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Mr. Vampire (1985)

MrVampire

Plot (HKL Edition): Inspired by Pu Song-ling’s legendary collection of horror stories in Liaozhai Zhiyi, ‘Mr. Vampire’ is a multi-leveled, kaleidoscopic action-adventure which combines the supernatural, elements of black comedy and award-winning action in one of the most successful Hong Kong pictures ever made.

Review: Mr. Vampire, its very different from many other horror titles. Mr. Vampire is basically a nickname towards one of the main players in the movie Mr. Kau (Lam Ching-Ying). Mr. Kau is a Taoist priest who owns a funeral home in late 19th century Shanghai with two dim workers Man Choi (Ricky Hui) and Chow Chun (Chin Siu-Ho) .

Mr. Kau is a very loved man by the public. Yet he needs some work on visiting a Western Tea House. The western tea house is quite amusing, Ting Ting (Moon Lee), the daughter of a wealthy local business man. Her character is quite young and childish at times as can be seen in this scene when she eats the cream after drinking coffee and adds sugar to her custard tart knowing that Mr Kau and his young assistant will copy.

As the film progresses we get to know our characters a bit better we are also introduced to Moon Lee’s cousin, a westernized army officer who also have a crush on her along with ricky Hui. The story evolves as we find out that Moon Lee’s grandfather forced his fortune teller to sell a plot of land. Add revenge in the form of bad advice and viola you have just made a vampire. A darn strong one at that.

As the vampire is set loose it prays upon his own son (not much of a father) our heroes spring into action only to be hindered by the idiotic army officer. But nevertheless our heroes get out and its time to kick some vampire butt Taoist style. Oh and did I mention there’s a succubus. Scary huh? But don’t worry our heroes are fully armed with all manner of fancy weapons including wire that electrocutes vampires (made of string, drenched in burnt chickens blood and a single piece of sticky rice), glow in the dark coin sword, which is powered by the moon light that could give it the ability fly and a rather odd looking mirror, called the Baqua Mirror used against the nasty hoppers and succubus’s . Things Hot up through out the movie as Mr. Kau is suspected of murder, Man Choi slowly becomes a vampire himself, Chun gets himself tangled up with a succubus, as mentioned earlier.

Now here’s a bit information for you. Mr. Vampire was filmed on the same set as Lo Wei’s Fist Of Fury, also known as Bruce Lee’s second Hit film, remade and squealed many times. But the set has been re done to make the Set Look different, but I think some scenes were done deliberately to look like Fist Of fury. I know these screen shoots aren’t the best example, but the audio commentary for Mr. Vampire on the Hong Kong Legends edition, Bey Logan explains this point further.

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