Guan ren gui shi

Hong Kong pop culture is popular with its comedy ghost and vampire horror comedies, especially those released in the 1980s and 1990s. They contain a good mixture of scares and laughs, with an excellent cast of characters. However, many of those movies lost steam by the late 80s and 90s, and this one is among them.

This movie is about a group of female cops who do battle with Hong Kong Triad members, who indirectly resurrected a hopping vampire while trying to steal a valuable pearl from its coffin.

The gangsters were portrayed as bumbling idiots and the cops acted like they were running around in circles without a clue what they're looking for. It appears there wasn't much effort put into the plot, as the story goes back and forth between the criminal element to the vampire element in a quick and messy way. It was somewhat amusing, though, to watch the people fight with the vampire. The acting wasn't too horrible - nice to see veteran Hong Kong actresses Sibelle Hu and Kara Hui in a horror comedy.

But, in the words of the English title of this film - Who Cares? It won't hurt to give this one a pass.

Grade D-

A bunch of idiot grave robbers awaken a hopping vampire by stealing the bead that kept it dormant. A team of (mostly) female cops- headed by Sibelle Hui- investigating an antique smuggling ring come into contact with the stolen bead and, eventually, the undead ghoul.

A rather odd mix of horror-fantasy and girl with guns genre, and to be honest, it's quite bonkers. The vampire-ghost is quite creepy looking and has this strange hopping motion ( guess it makes a change from gliding), and though it has its scary moments, some good fights, it can be a bit tedious and doesn't quite know what it wants to be - a comedy or a dark horror? Still, it's distracting enough, at least for a one time watch, but just don't expect a masterpiece.

WHO CARES is an odd little mix of thriller and horror film and another that's never even got a DVD release, as far as I know, which means we're stuck watching VHS copies. In part it feels like a spin-off of the female lead action genre which offered such films as OPERATION PINK SQUAD and THE INSPECTOR WEARS SKIRTS, with Sibelle Hu leading a mostly female police squad in the hunt for antique robbers. Hu is on form here and Kara Wai is part of the squad, but they're up against Dick Wei as the big bad, and the great news is that he gets way more screen time than usual with plenty of fight scenes. The other part of the film is a traditional hopping vampire flick with lots of wacky moments and creative battles against the undead. It's not perfect, but it offers a bit of everything.