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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of My

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is

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Speaker 1: Rob Land and I'm Joe McCormick. In Today, we are

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Speaker 1: hopping into the world of Taoist sorcery, Hong Kong monsters,

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Speaker 1: glutinous rice, martial arts, and and much more with our

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Speaker 1: very first Young She movie. I've been wanting to do

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Speaker 1: one of these movies for a while because I had

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Speaker 1: never actually seen a Young She film, and uh and

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Speaker 1: and I was aware of them for a while having

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Speaker 1: I guess I've seen like pictures of them on the internet.

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Speaker 1: Uh so, so this has been in my mind for years,

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Speaker 1: and finally we got to see one. Today we're gonna

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Speaker 1: be talking about Mr Vampire. Yeah. I'm excited as well

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Speaker 1: because I think I was in the same boat as you.

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Speaker 1: I knew about Young She. I knew they existed in

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Speaker 1: in Chinese folklore, as is, being this kind of vampire,

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Speaker 1: kind of by zombie creature with with unique characteristics all

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Speaker 1: their own. But I never watched a Jangshi movie. Uh though,

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Speaker 1: interestingly enough, right this was before you brought up the

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Speaker 1: idea of of of of doing one. I had picked

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Speaker 1: up the new Dungeons and Dragons book Van Ripton's Guide

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Speaker 1: to Raven Loft, and it includes a domain in it

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Speaker 1: inspired by Chinese mythology and folklore, so it includes stats

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Speaker 1: for Jangshi monsters. It's a in in Dungeons and Dragons.

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Speaker 1: It's a ninth level undead entity with the power to

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Speaker 1: drain the energy of its victims and a shape shift.

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Speaker 1: So jung shei is both a class of Chinese mythological

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Speaker 1: monster and a specific genre of especially nineteen eighties Hong

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Speaker 1: Kong martial arts comedy films. That's correct, Yeah, it's and

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Speaker 1: this is one of the big films. We started looking

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Speaker 1: around like, well, which which jangshi movies should we do,

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Speaker 1: and the signs increasingly pointed to Mr Vampire from because

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Speaker 1: It's it was a huge hit. It was responsible for

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Speaker 1: really popularizing it in not only within Chinese cinema and

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Speaker 1: creating a whole sub genre, but also spreading out and

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Speaker 1: it was very popular in Japan and ultimately you know

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Speaker 1: across to to Uh to the West as well. So

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Speaker 1: and and also this is the one we could rent

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Speaker 1: from our local video store video Drum. Yeah, these movies

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Speaker 1: are not widely digitally available at least that I could find,

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Speaker 1: but at least not right now. I feel like they

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Speaker 1: have been recently. But um, I have to say Amazon

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Speaker 1: Prime used to be my go to place for a

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Speaker 1: lot of weird movies, but I feel like their selection

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Speaker 1: is not as expansive as it was just a couple

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Speaker 1: of years ago. So Mr. Vampire is really a title

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Speaker 1: that sort of grabs me by the fangs or by

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Speaker 1: the fingernails as it may be. To begin with, Uh,

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Speaker 1: there's something a little bit cheeky about it. But also

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Speaker 1: I think this is not a direct translation of the

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Speaker 1: original title, which I think uh in the Cantonese original

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Speaker 1: title was it translates to like hold your breath for

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Speaker 1: a moment or something. Uh. Yeah, and that and the

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Speaker 1: reason for that is because that's that's one of the

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Speaker 1: plot points. And how do you avoid the Jungshi discovering

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Speaker 1: where you are and draining the life out of you. Well,

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Speaker 1: just don't breathe and then it can't detect your presence.

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Speaker 1: But Mr Vampire, Uh, that that also that also kind

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Speaker 1: of works. It's it's not the name of a vampire

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Speaker 1: in it, but it's referring to our main character, who

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Speaker 1: is a Dallas priest whose expertise is the management and

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Speaker 1: sometimes slaying of of of vampires, and therefore he's Mr

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Speaker 1: Vampire in the same way that someone who comes and

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Speaker 1: fixes your pipes might be Mr Plumbing or Mr Plumber.

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Speaker 1: I was thinking of it more along the lines of

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Speaker 1: Mr Coffee, like he is a machine that is designed

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Speaker 1: to perfectly execute this function. And so in this case,

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Speaker 1: our hero in the film, the Taoist priest played by

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Speaker 1: Uh Chining Lamb, is the machine that perfectly executes the

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Speaker 1: jung Shei cycle. So let's talk for just a little

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Speaker 1: bit about the Young she because some of you may

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Speaker 1: be super familiar with this already. Maybe you've read the

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Speaker 1: New Raven Loft book and so you know, you're like,

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Speaker 1: I know all the stats, Rob, you don't have to

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Speaker 1: go into the details, but I will anyway because it's

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Speaker 1: super interesting and I think it it enhances our understanding

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Speaker 1: of this film. Even though this film is very much

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Speaker 1: a horror comedy, it's not like it has I think,

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Speaker 1: you know, really deep things to say, but it is.

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Speaker 1: It is a treatment of some of of a monster,

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Speaker 1: a monster that emerged out of Chinese history, out of

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Speaker 1: Chinese folklore and out of real anxieties. So first of all,

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Speaker 1: jiang she literally means the stiff or the rigid dead,

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Speaker 1: and uh and and and and the reason for that

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Speaker 1: will become clear when we start talking about how they move, especially,

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Speaker 1: So I'd love to just set the scene for you

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Speaker 1: here if I may. Okay, let's get it. Imagine yourself

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Speaker 1: out on a road so frustratingly close to the walls

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Speaker 1: of the city you've been traveling to, and yet night

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Speaker 1: is falling, the mist is rolling in, and then up

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Speaker 1: a heads you see several figures in the gloom. Who

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Speaker 1: are they? Are they fellow travelers, perhaps headed to where

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Speaker 1: you're going, or coming from the opposite direction, maybe there

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Speaker 1: are a patrol of guards from the city, And you

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Speaker 1: even entertain the possibility that they might be bandits. But

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Speaker 1: then they do something quite unnatural. They hop, They hop,

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Speaker 1: like creatures whose legs are bound or stiff with rigor mortis,

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Speaker 1: perhaps even forgetful of proper bipedo locomotion, and forced to

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Speaker 1: lunge themselves forward through physical space like a writhing worm

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Speaker 1: stood on end. The creatures hop and they hop again,

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Speaker 1: ever closer to you, And as they get closer, you

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Speaker 1: see that they are undead horrors dressed in robes from

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Speaker 1: the Cheaing dynasty, decayed corpses, burning with unnatural life, and

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Speaker 1: as they hop, they reach out towards you with elongated

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Speaker 1: finger nails, they gasp with bloody thing tooth jaws, and

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Speaker 1: if they catch you, they will drain every last ounce

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Speaker 1: of precious chea from your body. Oh I got the shivers. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think. I think the thing about the hopping, really,

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Speaker 1: the hopping is key because it's such a vital part

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Speaker 1: of of the folklore, and yet at the same time

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Speaker 1: it can seem ridiculous because it is so unnatural, and

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Speaker 1: sometimes it's hard for us to really like figure out,

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Speaker 1: like where does at what point does the unnatural become

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Speaker 1: the ridiculous? At what point does the ridiculous then become

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Speaker 1: the uncanny? Well, yeah, I mean, I won't deny that

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Speaker 1: it looks funny in the movie when they're hopping, and

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Speaker 1: it clearly is supposed to look funny in the movie,

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Speaker 1: because this isn't like a straight horror movie. This is

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Speaker 1: a horror comedy. But I can see how the hopping

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Speaker 1: could be quite unnerving given the right cultural associations, And

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Speaker 1: if it were, I don't know, maybe if it were

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Speaker 1: filmed from the right angle too, because like you can

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Speaker 1: get the funny aspects, like it's kind of a sack

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Speaker 1: Ray zombie, right, It's just the feet can't move independently.

