AGAIN" ----but in Asia they seem less concerned with such strict demarcations---"We just present it, you do the reacting." This gets really intriguing when they take the same approach to topics we would consider "sensitive," like torture or homosexuality. One wonders how director Ricky Lau or his compatriots would have tackled a topic like, say, Abu Ghraib---maybe it would've become a musical comedy. I'd probably rather watch that than a version by Steven Spielberg or Mel ("Holy snuff film, Batman!") Gibson… Anyway if you rent the video from Facets, the subtitles are in both Chinese and English and not always easy to read, but the gist of it is pretty get-able. There's some nice satire of social niceties e.g. the "English tea" scene. The clearly limited special-effects budget is put to good use. A good time should be had by all who view it receptively, preferably having consumed some alcohol. Only one disappointment as I saw it---remember there was a spoiler warning! ---the Lady Ghost is sent packing without her object of desire. She seemed like a lot more fun than that dour Master….As for why "sticky rice" should have vampire-battling properties lacked by regular rice: again, why not? How'd that whole garlic thing get going, anyway? Making it up as we went along, were we, Mr. Stoker?

winner55 The extremely polished production here may obscure one of the film's major virtues. This is pure ensemble movie-making, there are no "auteurs" or "artistes" here. The most recognizable actors in the film - Lam Chi Ying, Chin Siu-hou, Moon Lee, Wu Ma - turn in what were for them(at the time) very uncharacteristic performances, and do so splendidly.In fact, there is no "star" here, these actors are all taking turns with extraordinary grace as characters who at best "bumble through", and at worst fumble like, well, pretty much like any average person faced with exceptional challenges (how often does one get saved from a rotting zombie by an amorous ghost?). Despite the stunts, and regardless of its genre origins, this is not a"kung-fu" film, but a top-notch horror-comedy on a par with Polanski'sunderrated "Fearless Vampire killers" and superior to "Abbot & Costello meet Frankenstein" (which admittedly set the standard, after all). Two plus-values in favor of this film: It provides a lot of information about Chinese vampires, ghosts, and zombies (and their traditional remedies), but does so visually or casually, without the heavy-handed verbal explanation frequent in western horror films. And there is an incredibly haunting children's song (!) about a love-lorn female ghost that is wisely used over the closing credits and which is unforgettable. Indeed, the only weakness in the construction of the film is that we really want to know more about the broken-hearted ghost of the sub-plot than the vampire-centered plot allows. Fortunately, Ching Siu Tung apparently also noticed this, and devoted an entire three-film series to investigating the problem, the remarkable "Chinese Ghost Story" trilogy; but Ching Siu Tung is exactly the kind of "auteur" that would weigh a film like "Mr. Vampire" with intellectual burdens its "pure entertainment"-directed plotting simply couldn't bear. "Mr. Vampire" is not a "work-of-art-for-the-ages", but it is a lot of fun, and spooky to boot, and on that level works as really great movie making, regardless of genre or "ethnic origin".