Dir: Lau Koon-wai
Scr: Szeto Cheuk-hon
Prod Co: Golden Harvest
Cast: Lam Ching-ying, Ricky Hui, Moon Lee, Chin Siu-ho, Pauline Wong
1985 / Colour / DCP / Cantonese / Chi & Eng Subtitles / 98min

 

Mr. Vampire  is a prime example of Hong Kong cinema's magical capacity for genre-blending. The film dresses the jaingshi (literally, stiff corpse) figure of folk legends and historical pulp literature in the cloak of popular culture, adding it to the genre of kung-fu comedy. While its vampire-hunting plot brilliantly incorporates Taoist elements into the mix of action, laughter and horror, the subplot of a romance between a man and a ghost, drawing again from popular fables, spices up the already savoury mix. So successful was the film that it not only ranked seventh at the annual box-office chart but also generated a few sequels as well as spawning a "comic kung-fu  jaingshi " fad that enjoyed enthusiastic popularity for several years.