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Speaker 1: It's hopping up and down with the arms outstretched. But

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Speaker 1: on the other hand, it symbolizes that this body no

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Speaker 1: longer works as it should. In fact, it is no

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Speaker 1: longer really a human body, but something else exactly. So,

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Speaker 1: so that's the the Jiangxi. But as as most of

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Speaker 1: you know from listening to stuff to blow your mind,

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Speaker 1: monsters don't just exist in a vacuum. Monsters always means something.

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Speaker 1: And so I was curious, like I know a number

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Speaker 1: of you are curious, where does this come from, What

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Speaker 1: does it mean? What is the hopping all about? Why

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Speaker 1: does the riga mortis seem to be so key to

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Speaker 1: this depiction of the undead? And I ran Randy. I

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Speaker 1: looked at a few different sources, and then I found

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Speaker 1: this paper by historian Juhy Sue. And this is actually

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Speaker 1: their Doctor of Philosophy dissertation at Washington University from twenty nineteen,

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Speaker 1: but it's titled The Afterlife of Corpses, A Social History

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Speaker 1: of Unburied Dead bodies in the Ching dynasty sixty four

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Speaker 1: through nineteen eleven. Interesting, So, what can you tell us

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Speaker 1: about these creatures? Okay? So, while Chinese mythology and folklore

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Speaker 1: is filled with various ghosts and monsters, obviously, uh, the

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Speaker 1: jang Hi seemed to immerge out of a Ching dynasty

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Speaker 1: crisis concerning the burial of the dead. So Sue writes

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Speaker 1: that numerous records from the eighteenth and nineteenth century discussed

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Speaker 1: the problem of unburied bodies left on the ground without

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Speaker 1: proper burial. And the the interesting thing is these were

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Speaker 1: not exclusively, say, the victims of war or famine or disaster,

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Speaker 1: you know, something where even in the best of situations

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Speaker 1: can overwhelm your ability to deal with the dead. They

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Speaker 1: were seemingly, for the most part, individuals who simply had

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Speaker 1: no permanent grave, and this, Sue writes, was due to

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Speaker 1: changing socio economic structure during this time period and the

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Speaker 1: resulting imbalance between population and arable land. Interesting. Yeah, so,

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Speaker 1: I mean the idea here is that a family would

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Speaker 1: need a secure claim to the land in order to

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Speaker 1: bury a deceased loved one, and if a grave could

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Speaker 1: not be obtained, then they were then the body would

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Speaker 1: would just be left out or would be uh you know,

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Speaker 1: abandoned or lost, um, you know, not necess necessarily like

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Speaker 1: immediately discarded, but it might be put somewhere and then

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Speaker 1: it would never find its way to a permanent destination.

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Speaker 1: This actually plays into the movie. I hadn't thought about this,

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Speaker 1: but in the plot of Mr. Vampire. Though again this

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Speaker 1: is a comedy movie, part of the incitement of the

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Speaker 1: vampire curse in this film seems to be a dispute

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Speaker 1: about over the land on which a body is buried.

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Speaker 1: That there's like a dispute between this wealthy family. Uh

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Speaker 1: this you know, this wealthy family with this businessman patriarch

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Speaker 1: and a fortune teller who originally wanted access to some

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Speaker 1: kind of burial plot, and the businessman bought it off

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Speaker 1: the for fortune teller seemingly with some kind of coercion

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Speaker 1: for the for the purchase because it was said to

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Speaker 1: be a very lucky place to bury a body that

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Speaker 1: would bring great fortune to the further, you know, the

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Speaker 1: future generations of the family. But obviously the fortune teller

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Speaker 1: who was forced to sell the land didn't like this,

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Speaker 1: and so a dispute about land to rights and the

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Speaker 1: burial of the body seems to be at the root

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Speaker 1: of whatever black magic causes the vampire to begin with. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and that that plays right into this this historical setting

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Speaker 1: out of which it emerges this idea that that that

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Speaker 1: land in which you can properly bury the dead and

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Speaker 1: do the dead justice, uh, is in short supply, and

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Speaker 1: not everyone has has the access that they once enjoyed

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Speaker 1: to it. And while the sue rights that while the

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Speaker 1: the young Non region was most impacted by this situation,

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Speaker 1: it became an empire wide crisis because it wasn't just

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Speaker 1: about the dead and then dealing with the dead, but

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Speaker 1: it perceived cultural decline and funeral custom and and even

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Speaker 1: a decline in devotion to one's ancestors, which has an

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Speaker 1: enormous cultural significance. Well, this is another thing I would

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Speaker 1: say in in Mr. Vampire. Again, it's hard to say

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Speaker 1: because the movie I would say is ultimately it's it's

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Speaker 1: a light comedy, you know, it's light horror, martial arts comedy,

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Speaker 1: so it's not getting too serious about anything. But I

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Speaker 1: also I kind of detect a strain of critique of

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Speaker 1: modernity and it generally and it's set during so it

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Speaker 1: was made in the nineteen eighties, but it's set during

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Speaker 1: the Republican period of China, so in the first half

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Speaker 1: of the twentieth century, and in it there seems to

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Speaker 1: be a sort of a critique of of a modern,

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Speaker 1: maybe Western influenced way of living. There's a very comedic

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Speaker 1: police officer who seems to embody all the negative attributes

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Speaker 1: all of the police like he is abusive and stupid,

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Speaker 1: and you know, is is framing the wrong guy for

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Speaker 1: the murder, is not addressing any problems. And so there's

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Speaker 1: this idea, yeah, that the the government and the law

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Speaker 1: is not maintaining any the necessary order and that this

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Speaker 1: lack of order also applies to our our honor to

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Speaker 1: the dead. Yeah. And so the character in the movie

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Speaker 1: who wants to have his ancestor reburied, which again this

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Speaker 1: one the inciting incidents in the film, he seems to

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Speaker 1: be making decisions that could be again I don't know

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Speaker 1: exactly the right cultural way to read this, but I

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Speaker 1: think it is to be interpreted as he's making decisions

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Speaker 1: that are somewhat disrespectful to his own ancestors in hopes

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Speaker 1: of making money. Yeah, Okay, well, we're maybe sort of

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Speaker 1: getting ahead of ourselves here because we started getting into

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Speaker 1: the details. But Rob, what's the basic elevator pitch for

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Speaker 1: Mr Vampire before we hit the trailer audio? All right?

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Speaker 1: When Sheean dynasty vampires rise up and cause havoc in

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Speaker 1: early twentieth century China. Again, this is the Republic of China.

