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| VAMPIRE HUNTERS (THE ERA OF VAMPIRES). Starring - Ken Chang - Michael Chow - Lam Suet - Chan Kwok Kwan - Yu Rong Gwong. Director - Wellson Chin. 2002. In 17th century rural China during the Ching dynasty zombies roamed the land feeding on human flesh. A nasty habit that turned them into vampires. Only a handful of skilled warriors dared to challenge these mystical demons of the night. This is their story. Basically the Jiang family household is sitting on a fortune in gold and everyone wants their share, unfortunately the land surrounding the Jiangs mansion is occupied by the vampire King. So anyone wishing to get their grubby little hands on the loot has to get past this evil guardian first. Enter our four heroes. Wind, Rain, Lightning, Thunder. Don’t be confused though, these heroes aren’t sporting overly high Afros and singing melodic notes in order to subdue the grotesque vampires. They aren’t interested in the gold even; they just want to avenge their fallen master at the hands of the vampire King. Zombies turning into vampires? Now that is a new one on me and also a bloody scary concept. If you read my review of Junk you will notice an easy lesson in Zombie escapology. Well that has now been blown to shit. No point climbing a tree now if these fuckers can fly! I am scared, very, very scared. Anyway Vampire Hunters is Tsui Harks take on the hopping vampire fliks made popular by the Mr. Vampire and Spooky encounters movies. They all contained similar themes, bad makeup, loads of hopping, supernatural magic and oodles of finely tuned highwire mayhem. Vampire hunters consists of all the above elements and adds a little CGI to the mix, and trust me it is a bit. You could be forgiven for thinking that the CGI was undertaken on a Spectrum ZX81 as it is so non-descript. But that doesn’t matter because for all it’s wondrous? effects it still feels like an early nineties hoppy/socky flik and I loved every minute of it. The choreography is first rate and the fight scenes flow well even if they are a little short lived. The inclusion of the Iron monkey himself Yu Rong Gwong had me wetting myself in anticipation, and I wasn’t disappointed. I love watching this guy in action and it is pitiful how he has not gone on to become one of the higher earners in HK cinema. This can be said of many other HK actors though like Roy Cheung and Crazy legs Ken Lo so I suppose it is just a fact of life that I must accept. Fans of the hopping vampire fliks of yesteryear will be salivating like mad cows in a field full of ripe hallucinogenic mushrooms at the prospect of this movie, whereas non-believers will simply dismiss the idea as cheap film-making at it’s lowest level. In order to enjoy this movie it is imperative you leave your brain at the door. 7*******stars. |
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