Mr. Vampire
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DVD Review
Ratings And Purchasing Information
Review
While re-burying his wealthy cousin's father to try and end a streak of bad luck, Taoist priest Master Kau (Lam Ching-ying) notices something strange about the corpse so, unable to cremate it on the spot, he takes it back to his mortuary. There he discovers that the body has not decomposed in the twenty years that it has lain in the ground and on top of that, it has long blue pointed fingernails - sure signs that the corpse is turning into a vampire.
Master Kau moves quickly to magically secure the coffin against the vampire rising up but his bumbling assistants Sheng (Chin Siu-ho) and Man Choi (Ricky Hui) make a mistake in the ritual while setting the wards and during the night, the vampire escapes.
What follows are the hilarious attempts by Kau and his two assistants, liberally strewn with some excellent kung-fu fight scenes, to recapture and destroy the vampire that sees one bitten and slowly turning into a vampire himself, while the other has managed to attract the attentions of a life-sucking female ghost.
Review
Inspired by Pu Song-ling's legendary collection of horror stories in Liaozhai Zhiyi, well directed and co-written by Ricky Lau, Mr. Vampire is a classic of the Hong Kong comic horror genré. Winning five awards at the Hong Kong Film Festival, including Best Picture, Cinematography and Art Design, it spawned a new sub-genré of comic vampire movies.
The cast is excellent - Lam Ching-ying was nominated for Best Actor as the central character Master Kau, one eyebrow and all, and he excels in his martial art skills as usual as well as playing the straight guy in this piece. Most of the comedy comes from Chin Siu-ho, who adds more excellent kung-fu skills into the mix, and Ricky Hui as his assistants Sheng and Man Choi. Moon Lee and Pauline Wong very adequately provide the eye candy and romantic angles. There's also good support from Billy Lau and Anthony Chan.
The movie is well thought out and comprises an excellent mix of broadly humorous slapstick comedy kung-fu, acrobatics, Chinese mythology and the supernatural. The intertwined plots of trying to locate and destroy the vampire, Man Choi slowly turning into a vampire and the ghost trying to lure Sheng to her wiles work well together. The choreography by Lam Ching-ying and Yuen Wah is technically very good and well timed and Lam Sai-kan's art design is beautifully done and deserved its award.
While it is a vampire movie, there's no garlic or crosses used here as Chinese vampires differ greatly from their western counterparts. They are mindless killers and daylight, garlic or silver can't hurt them but to even things up, they can't see or walk properly and have to hop around and detect their prey by their breath. What does work is sticky rice, a magic token written on sacred paper and stuck to the forehead, blessed ink or, as a last resort, fire and all of that adds a great deal of interest to the story.
Completely remastered, the video is presented in 16:9 anamorphic widescreen and is free from grain and scratches with good colours and contrasts. No complaints here at all. The soundtrack has been remixed as Dolby Digital 5.1 with either Cantonese or English dubbed dialogue. As with most Hong Kong movies, the dubbed English track is woeful and I couldn't recommend it - go for the Cantonese with English subtitles, it works so much better. The remixed surround aspect is not overplayed too much - dialogue is mostly central with effects coming from the sides when appropriate and the bass is well used to emphasize the hopping vampire sounds.
Extras
Audio Commentary by Bey Logan, a well-known authority on Hong Kong cinema, who provides an entertaining and informative addition to the DVD. He tells us of the key differences between western and Hong Kong vampire movies and fills in a lot of detail on Taoist beliefs, Chinese superstitions and customs, which helps to make sense of some parts of the movie to us westerners. Bey also talks about the cast and production and adds some interesting anecdotes about the industry.
Tribute to Lam Ching-ying- Memories of the Master - Production Manager and legend of the Hong Kong film industry, Sammo Hung and co-star Chin Siu-ho talk about their memories of Lam Ching-ying, who was discovered by Bruce Lee but died well before his time. It's intercut with footage from some of his movies and lasts just over 10 minutes.
- Lam Ching-ying Biography - a 21 page detailed biography and career history of the man up until his death in 1997 at the age of 45.
- Chin Siu-ho - Lasting just over 42 minutes, this is an interesting and informative interview with the actor that played Sheng, Master Kau's better looking assistant. He's obviously an accomplished martial artist and talks in depth about his role, feng shui and some of the stunt work he did on the set.
- Moon Lee - Miss Lee tell us of how she got into the film industry and her part in Mr. Vampire as Mr. Yam’s daughter Ting-ting, which was quite an early role for her. Modesty about her career is obviously an unknown concept to her and I was a bit shocked at her laughing about torturing some poor chickens on the set. Lasts just over 17 minutes.
Trailers - A one and a half minute, UK promotional trailer and a much longer, four-minute, original theatrical trailer.
Other Attractions - Information and trailers for two other good Hong Kong Legends movies - Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain and The Scorpion King.
Overall
Mr. Vampire should be in every Hong Kong movie fan's collection - it's an absolute classic and one fully deserving of the digitally remastered video and remixed soundtrack!
That, along with the good commentary by Bey Logan, over an hour of interviews and the tribute to Lam Ching-ying, there's enough there to keep you entertained for several hours. If you've never seen a Chinese hopping vampire movie and fancy trying one out, then this is one of the best of the bunch and well worth watching.
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