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Speaker 1: Only the Dallas priest Master Gao and his two assistants

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Speaker 1: can stop the evil. You know, you kind of get

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Speaker 1: the sense that Master Gau would have had a better

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Speaker 1: chance stopping the evil without his two assistants. Well, it's

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Speaker 1: hard to get good help in the vampire busting business. Yes,

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Speaker 1: let's hear some audio here going again, I'm gonna I'm

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Speaker 1: not hey do all right? So that is, I believe

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Speaker 1: from the original Cantonese trailer. So that is if you

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Speaker 1: if there's any language in any dialogue in that trailer

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Speaker 1: that you heard, that is Cantonese, and um, I I

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Speaker 1: recommend watching the film in Cantonese if you can. I listened.

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Speaker 1: I watched about half of it dubbed and then switched

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Speaker 1: over to Cantonese with subtitles. Yeah about halfway through, and

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Speaker 1: I really enjoyed the original language more. I was going

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Speaker 1: to say the same thing. I watched it with the

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Speaker 1: Cantonese audio with subtitles, and I think that's the better

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Speaker 1: way to do it, because there's a lot of the

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Speaker 1: line delivery in Cantonese that is quite funny, even though

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Speaker 1: even if you don't speak cantonies, can't understand what they're saying.

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Speaker 1: I would single out the main star of the movie,

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Speaker 1: Chining Lamb for some of his very funny, stern delivery

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Speaker 1: of particular lines in certain scenes, like I really like

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Speaker 1: the scene where his his assistant who is turning into

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Speaker 1: a vampire, is saying, like, what's going to happen to me?

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Speaker 1: And he says, your blood will stiffen, and then he says, well,

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Speaker 1: how what will happen when it stiffens? And he says

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Speaker 1: it will get hard, And it's the way he delivers

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Speaker 1: his lines in the original language I think is much funnier.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, um. And we'll get back to him. But

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Speaker 1: he is. He is indeed great in this. It's hard

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Speaker 1: to imagine that the film without him, because his character

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Speaker 1: is at once stern and serious and heroic and capable,

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Speaker 1: and he had at the same time does occasionally look

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Speaker 1: like a buffoon, as is befitting of a horror comedy,

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Speaker 1: but it's a careful line to walk, like how do

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Speaker 1: you make your hear row buffoonish enough but also a

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Speaker 1: capable action horror star. I want to come back to

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Speaker 1: that theme. All right, Well, let's let's start talking about

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Speaker 1: some of the folks involved in this film, because it

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Speaker 1: does have a lot of interesting people in it. Uh.

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Speaker 1: First of all, let's talk about the director, who also

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Speaker 1: was one of the screenwriters, Ricky Law. Law was born

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Speaker 1: in nineteen nine and Mr. Vampire is his big hit.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it was a huge hit, so he went

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Speaker 1: on to do and is still doing plenty of films

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Speaker 1: in this vein, including The Romance of the Vampires in

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Speaker 1: nine and more recently Dallas Priest One, a film starring

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Speaker 1: Sue Ho Chin, one of the stars from Mr. Vampire.

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Speaker 1: This this is a trend. We'll see a lot. Who

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Speaker 1: is Sue Ho Chen in Mr Vampire. He's the handsome assistant.

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Speaker 1: Uh and we'll get to him in a second. Oh yeah, okay, yeah,

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Speaker 1: he's good now with the producer on this film is

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Speaker 1: also a huge name in Hong Kong cinema, though I'm

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Speaker 1: to understand he is largely hands off with Mr. Vampire.

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Speaker 1: But we have to point out that Samuel Hung was

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Speaker 1: the producer. And I think everybody's heard of Samue Hung.

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Speaker 1: He's one of the he's one of the biggest names

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Speaker 1: in Hong Kong cinema, certainly outside of Hong Kong, well,

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Speaker 1: when you get into like just international cinema. He's one

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Speaker 1: of those people who you just look at a picture

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Speaker 1: of him and you're like, that guy's the boss. He's

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Speaker 1: the boss of something. Yeah. Yeah, legendary rotund Hong Kong actor,

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Speaker 1: martial artist, producer and director and um yeah, he's he's

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Speaker 1: been in done so many things. In fact, he was

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Speaker 1: in one of the other key films of this genre,

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Speaker 1: this the horror comedy, the Hong Kong horror Comedy, and

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Speaker 1: that was an Encounters of the Spooky Kind that occurred,

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Speaker 1: uh several years later. It was it was sort of

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Speaker 1: the first big horror comedy as I understand it. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: so I also wanted to see Encounters of the Spooky Kind.

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Speaker 1: I haven't seen that one either. But is it also

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Speaker 1: about Jiung Shi or is it about something else? I

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Speaker 1: am not entirely sure, but it one of the same

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Speaker 1: writers was involved in it. Um so I know that

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Speaker 1: it had as it at least has spooky stuff in it.

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Speaker 1: It has encounters of the spooky kind in it, But

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Speaker 1: I said, I sadly haven't seen it yet. It's really

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Speaker 1: the next one I should see because it's it's a

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Speaker 1: huge and very influential. Now, I was reading in a

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Speaker 1: book called Spooky Encounter. It's a Guilos Guide to Hong

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Speaker 1: Kong Horror by Daniel O'Brien, and in that O'Brien says

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Speaker 1: that that Hung wasn't was Samo. Hung was inspired by

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Speaker 1: stories that his mother told him when he was a child,

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Speaker 1: as well as a particular story from Poush Song Lings

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Speaker 1: Tales from a Chinese Studio, which I was excited to

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Speaker 1: read because I'm really fond of tales from a Chinese studio.

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Speaker 1: I have the I think it's the Penguin Books edition,

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Speaker 1: which doesn't include all of Poushong Ling's stories and retellings

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Speaker 1: of these various weird tales from China, but it has

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Speaker 1: a number of them. Now, you sent me a link

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Speaker 1: to a e book version of this that did have

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Speaker 1: the story in it, and so I read this story

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Speaker 1: the one. The story is called the resurrect or no,

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Speaker 1: not the resurrection corps, the resuscitated corpse. Yes, I believe

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Speaker 1: you're right, and it's uh, I was, I was improused.

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Speaker 1: So the thing about possong links stories is that they

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Speaker 1: vary wildly in tone. There are some where basically just

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Speaker 1: he's He's like, hey, um, this scholar from such and

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Speaker 1: such city told me about this thing that once happened,

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Speaker 1: and it was weird, and that's the end. Uh. My

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Speaker 1: son and I enjoy reading them together. And occasionally they

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Speaker 1: just stopped abruptly like that. It's like a man solid

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Speaker 1: fairy in the woods the end, um a man saw

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Speaker 1: some fleas do a cool uh trick or circus performance

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Speaker 1: on a backpack the end. Other times they're longer. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: they're just really grotesque and brutal, like a troll choose

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Speaker 1: on somebody's skull, and then they never find out what

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Speaker 1: it was about. There's a lot of never finding out

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Speaker 1: what happened. Something strange happens and no explanation has ever made,

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Speaker 1: nothing has ever, you know, really done about it. Other

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Speaker 1: Times they're humorous. Sometimes they're a little bit on the

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Speaker 1: raunchy side, uh in rare instances. But yeah, this one

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Speaker 1: is I think an example of of a story that

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Speaker 1: is both terrifying in parts but also ultimately ridiculous and humorous. Yeah, so,

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Speaker 1: the basic story here is that there are four travelers

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Speaker 1: who arrive at is it an inn or a house

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Speaker 1: that they're they're on the road, and they get to

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Speaker 1: someplace where they really need to stay for the night

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Speaker 1: because the night has come on and they can't stay outside,

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Speaker 1: and there's no it must be an inn because basically

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Speaker 1: there's no room at the end, and they say, okay,

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Speaker 1: well can you give us somewhere to stay, you know,

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Speaker 1: even if we don't have our own rooms. And so

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Speaker 1: the homeowner, the innkeeper, is like, well, okay, you can

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Speaker 1: stay in this room with my dead daughter in law's

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Speaker 1: corpse that hasn't been buried yet. Very very good, very cool.

