Geung see fan sang

NEW MR. VAMPIRE might be an official knock-off of the popular Hong Kong comedy horror yarn MR. VAMPIRE, but it's still a great deal of fun. This low budget outing is very similar in scope and tone to the original film, although being a typical Hong Kong production of the 1980s it has a vibrancy and energy all of its own.

The film starts the hard-working Fat Chung as a typical Taoist priest who's encountering problems with the living dead. His problems are confounded by a murderous local army general, two bumbling apprentices, one of whom manages to put himself under a curse, and his evil wizard brother who is intent on destroying him. As you can imagine with all of those plot ingredients, this is a fast-paced and action-packed story that never flags. Supporting stars include Wu Ma and the great Po Tai in a bigger role than usual as the chief of police.

Some reviewers on here have complained about the flagging midsection of the movie, which focuses on slapstick comedy involving the zombie girl who copies everything that the apprentice does. I loved this segment and thought that the slapstick jokes were hilarious; they perfectly tap into the Chinese love of knockabout comedy and the humour is always funny even when low brow. The main vampire action is saved for the climax and is great fun too. NEW MR. VAMPIRE doesn't have the kind of electric fight choreography found in the best offerings of the genre but it's still a delightfully ghoulish production - and funny to boot.

This unofficial movie that hoped to capitalize on the original Mr. Vampire film, it came out before the official sequel, is good enough up to a point. Said point being when Pauline Wong as the second corpse that is reanimated starts mimicking every move of a certain character that she becomes bonded to. At this scene the movie starts to degenerate immensely. If you wish to delve into movies dealing with Gyonshi, or the term for the great idea of the hopping vampire, don't start with this one go back to the amazingly great "Mr. Vampire", SKIP the kid oriented Part 2, watch the delightful parts 3 and 4, and IF you're feeling more adventurous THEN give this move a go and watch the strangest crossover EVER when the hopping vampires meet N!xau in "The gods must be crazy" parts 3 through 5

My Grade: C-

DVD Extras: Commentary by Ric Meyers; a compilation 'Martial Arts Theater' trailer; and Trailers for "Running out of Time", "Dragon Inn", "Armageddon", "the Duel", "Body Weapon", "Fist Power", and "Deadful Melody"

This movie was probably made to capitalize on the success of Mr. Vampire, which was released the year before. It's a movie about two local Taoist Priests who try to compete for the task of handling a corpse in a Chinese village. However, one priest sabotages the other by intentionally resurrecting the corpse into a vampire.

This movie started off with some neat vampire horror and some Taoist magic action by actor Fat Chung, who portrayed one of the priests. However, the movie slowed and dragged on when the attention focused on the sub-plot involving a grieving police marshal and the moving zombie of his dead girlfriend, played by Pauline Wong. The subplot involved a lot of silly and boring slapstick comedy, which would go on to take up about a good 20-30 minutes of the movie. Major vampire action didn't occur until the very end; however, even the main action was very average at best - nothing scary or intriguing. The Taoist Priests (have to add that the sabotaging one, played by Yuet Sang Chin, was very cocky and annoying) and their disciples didn't even do a lot of "vampire busting" in the movie and a good deal of the classic Kung-Fu and magic spells were missing.

Overall, one of the more unremarkable Chinese vampire films that I wouldn't mind not watching again.

Grade D