Editorials
‘Mr. Vampire’ at 40: Hong Kong’s Hopping Kung Fu Horror Comedy
1985 was a hell of a year for Hong Kong cinema.
Classics like Heart of Dragon, My Lucky Stars, and Police Story were all released in the span of a few months, showcasing the multifaceted talents of stars Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung, and catapulting the long-time friends into stardom. All three films did big business at the box office, landing amongst the top five highest-grossing Hong Kong pictures of 1985, while also raking in critical praise both at home and internationally. The success of these movies was tremendous, but action wasn’t the only genre to win big that year.
Debuting a month before Police Story, Mr. Vampire garnered many of the accolades its contemporaries had received while also triggering a subsequent avalanche of sequels, spin-offs, and merchandising. An intoxicating blend of horror, comedy, and kung fu, the picture was also the introduction for many viewers abroad to the jiangshi, a terrifying undead creature found in Chinese folklore. While not the first cinematic portrayal of the monster, Mr. Vampire would play a huge part in creating an entire subgenre of Hong Kong horror centered on unibrowed Taoist priests (often played by veteran actor and stuntman Lam Ching-ying) battling hopping corpses dressed in the robes of a Qing dynasty-era mandarin. But while many of the movie’s spawn are entertaining in their own right, it’s the 1985 original that holds a special place in the hearts of many fans.
It follows Taoist priest, Master Kau (Ching-ying) and his two students Man-choi (Ricky Hui) and Chau-sang (Chin Siu-ho) who eke out a living exorcising evil spirits in Republican-era China (1912-1949). When asked by the wealthy Master Yam (Huang Ha) for assistance in the reburying of his father, Ren (Yuen Wah), the three jump at the potentially lucrative gig. However, after exhuming the corpse, Kau realizes that Yam’s father has transformed into a monster. They attempt to secure the beast, but it escapes and begins a rampage, infecting Choi in the process. While Kau tries to slow down his student’s transformation, Sang gets himself into some hot (and rather steamy) water with a seductive ghost named Jade (Pauline Wong). With both his pupils in danger and the deadly Ren still on the loose, Kau must save Choi and Sang while figuring out how to stop the hopping jiangshi before it can kill them all.
“The making of this film was a truly unforgettable experience,” recalled director Ricky Lau in an interview1 decades after the release of Mr. Vampire, and from the shadow that crosses his face as he says this, it sounds like the process was both a dream and a nightmare. Lau began his film career as a cinematographer for Sammo Hung, working on several of the filmmaker’s pictures throughout the early 80s. Looking for a new challenge, Lau approached his boss about the possibility of directing. Hung, who would go on to produce Mr. Vampire, agreed to give him a chance. Since horror was his favorite genre, Lau decided a fright flick would be the perfect arena for his first crack at the bat.
Several people, including Lau himself, would piece together what would become the script for Mr. Vampire (the tally of writers would eventually total three, with Barry Wong and Cheuk-Hon Szeto also contributing). For his part, much of what the director brought to the story was drawn from his childhood. Growing up, Lau’s uncle had been a Maoshan Taoist who had regaled him with many a spooky story drawn from China’s rich well of folklore. It’s from here that the idea of using the jiangshi as the film’s titular baddie was unearthed. However, the undead ghoul that would eventually appear in the film and the one we meet in the original lore are not identical.
“It has to be stressed that a jiangshi is not really a vampire, at least not in a sense that most people tend to understand the term,” writes Dr. Katarzyna Ancuta in her fantastic chapter2 featured in The Palgrave Handbook of the Vampire. She goes on to assert that the depictions we see of so-called “Chinese vampires” in various Hong Kong horror films are a westernized version of the jiangshi, a recontextualization of the creature through the lens of the classic European bloodsucker. In actuality, while they hold some similarities, they’re a different beast entirely.
First appearing in accounts as far back as the 12th century, the jiangshi can be found in several story collections charting the eerie and grotesque. In Pu Songling’s Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (1766), we hear of a corpse reanimating and chasing a man through a village before getting its outstretched arms lodged into the trunk of a tree. A story in Yuan Mei’s anthology What the Master Would Not Discuss (1788) tells3 of a walking cadaver whose “face was withered and black like dried meat,” while another describes a monster with “unbearably foul” breath and hands that are “as cold and hard as iron.”
The 18th-century philosopher and writer Ji Yun also explored the jiangshi extensively in his work. He explains that they come in two varieties. The first category is weaker and consists of corpses that have come back to life due to proper burial rites not being followed. These are generally easier to dispatch. The second is far more destructive and terrifying. These “spastic” creatures have been reanimated by an outside source, such as a demonic spirit, and seek to drain those they encounter (often former friends and family) of their qi (their breath or essence). Yun describes them in chilling detail4: “While in the grave, their emotions have soured, their thoughts gone feral, and their rank bodies have fermented and stiffened into more monstrous possibilities.”