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Speaker 1: And this is of course getting into the idea, you know,

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Speaker 1: like she hasn't been buried yet perhaps because they have

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Speaker 1: they have not found a place to bury her right,

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Speaker 1: and again getting into these big concerns about you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe bad magic comes on when somebody doesn't receive the

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Speaker 1: right kind of ritual burial in a timely manner. So

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Speaker 1: the four travelers go to sleep in the room and

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Speaker 1: then in the middle of the night, one of them

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Speaker 1: wakes up and realizes that the body of the dead

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Speaker 1: daughter in law is getting up off of the table

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Speaker 1: where it's resting, and the dead daughter in law goes

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Speaker 1: around to each of the sleeping travelers and breathes in

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Speaker 1: their faces, and the breathing on them there seems to

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Speaker 1: be something very sinister about this. But eventually the one

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Speaker 1: traveler who's awake while this is happening gets up and

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Speaker 1: runs out, and the dead daughter in law is very

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Speaker 1: mad about him running away, and she chases him, chases

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Speaker 1: him all the way to a monastery where he bangs

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Speaker 1: on the door and begs to be let in, and

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Speaker 1: the priest is like, I don't know who you are.

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Speaker 1: You can't come in, And so he's running around outside.

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Speaker 1: He hides behind a tree and then the the zombie

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Speaker 1: lady attacks him, but gets her arms wrapped around the tree.

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Speaker 1: Did I understand that right? Yeah? Like basically like he

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Speaker 1: she reaches to the left and he ducks to the

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Speaker 1: other side, and then she reaches on that side, he

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Speaker 1: ducks the other side. They're just going back and forth.

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Speaker 1: It's like it's it's very much a Hong Kong martial

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Speaker 1: arts comedy skit, and they do this until they're absolutely exhausted,

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Speaker 1: the both of them, even the corpse. Uh. And then

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Speaker 1: I guess the corpse gets the bright idea, I'll just

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Speaker 1: reach out and grab him on both sides of the

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Speaker 1: tree at the same time. But then what happens is

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Speaker 1: her long, scary ghost fingernails get stuck in the tree,

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Speaker 1: and so she's just stuck to the trees. And the

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Speaker 1: next morning the authorities come and this resurrected corpse is

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Speaker 1: stuck to the tree with her fingernails in the wood

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Speaker 1: the end. And that's the great thing about the stories.

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Speaker 1: I think I think the last I may be remembering

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Speaker 1: this wrong, but I think the last line is something

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Speaker 1: like the local governor made a report of the incident. Yes,

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Speaker 1: they often ill often that's the form of these stories.

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Speaker 1: They'll often begin with saying, uh, telling you who told

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Speaker 1: you this? Who told him this story? You know to

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Speaker 1: give it, I guess kind of it gives it an

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Speaker 1: air of authenticity. Or it ends with something like that,

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Speaker 1: saying like where it's recorded, and uh, yeah, I love it,

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00:22:00,800 --> 00:22:04,959
Speaker 1: and then everything was fine. So Mr Vampire not a

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Speaker 1: direct adaptation of that, but you can definitely see some

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00:22:07,760 --> 00:22:09,240
Speaker 1: of the connections there, some of the you know, the

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00:22:09,280 --> 00:22:13,879
Speaker 1: comedic car right, Alright, So a couple of the screenwriters

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00:22:13,920 --> 00:22:16,159
Speaker 1: were just gonna blow through here kind of quickly, but

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00:22:16,240 --> 00:22:20,480
Speaker 1: they were accomplished screenwriters. There's a Chuck Hon Sato I

405
00:22:20,560 --> 00:22:24,440
Speaker 1: believe it is, who wrote on some major Hong Kong

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Speaker 1: films featuring stars such as Jackie Chan and Jet Lee.

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Speaker 1: Their screenwriter Barry Wong Whoo, who worked on such films

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Speaker 1: as Fight Back to School starring Stephen Chow, and two

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00:22:36,880 --> 00:22:40,280
Speaker 1: different John Wu films, Heart Boiled and The Killer, both

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Speaker 1: starring Chow Yun Fat, some of the most famous of

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Speaker 1: the recent well not that recent anymore, but recent decades

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Speaker 1: Hong Kong action movies. Yeah, definitely names in Hong Kong

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Speaker 1: cinema that resonate globally. Yeah, But it's interesting to see

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Speaker 1: the connection to Stephen Chow as well, because I would say,

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Speaker 1: in many ways, I think Stephen Chow is kind of

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Speaker 1: a modern inheritor of this kind of martial arts action

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Speaker 1: comedy thing with with supernatural elements like we see in Mr. Vampire.

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Speaker 1: Not so much in the horror vein, but still supernatural

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Speaker 1: fighting comedies. I'm thinking of his working Kung Fu Hustle.

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Speaker 1: I think has some some some inspiration points in films

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Speaker 1: like Mr. Vampire. It would seem to me. Now the

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Speaker 1: story on this film came from Ying Wong, who was

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Speaker 1: born in nineteen sixty eight. And I don't know much

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Speaker 1: about Yeing Wong, but he's had his hands in a

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Speaker 1: number of really cool looking film projects, both as a

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Speaker 1: writer and a director. He wrote the novel that served

427
00:23:34,600 --> 00:23:37,960
Speaker 1: as the basis for nineteen eight Threes Bastard Swordsman, and

428
00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:41,320
Speaker 1: his other credits include Return of the Demon from Night Seven,

429
00:23:41,320 --> 00:23:44,679
Speaker 1: which he also directed nineteen nineties The Swordsman, and an

430
00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:48,440
Speaker 1: interesting looking Chinese mummy movie, which said just based on

431
00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:50,240
Speaker 1: based on the cover, it looks like it involves like

432
00:23:50,359 --> 00:23:54,720
Speaker 1: jade armor, like jade burial armor. Um. And I think

433
00:23:54,720 --> 00:23:58,240
Speaker 1: that that one also has Ghostbusters in it, not you

434
00:23:58,320 --> 00:24:03,440
Speaker 1: know our ghostbusters, but roal Ghostbusters. Most notably, however, Wong

435
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:07,320
Speaker 1: co wrote the that other earlier important Hong Kong supernatural

436
00:24:07,359 --> 00:24:11,159
Speaker 1: comedy Encounters of the Spooky Kind uh that starred Semo

