11.06.09 | Dr. Strangefilm | From The Files Of Dr. Strangefilm...Print this Post
Folks, the doc's mailbox has just been filled to the brim since his practice began, and I can't thank you enough for all the kind words and comments. It does a heart good to know there are so many people out there who enjoy a little strangeness in their movie viewing. Of course, as Lincoln (Abraham, not Elmo) said, "you can't please all of the people all of the time." The negative notes seem to be of two main varieties. One segment is saying "Hey, Dr. Strangefilm, you sure do like picking on the U.S. Don't they make weird movies in any other countries?," while the other asks, "Geez, Doc, haven't you watched anything made since Nixon resigned?".
Well, I'm ready to kill two birds with one stone with this case file. If you're mostly familiar with screen vampires as long-nailed and bat-eared monsters, cape-wearing aristocrats (often with Hungarian accents), or brooding, hunky teens, it's a cinch you've never seen the living dead depicted as they were in the 1985 Hong Kong horror/comedy/martial arts opus Mr. Vampire. These vampires (zombies might be a more accurate description for Western sensibilities) are blind, re-animated corpses who find prey by sensing their breath and, thanks to rigor mortis, move about by hopping. They don't drink blood, but rend victims to death with their claws and fangs and thus create a new generation of vamps.
The tone-setting opening sequence finds a Taoist priest/mortuary owner (seriously unibrowed martial arts film veteran Lam Ching-Ying) and his less-than-able apprentices (Ricky Hui and Chin Siu-Ho) caring for a visiting priest's eight vampires, all rendered inert and harmless by a candle and prayer scrolls stuck to their foreheads. It's not long before the assistants' horseplay frees the "guests" to start hopping around in search of victims. In the wild fight melee that follows, Lam and his fellow shaman bite their own fingers and use the blood to imobilize the vampires and restore order.
The next day, a businesman hires Lam to dig up and rebury his father. It seems a priest cheated by the old man gave sonny some bad advice on funereal feng shui..so bad, in fact, that the corpse hasn't decomposed in 20 years and is sporting ominous blue fingernails. When the hapless Hui and Chin fail to properly mark the exhumed coffin with the special chicken-blood ink Lam whips up, a newly-revived papa vampire soon hops out and kills his careless son.
Lam now must not only defeat two vampires, but he also winds up accused of murdering his client by the deceased's police constable nephew (Billy Lau, who you'd swear was doing an impression of Jerry Lewis doing an impression of a Chinese lawman). His aides, meanwhile, have problems of their own: Hui gets clawed by the first vamp while trying to protect the businessman's beautiful daughter (Moon Lee) from her undead grandpa and is slowly turning into a corpse himself, while Chin is pursued by an amorous ghost (Pauline Wong) who wants to make him a part of her otherwordly realm.
Even the above synopsis, I'm sad to say, does not do full justice to the off-the-wall wing-dinginess that is Mr. Vampire. One part Tsui Hark and one part Sam Raimi, the movie effortlessly shifts from slapstick comedy to martial arts stuntwork to supernatural drama--and in the case of a battle scene between Lam and Wong, who can detach her head and throw it as a weapon, it does all three at once. The sequences of Wong being carried through the night in a sedan chair borne by ghostly attendants or of the elder vampire hiding in a rat-infested cave have that special eeriness peculiar to Asian horror films. So successful was this film, in fact, that it spawned several sequels and a remake. So, bloodsucker fans, if you're bored with Buffy or tired of Twilight, look to the East and try Mr. Vampire on for size. Much like the title character, it's sure to put a spring in your step.
