Yokai and Other Monsters: From Asian Folklore to Cinema | Out of Competition
Hong Kong, 1985 / restored 2018, 99’, Cantonese
Directed by: Ricky Lau
Screenplay: Barry Wong, Szeto Cheuk-hon
Cinematography (color): Peter Ngor
Art Direction: Honny Lam
Music: Anders Nelsson
Editing: Peter Cheung
Producer: Sammo Hung
Cast: Lam Ching-ying (Uncle Kau), Ricky Hui (Man Choi), Chin Siu-ho (Chor), Moon Lee (Ting Ting), Huang Ha (Mr Yam), Billy Lau (Wai), Yuen Wah (Vampire Yam), Pauline Wong (ghost), Anthony Chan (corpse driver), Wu Ma (rice merchant), Tenky Tin (rice merchant’s son)
Date of First Release in Territory: November 7th, 1985
For many film fanatics, the jiangshi has long been the starting point in Hong Kong’s cinema’s world of fantastic creatures. With its name translating as “stiff corpse”, and known internationally as the hopping vampire, the jiangshi leapt to fame when Ricky Lau’s 1985 film Mr. Vampire triggered a celluloid craze.
Fusing comedy, martial arts, romance and good measures of light horror, Mr. Vampire follows Taoist master Uncle Kau (Lam Ching-ying, in a career-defining role) and his two assistants Man Choi (Ricky Hui) and Chor (Chin Siu-ho) in China’s early Republican era. Uncle Kau is a corpse driver who by night uses sorcery to command dead bodies under his care to stand up and, as jiangshi taking small, rigor mortis-constrained jumps, travel along routes to their final resting places. One day a rich man hires the team to perform a reburial for his father, who was interred two decades earlier. The aim is to bring about a change in fortunes, but the process doesn’t go to plan and Uncle Kau and the lads wind up with an unusually strong jiangshi in their mortuary.Mr. Vampire wasn’t first in bringing the jiangshi (pronounced geung si in Cantonese) to the big screen. Tales of corpse-driving in Hunan province had been passed down generations, and the idea of the practice’s reanimated corpses occasionally slipped into black-and-white films decades earlier. In 1979, famed action choreographer, actor and director Lau Kar-leung gave audiences an entertaining introduction to the concept with his martial arts film The Spiritual Boxer Part II (a.k.a. The Shadow Boxing). Sammo Hung, likewise famed for martial arts, acting and directing, also had jiangshi in his 1980 horror-comedy Encounters of the Spooky Kind (a.k.a. Spooky Encounters). But it was Ricky Lau’s Mr. Vampire, produced by Hung and shot in Hong Kong and Taiwan, that hit big and set off a stampede of sequels and spin-offs.
Lau and his writers drew on the corpse-driving legend, Taoist practices, Pu Songling’s centuries-old compendium Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio and influences from Western horror films, then added a ghost story subplot to boost the spooky business. The film’s main vampire is a fearsome zombie, yet his little jumps and dimwitted nature sometimes mean more laughs than scares, while the array of Taoist rituals is intriguing (warning: they twice involve killing animals). Martial arts choreography by Lam Ching-ying and Yuen Wah makes use of impressive sets and contrasts acrobatic moves with the opposing stiffs. And comedy lifts everything: Mr. Vampire’s ensemble delights, with even Lam’s stern image coming apart in a cheeky Western restaurant scene. Lau slots in neat situation comedy and clear comic roles, with Ricky Hui, of the hugely popular Hui Brothers trio, playing the shambolic Man Choi as a loveable fool who gains a love interest (Moon Lee) along the way.
Cinemagoers in Hong Kong and elsewhere in Asia flocked to Mr. Vampire, and it later joined lists of must-sees as waves of international film buffs started digging into Hong Kong cinema. Ricky Lau became a jiangshi specialist, pushing out sequels in quick order, and producers milked the subgenre dry within a decade. Tributes have popped up since, however – most notably filmmaker Juno Mak’s serious horror flick Rigor Mortis (2013), with Mr. Vampire’s Chin Siu-ho heading the cast. The nostalgia is easy to understand: Mr. Vampire isn’t just an entertaining intro to the jiangshi, but also a reminder of the daring genre collisions that defined so much of Hong Kong cinema in the 1980s.
Ricky Lau
Ricky Lau (b. 1949) became a director of photography on Hong Kong films including Enter the Fat Dragon (1978), The Prodigal Son (1981) and Winners and Sinners (1983). His first film as director was the kung fu comedy Crazy Couple (1979), and he found box office success with Mr. Vampire (1985). Many of his early films were made with Hong Kong screen legend Sammo Hung. Recent years have seen Lau active as a director in mainland China.
SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY
1979 – Crazy Couple
1985 – Mr. Vampire
1986 – Where’s Officer Tuba?
1986 – Mr. Vampire Part 2
1987 – Mr. Vampire Part 3
1990 – Encounters of the Spooky Kind II
1990 – Till Death Shall We Start
1992 – Ghost Punting
1992 – Mr. Vampire 1992
2000 – Super Car Criminals