This consumption of lifeforce doesn’t appear across the board in depictions of the jiangshi in folklore, and in no accounts do we read of them hopping in the way we see their cinematic brethren do. What would eventually be presented in Mr. Vampire appears to be a coupling of Lau’s folk horror memories and characteristics that had been established five years earlier in Sammo Hung’s Encounters of the Spooky Kind (1980). From this marriage, many of the tropes we see today of the jiangshi – the hopping, the outstretched arms, their reliance on hearing over sight, and the era in which they dress – appear to have emerged.
Mr. Vampire’s production was a challenging one. Shot over the course of five months, it had run through its initial budget of HK$4.5 million halfway through filming, resulting in a sheepish Ricky Lau having to approach Sammo Hung for more money (the picture would eventually cost HK$8.5 million to make). It was filmed both on location in Taiwan and on one of production company Golden Harvest’s soundstages, and a strict 24-hour shooting schedule was followed. Cast and crew alike barely slept, navigating everything from set mishaps (there was a massive flood at one point) to constant retakes of stunts and fight scenes.
The latter in particular provided many issues for both Ricky Lau and actor Lam Ching-ying, who was doing double duty as co-choreographer of the film’s many combat scenes. In addition to the fact that minutes of an onscreen fight could take weeks on average to shoot, working with kung fu film staples like hanging wires and trampolines always presented challenges. Under no circumstances were either allowed to appear in a single finished frame of the film, so the crew would spray paint them to match the colors of whichever portion of the set they were in.
On top of the technical problems, there was the tremendous physical strain the actors were put through during production. Quite a toll was taken on their bodies, even for the most experienced martial artists. In an interview years later, Chin Siu-ho would speak of one shot where he would do a backflip off a platform several feet in the air. Asked to perform the stunt multiple times, he began to feel tremendous pain in one ankle with each subsequent landing, but kept this to himself. He chuckles now at the fact that they ended up using the first take of the stunt in the final product. He was treated well overall, maintains Siu-ho, but the standards for the movie were extremely high, and everyone was anxious to meet them.
Mr. Vampire made its Hong Kong premiere on November 2nd, 1985. During its initial midnight screenings, Ricky Lau was so anxious that he would hide in the lobby during the film’s first scenes and listen to how the audience would react. If laughter bubbled up through the theatre, he would breathe a sigh of relief, quietly slink in, and take a seat in the back row. “It was like a court verdict,” recalled Lau later. “Guilty or not guilty.”
The verdict in the end was guilty, and the sentence was dollar signs. Audiences loved the film, helping to make it the fifth highest-grossing Hong Kong movie at the domestic box office that year. At the 1985 Hong Kong Film Awards, it was nominated for no less than 11 awards, ultimately winning “Best Original Film Score.” Work began immediately on a follow-up, with Ricky Lau returning to the helm and Sammo Hung once again producing. Two more sequels were released, both featuring the same directing/producing partnership, and, for a time, a new Mr. Vampire film became a yearly occurrence.
“Jiangshi Mania” had officially arrived. In addition to the official Mr. Vampire sequels, there were countless spin-offs and lookalikes, all of which varied in quality and success. But as the public quickly learned, the now infamous monster could no longer be contained to the world of celluloid. Toys, board games, and other merchandise featuring the jiangshi began appearing on shelves both domestically and in countries like Japan and Taiwan. Phantom Fighter, a video game based on the first Mr. Vampire outing, was released for the Nintendo Famicom in 1988. This wouldn’t be the last the gaming world would see of the hopping vampire either, as the 1994 arcade classic Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors would introduce Hsien-Ko, a jiangshi with metal claws for hands. The character would reappear in several Capcom fighting games in the years to come.
Obviously, this explosion of success came as a wonderful surprise to the cast and crew who worked on the original Mr. Vampire. It’s not every day that something you create causes a pop culture phenomenon, after all, and there was no way they could have expected anything close to the reaction their picture was met with. But it’s a testament to what makes the film continue to play so well 40 years after its release. It’s an amalgamation of elements and tones that not only work deliciously together but also offer something for movie fans of any palate. What’s more, it executes these different styles beautifully, whether it’s slapstick comedy, bone-crunching kung fu, or heart-pounding horror.
However, it’s the jiangshi who captured the imaginations of so many audiences around the world; a piece of China’s past that has come to personify the Hong Kong horror genre for millions around the world.
- Archival Interviews with Ricky Lau and Chin Siu-Hou. Eureka Classics, 2020. ↩︎
- Katarzyna, Ancuta. “Scared Stiff: Jiangshi and Chinese Vampires.” The Palgrave Handbook of the Vampire. Palgrave McMillan, 2024. ↩︎
- Yuan, Mei. What the Master Would Not Discuss: A Collection of Supernatural Stories. Brill, 2013. ↩︎
- Ji, Yun. The Shadow Book of Ji Yun: The Chinese Classic of Weird True Tales, Horror Stories, and Occult Knowledge. Translated by Yi Izzy Yu and John Yu Branscum, Empress Wu Books, 2021. ↩︎
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
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