The Vampire Is Still Alive

I've long held the belief that almost any film can be made bearable by featuring a few of the following: ninjas, dwarfs, gratuitous nudity, gore, monsters, cyborgs, explosions, big guns, kung fu. Godfrey Ho's Counter Destroyer (AKA Robo Vampire 3 Counter Destroy) is an exception to this rule, being an almost unwatchable mess despite the presence of several of the aforementioned elements.

The plot for the film is all over the place, presumably the result of Ho clumsily stitching together scenes from several unrelated movies, as is his wont. The story has something to do with a screenwriter called Joyce, who is working on a script for a film about the last emperor of China, but quite how ninjas, hopping vampires, a deadly female private eye, a silver lamé Robocop knock-off, and a ghostly child figure in proceedings is beyond me.

All that I am sure of is that, despite the complete and utter random lunacy throughout, the film is actually incredibly dull and a total waste of time-even worse than Robo Vampire 2: Devil's Dynamite (and that's saying something!).

.....and the Oscar for best screenplay goes to? Godfrey Ho, RoboVampire 3!

Excerpt A "The air in the float got out, making me go into the water."

Excerpt B "Ray, this is that b---h, her name is Jackie and she works for Lawrence, she's a PI and I want her very dead."

Yep, even by Godfrey Ho standards "Counter Destroyer" (also known as "RoboVampire 3" or "The Vampire Is Still Alive") is just plain awful and not much fun at all, quite UNlike the first entry in the series, which is as entertaining as it is terrible. The movies plot (an odd word to use when describing a Godfrey Ho film) though lame, is to his credit a bit more coherent than a lot of his movies. But none the less this movie still has that scatterbrained quality, that all of his work has, so you'll likely be grinning and cringing throughout. Also for a Godfrey Ho ninja flick the violence factor in this one is much lower than one would expect, which doesn't help things along.

But the movies not a total loss as there are some funny things happening, such as the voice over work which, as always, is very badly done, often to the point of being comically bad and in a highly whimsical way. There are some stupidly funny characters (a Ho standard), some are downright ludicrous. The "peeing kid" near the end is really funny, especially when he starts jumping! Also, when the robo-character first makes his appearance, not being one for subtly, is utterly, cringingly tasteless - again even by Godfrey Ho standards. On the plus side, the robo-suit isn't quite as cheaply made here, as compared to the first film, not that that matters.

Alas in the end I'm afraid there's simply not enough to keep you hooked and this is easily one of Godfrey Ho's worst movies and if you aren't familiar with his work I'll spell it out for you: this is a really bad, bad, movie.

This is the GREATEST MOVIE I HAVE EVER SEEN! The acting is PHENOMENAL...The story is INCREDIBLE...the director should have won an OSCAR...the film itself SHOULD have won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film! The English dubbing is completely FLAWLESS. This makes ROBOCOP look like it was made for ZERO DOLLARS and without ANY talent. Even the High Definition that this movie is presented in BLEW ME AWAY! I have seen this film COUNTLESS TIMES,and each time it gets better and BETTER! Oh...and the special effects...WOW!!!! If STAR WARS had the effects that THIS film had,it would have been an even MORE popular movie than it is now. I don't want to spoil anything for you...that would be a shame. Just go out and see this movie NOW!!!! You WON'T regret it.

Toodles.