Mr. Vampire (1985)

[Drunk Monk]

The first great Kung Fu horror comedy that launched a lasting franchise and a slew of imitators. I could’ve sworn I watched this last year or so but couldn’t find a thread. I remembered it well enough but maybe it’s because I was more impressionable in the 80s so more stuff stuck.

The humor, horror and great Kung Fu come together perfectly here and each story arc has its amusement. It’s a good example of 80s HK filmmaking. 

It’s still great. The martial arts is amazing - full of big falls and high flying hijinks that reek of Sammo. who produced this but wasn’t the choreographer. Most of the actors do their own stunts. And there’s some solid stunts - some big jumps like from the 2nd story to the ground and a terrifying fire stunt, something lost in the era of cgi. I’m amazed that even those cheeses 80s effect work here.

I watched this in anticipation of Den’s call for Halloween related pieces. They did that last year and I gave them an overview of the chinese ghost story franchise. 

Sword fights! Well, there’s a magic Daoist sword that glows but the vampires don’t wield.

Totally D00M recommended. I watched it on Youtube but if you e never seen this, great yourself to a better version.

[Drunk Monk]

Revisited this on Criterion, which has the original Lam Ching-ying tetralogy. He milked the Kung Fu horror genre for all he could, completely embracing the fallible Daoist exorcist role in so many films. 

It’s still good. Each time I watch this, I find myself lol-ing at something different. It’s just so all over the place. Previously I didn’t notice Yuen Wah played the lead jiangshi. He was in full make up all the way through so unrecognizable. I also forgot about the snake bile cutting scene - that animal was definitely harmed along with the chicken blood provider. 

And somehow I forgot about the gorilla scene. That’s so random.

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Mr. Vampire II (1986)
Never saw this one before. It starts with a sketchy professor and his two goofy henchmen raiding a tomb and finding three jiangshi - a man, woman. & child. They plan to sell them but are discovered by Lam the exorcist and his assistants, including Yuen Biao, Moon Lee, & Billy Lau, the last two returning from the first film. But these are thematic sequels, all under Lau’s direction. The first film was set in the 1900s. This film is modern times. 
There’s a side story about the kid jiangshi who gets discovered by some kids who think he’s a young snake head (illegal immigrant) they take him out to play and the playground scene is meant to be cute & campy. 
There’s also another snake gall scene where one hench has a cobra crawl up his pants and when the other hench gets it (after punching him the crotch). Then again, there’s a gall bladder extraction, then the hench who got it, pops the bladder in his mouth and swallows it for real, claiming it’s therapeutic. He later pulls a live frog out of his mouth, also because it’s an herbal curative. There’s a crazy drawn out scene where Yuen is fighting with the mom & pop jiangshi and knocks over a huge bottle of retardant which causes everyone to fight in slow motion for a long drawn out fight scene that’s kinda funny but it goes on too long.
Not D00M recommended.

[Drunk Monk]

Mr.Vampire III (1987)
Another installment I've never seen before. Director Ricky Lau (who does all of these) goes off the rails by adding comic Richard Ng as a Taoist charlatan shaman (a threefold redundant term). He has two young ghost brothers, another kid ghost, as his accomplices and he uses them to haunt places so he can exorcize them and collect dues. But a fierce ghost emerges, and brings Lam Ching-ying into play, a serious ghostbuster, with his two goofball apprentices. 

There's more chicken slaughter (chicken blood is used to paint anti-ghost talismans) and a possible iguana kill (but I think it was a puppet). There's a plague of roaches and a plague of bats cast by the evil ghostess which has the actors covered in both for real. 

There's a lot of butt fondling, butt biting and butt stabbing. Ng plays a scene totally naked, covered in tar (gwai can't see humans covered in tar), except he missed his butt because he was lying down, and the tar over his nipples gets wiped off so all the ghost can see is his butt or his nipples. That's funnier than it sounds, but not much funnier. Too much Ng butt. 

There's a scene where a ghost is hypnotized to believe a taoist robe is an eagle that he wants to eat, which means there's an actor in a goofy eagle suit being chased about and stripped of feathers. There's a scene where one of the ghosts is fried in a huge wok of oil, which is another way to dispel them. But it doesn't quite work so that ghost emerges as a batter monster (think tempura not fully cooked) with eyes dangling. The main ghostess also has a dangling eye. 

My fav bit was that when the ghosts possess others, they place their feet under the victim's feet and manipulate their arms like a puppet. The ghosts can't be seen unless the exorcist's eyes are wiped with a magic leaf or charm, but it makes the victims stand on their toes because the ghost feet are underneath. So when people walk and their heels don't touch the ground, they are likely possessed by a ghost. 

I think Lam uses the same wooden Jian in all these movies. It's a nice one, dark wood with inlay. 

There's a cameo of Sammo (who produced this), Wu Ma, and Corey Yuen - all guests at a birthday party. 

Still working through the Criterion collection. One more Mr. Vampire to go, then I might revisit Crazy Safari if I can find it.

[Drunk Monk]

Mr. Vampire IV (1988)

Still Ricky Lou in the directors chair and Sammo producing but no Lam Ching-ying and he was sorely missed. Wu Ma plays a Buddhist monk; Anthony Chan plays the 4-eyed Taoist. Most of the early part of this is about their rivalry as neighbors. There's a food fight, which I'll score to Ma who after getting a plate of peanut garnishes for their congee breakfast together tossed in his face so two peanuts are stuck up his nostrils, he blows them back into Chan's mouth. Both have young followers - Chan has a goofball dude and Ma has a cutie named Ching Ching, which I found very amusing. There's the typical pratfalls as the dude tries to steal kisses, but that idea is abandoned. 

There's some solid stunts, mostly falls and acrobatics. 

The vampire doesn't come in until like the last half hour. Accompanying the vampire is Yuen Wah, playing a gay assistant and hamming it up in the most sexist fashion. It's a stretch for his usual roles, but it's pretty offensive, so there's that. 

This concludes my Criterion Hong Kong horror collection Mr. Vampire binge. Definitely not D00M recommended. This is arguably the worst of the tetralogy, mostly due to the absence of Lam. It's truly only about the first one. If you ever plan to check this out, just do the first one. 

Coincidentally, my KF brother Keith has been binging Mr. Vampire too, in deference to Halloween. The cfs know him. They were absent at the party last night, but it was noisy and crowded and would've been very difficult to manage cf, so it's just as well. Keith & I had a good chuckle over MVIII. 

Tonight = Crazy Safari

[Drunk Monk]

Crazy Safari aka The Gods Must Be Crazy 3 (1991)
Not a Ricky Lau film so technically outside the franchise. Lam Ching-ying plays a Taoist master although not with a unibrow. N!xau, star of the The Gods Must Be Crazy 1 & 2, plays that same character. I haven’t seen this in years and it’s still as bad yet great as ever. It works better as a dubbed version because the nods to the original TGMBC films like the narrator work better. This film struggles to copy that style with the fast motion in an almost Benny Hill style of physical comedy (cue Yakity Sax). There are nods like the coke bottle and N!xau knowing how to drive. There’s not my Kung Fu until the end and then it gets really crazy for a most memorable moment that summons Bruce Lee. 

Not D00M recommended however. There’s a lot of context with MV explained above and TGMBC that makes this a fascinating attempt to milk 2 franchises at once.

Apparently N!xau continued to work with Hong Kong filmmakers for 2 more films: Crazy Hong Kong & The Gods Must Be Funny in China. Might have to check those out someday…