437
00:24:11,480 --> 00:24:14,159
Speaker 1: Hung in eight. Okay, well, that one's still in the

438
00:24:14,200 --> 00:24:16,760
Speaker 1: list for me, But I feel like we got to

439
00:24:16,760 --> 00:24:19,359
Speaker 1: get to our star. We've been sort of burying the

440
00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:21,680
Speaker 1: lead as we sometimes do here because I've just been

441
00:24:21,760 --> 00:24:25,080
Speaker 1: wanting to talk about Chin Ying Lamb. Yes, he plays

442
00:24:25,480 --> 00:24:29,399
Speaker 1: Mr Gau a k A. Mr Vampire. Um, he's a

443
00:24:29,480 --> 00:24:33,040
Speaker 1: He's an actor who lived nineteen fifty two through so,

444
00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 1: you know, sadly short lived, but boy he he acted

445
00:24:37,280 --> 00:24:40,119
Speaker 1: a lot during that period. Um, he's very much the

446
00:24:40,160 --> 00:24:43,720
Speaker 1: star of this picture. He's our Mono brow Dallas priest

447
00:24:43,760 --> 00:24:47,760
Speaker 1: who specializes in the handling of Jiangshi and other various spirits,

448
00:24:48,280 --> 00:24:50,560
Speaker 1: and he has a pretty interesting history. He started out

449
00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:54,080
Speaker 1: in stunt work for the Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest studio.

450
00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:57,040
Speaker 1: He was a personal assistant to Bruce Lee and then

451
00:24:57,040 --> 00:25:00,160
Speaker 1: he joined Samo Hunks, the stunt team and the who

452
00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:04,000
Speaker 1: became friends. He'd done various roles prior to Mr. Vampire,

453
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:06,000
Speaker 1: but this was the role that really made him famous.

454
00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:08,320
Speaker 1: So it should come as no surprise that he played

455
00:25:08,359 --> 00:25:12,639
Speaker 1: a lot of Dallas priests battled supernatural forces during his career.

456
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:15,159
Speaker 1: I can't even begin to list them all here, but

457
00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:19,480
Speaker 1: they include all sorts of Mr. Vampire inspired films, loose

458
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:24,000
Speaker 1: Mr Vampire spinoffs, and the Vampire Expert TV show, so

459
00:25:24,040 --> 00:25:27,240
Speaker 1: you might consider him in a way repeatedly typecast and

460
00:25:27,280 --> 00:25:31,359
Speaker 1: a certain type of supernatural horror movie hero role, the

461
00:25:31,359 --> 00:25:33,720
Speaker 1: way like Peter Cushing would have been in the Hammer

462
00:25:33,720 --> 00:25:38,600
Speaker 1: horror movies, you know, repeatedly playing this Van Helsing type character. Yeah,

463
00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:41,240
Speaker 1: even though like we're not even dealing with direct sequels,

464
00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:43,760
Speaker 1: it's like we want, we want that character in our film,

465
00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:46,280
Speaker 1: even if we call him something else. Who were going

466
00:25:46,320 --> 00:25:47,920
Speaker 1: to get to play him? Of course we're gonna get

467
00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:50,880
Speaker 1: chinging lamb uh. Though though he also did I want

468
00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:52,399
Speaker 1: to point out he did. Look it does look like

469
00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:55,160
Speaker 1: he did some unrelated and serious roles as well, so

470
00:25:55,800 --> 00:26:07,040
Speaker 1: you know, hopefully it balanced out in his career. So

471
00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:11,320
Speaker 1: in this movie, they have made a very interesting costuming

472
00:26:11,320 --> 00:26:14,560
Speaker 1: and makeup decision to give our hero the sort of

473
00:26:14,840 --> 00:26:21,280
Speaker 1: the unflappable, stern, competent master Taoist priest a unibrow as

474
00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:23,760
Speaker 1: you as you said, a mono brow. I guess you

475
00:26:23,760 --> 00:26:27,080
Speaker 1: could use either term, but I was thinking about the

476
00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:29,800
Speaker 1: meaning of the unibrow in this movie. It wasn't just

477
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:32,879
Speaker 1: his natural facial hair that is that that is something

478
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:37,760
Speaker 1: they clearly have accented with makeup and in American cinema.

479
00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:41,920
Speaker 1: The unibrow is used exclusively for comedy, right, It's something

480
00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:45,679
Speaker 1: that's supposed to look funny, and this is a comedy movie.

481
00:26:46,119 --> 00:26:49,960
Speaker 1: But I don't think Master Gow's unibrow is supposed to

482
00:26:50,040 --> 00:26:53,600
Speaker 1: be funny. This is a unibrow that signals an eagle

483
00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:58,520
Speaker 1: like seriousness, dignity, knowledge. It reads to me as a

484
00:26:58,680 --> 00:27:02,760
Speaker 1: unibrow of respect. At Yeah, I I was thinking about this,

485
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:06,080
Speaker 1: and I think you're right. It seems to be sternness.

486
00:27:06,560 --> 00:27:09,920
Speaker 1: I can't really tell how comediic it's supposed to look,

487
00:27:09,960 --> 00:27:13,280
Speaker 1: because it it doesn't look just ridiculous. It does look

488
00:27:13,760 --> 00:27:16,960
Speaker 1: like it's part of the costume. But but in that respect,

489
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:21,679
Speaker 1: it's not as ridiculous as is some of the the

490
00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:24,399
Speaker 1: hair and makeup effects that you see in you certainly

491
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:26,920
Speaker 1: earlier Hong Kong cinema, because you know, if you see

492
00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:30,680
Speaker 1: various Shaolin type films, you'll see a lot of obvious

493
00:27:31,080 --> 00:27:34,600
Speaker 1: fake facial hair and you know, long hair, uh, you know,

494
00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:37,520
Speaker 1: whatever you can do to sort of differentiate one character

495
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:39,920
Speaker 1: from another, even if they're played by you know, sort

496
00:27:39,960 --> 00:27:45,080
Speaker 1: of the same troop of of of of stunt people. Clearly,

497
00:27:45,119 --> 00:27:49,600
Speaker 1: the the cultural the valance of a unibrow changes with culture.

