Vampire vs. Vampire

Lam Ching-Ying is one of the coolest Hong Kong action actors ever!

But most of you don't seem to realize that. This film has some great action scenes and it's funny too! Go get it!

April 2021

Vampire Vs Vampire, another likeable as ever Mr Vampire sequel with Lam Ching YIng once again starring.

Sandra Ng and Billy Lau also star to supply plenty of comedy along with the horror and action elements.

Again a must watch.

9 out of 10.

Lam Ching Ying plays yet another Taoist priest (this time with a monobrow) in yet another Chinese vampire film. There's the expected hopping vampire in the form of a little kid who chirps like a chick, but this one also chucks in a whole load of other supernatural nonsense, including a female palm tree ghost, evil bats that terrorise some nuns, the spirit of a dead woman who possesses the priest's apprentices, and a Western Dracula-style bloodsucker who is revived by a stupid army captain. All of this is presented in such a chaotic fashion that it proves hard to follow. And if, like me, you struggle with Chinese comedy, the film's constant silly humour goes to make this even more of a chore to sit through.

From the opening scene in which a toothy, slimy monster oozes from a jar, to the ending in which two frogs with glowing Chinese symbols on their skin hop out of some quicksand, I was totally perplexed and not very amused.

3/10. Watch Mr. Vampire instead.

I stumbled upon the 1989 Hong Kong horror comedy "Yi Mei Dao Ren" (aka "Vampire vs. Vampire") by random chance here in 2024. And I had never actually seen the movie before. And given my love of the Hong Kong cinema, of course I opted to sit down and watch it.

The storyline in this 1989 vampire movie was a bit too much on the downright silly side for my liking. There was a bit too much childish and stupid comedy in the movie, especially with the child vampire. And it sort of reflected poorly on the overall impression of "Yi Mei Dao Ren", making it a subpar movie in comparison to the many other vampire movies that Ching-Ying Lam also starred in.

Writers Kam Cheong Chan, Chi-Leung Shum and Mei-Yee Sze didn't really impress me with the script they conjured up for this movie. And it was a weak foray into the Jiangshi (Chinese hopping vampire) subgenre of movies.

The character gallery in the movie was okay. Though the child vampire grew very tiring to watch and listen to.

Nice to see the likes of Ching-Ying Lam, Sandra Kwan Yue Ng and Siu-Ho Chin on the cast list. The acting performances in the movie were okay, despite the fact that the script was a dumpster fire.

"Yi Mei Dao Ren" was a very difficult movie to sit through, and I found very little entertainment or enjoyment throughout the course of the 88 minutes that the movie ran for. And this is definitely not a movie that I will be returning to watch a second time.

My rating of director Ching-Ying Lam's 1989 movie "Yi Mei Dao Ren" lands on a four out of ten stars.

Interesting to see the star of the Mr. Vampire series; the unibrowed taoist priest himself, Lam Ching-Ying star/direct this unofficial spin-off Mr Vampire film. I enjoyed it, especially since this time around they take on a Western Vampire instead of the Chinese hopping vampires. Though there is one, a kid vampire, mainly played for laughs ala Mr Vampire 2. The supernatural element of the story can be off-the-rocker, probably more so than the previous Mr Vampire entries. At times episodic (with the amount of entities they encounter) and a touch drawn out, but the last half-hour is where it really comes to life.