Mr. Vampire
June 19, 2001
Review
Format: VCD
Stars: Lam Ching Ying, Chin Siu Ho, Moon Lee, Ricky Hui, Koon Ying

Lam Ching Ying and his students Chin Siu Ho and Ricky Hui are vampire specialists. They deal with the dead. In Mr. Vampire, they deal with a barrage of problems in an extremely effective comedic fashion that makes this one of the favorites among HK film fans.

Yea well I love this movie, it's a type of Spooky Encounters. Lots of taoism, tons of vampires, acrobatics, exceptional humor, a movie for everyone. Here we go.

First scene has Lam Ching Ying and another man taking care of some vampires. They get loose and they have to smear some blood on their foreheads. Funny, and some good stuntwork. Chin Siu Ho is dressed as one by accident and gets nailed. Also some typical HK stuff (HK spin, backfall, front snap, etc.). Lam can't help but throw in some fast handwork for a second too.



The comedy is genius too. Lam and Ricky Hui (Sam Hui's brother, you wouldn't guess though heheheh) go to coffee with a noble man and order coffee, not knowing what it is. Moon Lee is the noble's daughter and is their example and she drinks the coffee, THEN the cream, just to throw them off. Lam's face is hilarious, he is asked "You like it black?" and he responds, "*gulp* yes, I like it black." Awefully funny.



Lam busts out some mean Taoism to prevent a vampire from waking up by drawing lines around a coffin, cool stuff. I learn something each time I watch these movies (except Mr. Vampire 2, watch for that review). Again it reminds me of Spooky Encounters. Very fun for those of us who are into these Taoist things, who can't be interested? Afterwords Chin Siu Ho and Ricky Hui pull a prank on Koon Ying where they pull a hair from his head and Hui swallows it with a piece of paper Siu Ho writes on, and then Hui and Koon become the same animation. Very funny, it's all to embarass the guy, Hui pulls his own pants down and Koon is in the middle of the room with a girl watching, pulling his pants down. Hilarious, I fell over laughing.



There's a scene in prison where Lam is locked up and Koon Ying and Siu Ho are being attacked by Koon's dead uncle. Very funny and Siu Ho does falls, acrobatics, all sorts of stuff, and of course there's a dose of education here, Vampires can't see you if you stop breathing. Lam keeps getting his head stuck in between the bars of his jail door, god it's so funny, watching him get frustrated is priceless. Siu Ho gets him out by pulling his pants down and embarassing him. God it's great. Lam also throws a nice kick at the end.



And then another scene where they're trying to catch a vampire. It's a bit short but Siu Ho has a few nice stunts, one where he jumps way high off a balcony but you don't see him land, they cut. Probably fell on a mattress or something, who knows.



Siu Ho gets seduced by a ghost and Lam comes to the rescue. Lam does more cool taoist stuff, but it gets better. He does an hk spin, a ROUGH fall into a chair, and a nasty scissor takedown on Siu Ho. All are done with Lam's perfection of course. Well maybe the scissor takedown wasn't him, the guy's hair wasn't very clear and his face was hidden quickly, but still it's cool looking. Also some minor fight moves.



The last scene is kind of cool, Lam, Siu Ho, Hui, and Moon Lee all go against the big bad vampire. Hui is very funny, crying a lot of the time, acting like a baby. He has his brother's comedic touch. Fairly intense too, some suspenseful elements here and there. Siu Ho and Lam are all over the vampire too, doing nice kicks, etc. He doesn't fight back really, he's just a big rock basically. Good vampires come and fight off the bad guy for a while but it doesn't work out. Finally the vampire gets a mad fire stunt and dies off. Cool.



Though this wasn't a fighting movie, there were quite a few stunts and individual moves to keep my interest. The scenes were very well done and smart, the Taoism was all there, and I enjoyed it as much as I did Spooky Encounters. Here, there's more taoism than fighting and things are explained more clearly. And Lam is one of the best actors out there, his priest role is unlike anyone else's. More fighting, though, would have made this better than SE. Still practically every scene has to do with either Taoism or some kind of action.. AND Taoism. A classic.

4/5

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