498
00:27:49,600 --> 00:27:51,720
Speaker 1: I mean, again, as we said in American movies, it

499
00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:54,679
Speaker 1: is something that is always taken as funny. But there

500
00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:58,160
Speaker 1: are cultures where a unibrow or mono brow is considered

501
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:01,119
Speaker 1: a desirable trade. It's can that are very handsome or

502
00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:04,480
Speaker 1: beautiful to have a single brow. Yeah, it's definitely gonna

503
00:28:04,720 --> 00:28:07,879
Speaker 1: gonna range across time and uh in space. I think

504
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:11,720
Speaker 1: specifically especially in some like Central Asian culture, as a

505
00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:15,320
Speaker 1: uni brow was considered very desirable. Yeah. Now I was

506
00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:18,560
Speaker 1: looking around for any indication on what it might have

507
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:21,800
Speaker 1: meant uh to Chinese audiences, or if it was a

508
00:28:21,840 --> 00:28:24,720
Speaker 1: statement on something that was common, uh, you know amongst

509
00:28:24,760 --> 00:28:27,320
Speaker 1: say Dallas priest or something. And I couldn't really find

510
00:28:27,320 --> 00:28:29,640
Speaker 1: an answer. I mean, you see bushy eyebrow show up

511
00:28:30,080 --> 00:28:36,320
Speaker 1: in in various Chinese um illustrations and depictions, often attributed

512
00:28:36,359 --> 00:28:38,640
Speaker 1: to gods and immortals. You know, there's a there's a

513
00:28:38,680 --> 00:28:41,760
Speaker 1: wise nature to it. But I just couldn't find anything

514
00:28:41,760 --> 00:28:45,240
Speaker 1: about mono browse other than I did see that our

515
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:49,160
Speaker 1: our our priest character in this film is sometimes described

516
00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:53,680
Speaker 1: as uh something that is translated as one eyebrow priest. Huh. Well,

517
00:28:53,680 --> 00:28:55,320
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think how to read that. Does that

518
00:28:55,360 --> 00:28:58,080
Speaker 1: mean more that it's just a particular trait of this

519
00:28:58,120 --> 00:29:01,320
Speaker 1: one character, or that he is of a type like

520
00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:04,520
Speaker 1: the one eyebrowed priest type. I don't know. I mean

521
00:29:05,320 --> 00:29:09,320
Speaker 1: it's I wonder if there are other mono browed Dallas

522
00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:14,240
Speaker 1: priests in films that are not depicted as an homage

523
00:29:14,280 --> 00:29:18,040
Speaker 1: to this film, you know, I guess that's an open question.

524
00:29:18,560 --> 00:29:21,480
Speaker 1: I want to talk about another personal grooming thing that

525
00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:24,880
Speaker 1: ties in interestingly with the plot, which is that both

526
00:29:25,080 --> 00:29:30,120
Speaker 1: the monsters in this film and the hero have long fingernails. Yes,

527
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:34,480
Speaker 1: uh so Chinging Lung has these the very the long sculpted,

528
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:37,920
Speaker 1: well manicured fingernails, but also the vampires do. And the

529
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:41,000
Speaker 1: vampires not only have them, they use them to kill,

530
00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:44,360
Speaker 1: sometimes in lieu of using the fangs to kill. Yeah. Now,

531
00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:46,560
Speaker 1: in our our past episode on fingernails, we we talked

532
00:29:46,560 --> 00:29:51,720
Speaker 1: a little bit about about long fingernails of particularly Amanda

533
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 1: Chinese scholars in the old days, and one of the

534
00:29:55,160 --> 00:29:58,160
Speaker 1: characters that came up was a poet by the name

535
00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:02,080
Speaker 1: of Lee he He He who lived uh I believe a

536
00:30:02,520 --> 00:30:06,840
Speaker 1: seven ninety or seven ninety one through eight sixteen or

537
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:10,280
Speaker 1: eight seventeen. See, yeah, he was a Tang dynasty poet.

538
00:30:10,360 --> 00:30:13,280
Speaker 1: You remember you have found some source that described him

539
00:30:13,280 --> 00:30:16,760
Speaker 1: as like the bad boy of Tang dynasty poets. He was.

540
00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:19,600
Speaker 1: He was like a very weird poet who wrote strange

541
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:22,640
Speaker 1: almost This sounds like an anachronistic comment to make, but

542
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 1: having read a lot of his poems, now I think

543
00:30:24,400 --> 00:30:28,720
Speaker 1: it's sort of accurate. Almost psychedelic poetry. Yeah, like talking

544
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:32,040
Speaker 1: about what owl's burning with goblin fire in the forest,

545
00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:34,720
Speaker 1: things of that nature. Uh. And I think he did

546
00:30:34,760 --> 00:30:36,640
Speaker 1: have kind of you know, he had kind of a uh,

547
00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:39,280
Speaker 1: you know, this bad boy image, this kind of you

548
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:41,920
Speaker 1: know he was he was interested in kind of dark

549
00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:45,680
Speaker 1: and mysterious and magical things, yes, totally. But he was

550
00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:50,560
Speaker 1: also considered morbid, kind of deathly. Uh. For some reason,

551
00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:55,200
Speaker 1: I'm associating him with connotations of illness and morbidity, and

552
00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 1: yet he had this very distinctive personal style that definitely

553
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:02,960
Speaker 1: included long fingernails. The crazy thing, though, is this is

554
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:05,040
Speaker 1: not something we realized previously. But I had just looked

555
00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 1: him up to to make sure I had the right

556
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:10,160
Speaker 1: individual in mind, and um, I pulled up the Wikipedia

557
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:12,000
Speaker 1: page on him and just did like a quick search

558
00:31:12,040 --> 00:31:16,200
Speaker 1: for fingernails to make sure that I wasn't misremembering his fingernails.

559
00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:19,160
Speaker 1: But the Wikipedia article not only mentions his nails, it

560
00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 1: mentions his uni brow. What. Yeah, apparently he was known

561
00:31:22,920 --> 00:31:27,240
Speaker 1: for his uni brow according to this Wikipedia entry. So

562
00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:29,040
Speaker 1: so again I've got to ask, is this tap Is

563
00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:32,160
Speaker 1: this just a coincidence? Is this tapping a broader cultural

564
00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:35,680
Speaker 1: meaning in Chinese history of the uni brow? Or maybe

565
00:31:35,680 --> 00:31:37,920
Speaker 1: in some way is the Is the Taoist priest of

566
00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:42,000
Speaker 1: the Mr. Vampire franchise a take on Lee He? I'm

567
00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:44,480
Speaker 1: not sure. I think it'll have to remain an open question.

568
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:46,840
Speaker 1: Just to give a taste of that psychedelic nous, I

569
00:31:46,920 --> 00:31:49,400
Speaker 1: just found a place where I transcribed one of his

570
00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:54,560
Speaker 1: poems as translated by a Chinese poetry scholar named David Hinton,

571
00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:58,040
Speaker 1: who has a wonderful collection of translations of classic Chinese

572
00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:01,760
Speaker 1: poetry that I highly recommend. But Hinton's translation of one

573
00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:05,240
Speaker 1: of Lehi's poems called Cheating Spirit Song, I just want

574
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:07,880
Speaker 1: to read a few lines from that. It goes black

575
00:32:07,960 --> 00:32:12,240
Speaker 1: as your Puma, cat, weeping blood, fox, dyeing a cold death,

576
00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:17,000
Speaker 1: an opalescent dragon, on ancient walls, tail inscribed in gold.

577
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:19,960
Speaker 1: Then the rain god writing it down into a lake's

578
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:23,840
Speaker 1: autumn waters, and that ancient hundred year old owl. It's

579
00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:28,400
Speaker 1: a forest demon now, sound of laughter, emerald fire rising

580
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:31,560
Speaker 1: up out of its nest. It's beautiful. I love it.

581
00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:34,880
Speaker 1: So Yeah, serious recommendation in this if you're looking for

582
00:32:34,960 --> 00:32:38,440
Speaker 1: a good collection of translations of Chinese poetry across the ages,

583
00:32:38,520 --> 00:32:41,080
Speaker 1: David Hinton's book is awesome. All right, let's get back

584
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:44,120
Speaker 1: to Mr Vampire. We've we've we've discussed Mr Gao, and

585
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:46,520
Speaker 1: we'll keep coming back to him. But let's talk about

586
00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:50,360
Speaker 1: his two assistants. So first up, Choo Shing, the handsome one,

587
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 1: is played by That's exactly right, he is the handsome one.

588
00:32:55,400 --> 00:32:58,080
Speaker 1: I was trying to remember what his name is, like

589
00:32:58,160 --> 00:33:01,640
Speaker 1: the English translation was, because in the subtitles they give

590
00:33:01,680 --> 00:33:03,840
Speaker 1: them English translated names, or at least one of them.

591
00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:07,440
Speaker 1: The less handsome assistant is named Dan. Yeah, but I

592
00:33:07,480 --> 00:33:10,160
Speaker 1: forget what this one's name was. But yeah, this guy

593
00:33:10,280 --> 00:33:15,160
Speaker 1: is the the less comedic, more competent, more martial arts competent,

594
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:19,360
Speaker 1: and just generally uh handsome and heroic of the two. Yeah.

595
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:21,960
Speaker 1: He and and he's good in this he uh is

596
00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:25,880
Speaker 1: another case though, where Mr. Vampire was so successful that

597
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:28,640
Speaker 1: it was I think perhaps hard or impossible or just

598
00:33:28,680 --> 00:33:30,920
Speaker 1: you know, just not reasonable to to try and do

599
00:33:30,960 --> 00:33:34,040
Speaker 1: anything other than various other vampire films. So Chen went

600
00:33:34,080 --> 00:33:37,440
Speaker 1: on to do various vampire films that follow loosely and

601
00:33:37,520 --> 00:33:39,880
Speaker 1: this one's wake. He did other stuff to be to

602
00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:42,960
Speaker 1: be sure, including some important roles in big Hong Kong

603
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:46,480
Speaker 1: films like tai Chi Master and Fist of Legend. And

604
00:33:46,560 --> 00:33:51,320
Speaker 1: he also started in the film Rigor Mortis, which I

605
00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:53,320
Speaker 1: have not seen. I think I almost saw it, Like

606
00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:55,760
Speaker 1: I think I rented it and never watched it, and

607
00:33:55,760 --> 00:33:58,400
Speaker 1: I'm glad that I didn't now because its whole thing

608
00:33:58,560 --> 00:34:00,640
Speaker 1: is that it's supposed to be a style, a homage

609
00:34:01,120 --> 00:34:04,920
Speaker 1: to the old vampire movies, including Mr. Vampire. So I

610
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 1: feel like a lot of that would have been lost

611
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:10,440
Speaker 1: on me if I just skipped right to the uh

612
00:34:10,560 --> 00:34:13,759
Speaker 1: stylish homage, as opposed to you know, watching at least

613
00:34:13,840 --> 00:34:16,279
Speaker 1: Mr Vampire. Yeah, better do it. In order, we should

614
00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:19,400
Speaker 1: watch all of the Mr. Vampire sequels, then do Encounters

615
00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:22,440
Speaker 1: at the Spooky Kind, then watch Rick Mortis. Oh man,

616
00:34:22,760 --> 00:34:24,360
Speaker 1: I think our eyes might be bigger than our stomach

617
00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:27,000
Speaker 1: on that one. There's so many. Yeah, alright, so that's

618
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:29,680
Speaker 1: the handsome one. But then there's also Dan. I think

619
00:34:29,719 --> 00:34:33,040
Speaker 1: his actual character's name is man Cho, I think, but

620
00:34:33,840 --> 00:34:38,000
Speaker 1: the the captions and the dubbing refer to him as Dan. Yeah.

621
00:34:38,360 --> 00:34:43,440
Speaker 1: And he's played by Ricky who who lived Leven. And

622
00:34:43,520 --> 00:34:45,920
Speaker 1: this guy is totally our comic relief character. And he's

623
00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:49,360
Speaker 1: he's pretty fabulous. Oh yeah, he's he's an excellent physical

624
00:34:49,400 --> 00:34:52,640
Speaker 1: comedy actor. He's got he's got a very funny haircut

625
00:34:52,719 --> 00:34:54,759
Speaker 1: in the movie. It kind of he's got a kind

626
00:34:54,760 --> 00:34:57,279
Speaker 1: of like one of those sagging bowl cuts that I

627
00:34:57,280 --> 00:34:59,880
Speaker 1: think is clearly supposed to look funny. And he's the

628
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:02,120
Speaker 1: out of all the jokes. There's a really funny sequence

629
00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:05,360
Speaker 1: towards the end where he is gradually transforming into a vampire,

630
00:35:05,960 --> 00:35:08,600
Speaker 1: and in order to prevent the transformation, he has to

631
00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:11,080
Speaker 1: keep doing all these things like lying on a bed

632
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:15,120
Speaker 1: of glutinous rice and continually dancing in a in a

633
00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:19,919
Speaker 1: ludicrous fashion. Yes, yes, while also having regular freakouts about

634
00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:23,279
Speaker 1: what's happening to him. Uh yeah, he's he's great, and

635
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:25,920
Speaker 1: he's our drop. Oh he's this film's drop o, he's

636
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:29,080
Speaker 1: this film's sort of this film's paraco. To draw back

637
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:32,280
Speaker 1: to the Santo picture we discussed, well, I was gonna

638
00:35:32,360 --> 00:35:35,400
Speaker 1: generally agree, except I also wonder is this film's paraco

639
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:40,399
Speaker 1: not Billy Lao as why the incompetent policeman. Ultimately, Mr.

640
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:46,000
Speaker 1: Vampire is a is a film with comedy many paraos,

641
00:35:46,320 --> 00:35:49,320
Speaker 1: or at least two prominent paricos. You can have two

642
00:35:49,440 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 1: characters they're they are performed with a broad physical style

643
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:57,000
Speaker 1: of comedic acting that defies all language barriers. I hope

644
00:35:57,080 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 1: Dan is in all of the Mr. Vampire sequels. He's

645
00:36:00,719 --> 00:36:03,320
Speaker 1: he's He's actually not. He seems to this actor seems

646
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:06,040
Speaker 1: to have been successful enough and enough of like a

647
00:36:06,080 --> 00:36:10,279
Speaker 1: comedy star, uh that he he reprised it in the

648
00:36:10,719 --> 00:36:15,280
Speaker 1: in the movie Mr. Vampire. But otherwise he doesn't seem

649
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:18,680
Speaker 1: to have drunk from the the Mr. V well as

650
00:36:18,760 --> 00:36:21,040
Speaker 1: much as as some of the other people involved were.

651
00:36:21,280 --> 00:36:24,239
Speaker 1: He he was in several big comedy blockbusters in Hong

652
00:36:24,320 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 1: Kong back in the seventies and eighties. Now, the next

653
00:36:26,520 --> 00:36:29,399
Speaker 1: star in the movie we should probably mention is Moon Lee,

654
00:36:29,640 --> 00:36:33,520
Speaker 1: and upon looking at her biography, I was very interested

655
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:37,280
Speaker 1: because in this movie she plays a very uh. She

656
00:36:37,280 --> 00:36:40,080
Speaker 1: she's a very passive character. You know, she's the daughter

657
00:36:40,200 --> 00:36:43,280
Speaker 1: of the rich businessman who is you know, the beautiful

658
00:36:43,360 --> 00:36:46,520
Speaker 1: daughter who is the object of love by several characters.

659
00:36:46,840 --> 00:36:49,240
Speaker 1: But it turns out that she actually had a career

660
00:36:49,360 --> 00:36:53,240
Speaker 1: mostly doing like stunts and action movies and playing characters

661
00:36:53,239 --> 00:36:57,000
Speaker 1: who would blow your head off with a big gun. Yeah, yeah, Moonley,

662
00:36:57,040 --> 00:36:59,840
Speaker 1: it seems to have largely been an action character while

663
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:03,120
Speaker 1: and this one she's not. You might be tempted to assume, all,

664
00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:05,160
Speaker 1: I guess she's like the damsel in distress, but she's

665
00:37:05,200 --> 00:37:09,680
Speaker 1: more just the the necessary female for comedic interaction. Yeah,

666
00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:12,960
Speaker 1: she's not really in distress much. She's mostly like hanging out,

667
00:37:13,080 --> 00:37:16,960
Speaker 1: hanging out while other characters just act ridiculous. So she

668
00:37:17,040 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 1: does play some good pranks in the movie though. For example,

669
00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:23,920
Speaker 1: when when Master Gow and Dan go to a go

670
00:37:24,040 --> 00:37:27,560
Speaker 1: to English style tea to a tea house, uh, to

671
00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:31,200
Speaker 1: meet with the rich with her rich father, the businessman Mr.

672
00:37:31,480 --> 00:37:35,800
Speaker 1: M she pranks them by convincing them that they're supposed

673
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:39,279
Speaker 1: to drink their coffee and their creams separately because they're

674
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:41,799
Speaker 1: not familiar with the conventions of coffee. Oh, and to

675
00:37:41,840 --> 00:37:44,719
Speaker 1: eat the sugar with the spoons separately. And then when

676
00:37:44,719 --> 00:37:46,879
Speaker 1: their father comes back, that's what they're doing, and they

677
00:37:46,880 --> 00:37:50,399
Speaker 1: look there they are quite ashamed. Yes, but she did

678
00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 1: a number of of Hong Kong action movies from the

679
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:56,920
Speaker 1: eighties through the nineties. Yeah, a couple of that came

680
00:37:56,960 --> 00:37:59,000
Speaker 1: up for me. And again I'm not familiar with these pictures,

681
00:37:59,040 --> 00:38:04,000
Speaker 1: but Fighting Madam Seven, the Avenging Quarter from Yeah, and

682
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:06,880
Speaker 1: she was a stunt performer in addition to being an actress.

683
00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:08,399
Speaker 1: It looks like she ended up doing a lot of

684
00:38:08,680 --> 00:38:11,640
Speaker 1: you know your your high octane crime thrillers where she

685
00:38:11,640 --> 00:38:13,920
Speaker 1: would play a cop with a big gun who hunts

686
00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:17,799
Speaker 1: down diamond smugglers or something. And in one movie, I

687
00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:19,640
Speaker 1: found one movie she was in that had a title

688
00:38:19,719 --> 00:38:21,400
Speaker 1: so good I had to mention it from the year

689
00:38:21,480 --> 00:38:24,080
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety in which she co starred with Robin Show.

690
00:38:24,719 --> 00:38:27,920
Speaker 1: American audiences might know Robin Show best from movies in

691
00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:30,359
Speaker 1: the nineties like Mortal Kombat and which he played Lu

692
00:38:30,480 --> 00:38:32,880
Speaker 1: Kang or Beverly Hills Ninja. But you know, he's a

693
00:38:32,920 --> 00:38:35,400
Speaker 1: long time the actor who did a lot of a

694
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:38,239
Speaker 1: lot of Chinese action movies and stuff. But the movie

695
00:38:38,239 --> 00:38:41,640
Speaker 1: they were in together in nineteen nine is called Fatal Termination.

696
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:47,200
Speaker 1: Moonley is also in Mr. Vampire two from nineteen eighty six,

697
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:49,600
Speaker 1: which makes me think again, the sequels might be worth

698
00:38:49,640 --> 00:38:52,120
Speaker 1: a look. I kind of feel like, maybe I'm gonna

699
00:38:52,120 --> 00:38:53,719
Speaker 1: watch all of these sequels if I can get my

700
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:56,040
Speaker 1: hands on them. I'm not sure, but it might be

701
00:38:56,080 --> 00:38:59,520
Speaker 1: worth it. But also I read that so I mentioned

702
00:38:59,560 --> 00:39:03,040
Speaker 1: that she was also a stunt performer. I think at

703
00:39:03,080 --> 00:39:05,200
Speaker 1: some point it was either in the late eighties or

704
00:39:05,239 --> 00:39:09,320
Speaker 1: early nineties. I read that she was seriously injured performing

705
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:11,640
Speaker 1: a stunt for some action movie she was in, Like

706
00:39:11,680 --> 00:39:14,480
Speaker 1: she was supposed to jump out of a window and

707
00:39:14,520 --> 00:39:16,800
Speaker 1: then there was an explosion that was supposed to happen

708
00:39:16,880 --> 00:39:18,640
Speaker 1: in the room she was jumping out of, but the

709
00:39:18,640 --> 00:39:21,800
Speaker 1: pyrotechnics went off early and she was pretty badly burned.

710
00:39:21,840 --> 00:39:26,200
Speaker 1: But she she survived and she's apparently doing fine. All right.

711
00:39:26,239 --> 00:39:30,680
Speaker 1: We mentioned this next actor briefly, but Billy Law plays

712
00:39:30,719 --> 00:39:35,239
Speaker 1: basically the world's worst policeman. Yes, this this character. What's

713
00:39:35,280 --> 00:39:40,040
Speaker 1: this character's name again? Why? Why? And he? Yeah? He

714
00:39:40,040 --> 00:39:43,400
Speaker 1: he shows up at first, Yeah, he's he's after the

715
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:48,000
Speaker 1: love interest played by moon Lee. Um. But then from

716
00:39:48,040 --> 00:39:50,960
Speaker 1: there he just he gets involved in the the investigation

717
00:39:51,040 --> 00:39:55,440
Speaker 1: of vampire related murders and just botches everything, botches everything

718
00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:57,960
Speaker 1: he touches. Uh. So I couldn't it wasn't able to

719
00:39:58,000 --> 00:40:00,000
Speaker 1: find a find a find a birthdate for him by

720
00:40:00,040 --> 00:40:02,040
Speaker 1: He seems to be still active as of twenty At

721
00:40:02,080 --> 00:40:05,040
Speaker 1: least of as nineteen, he did a lot of comedic

722
00:40:05,120 --> 00:40:09,520
Speaker 1: action roles, including Eastern Condors from seven. I think that's

723
00:40:09,520 --> 00:40:12,399
Speaker 1: a that's a hung production as well, And I think

724
00:40:12,440 --> 00:40:14,440
Speaker 1: if I'm if that's the one I'm thinking of, and

725
00:40:14,480 --> 00:40:16,840
Speaker 1: maybe can I think that one might be an ensemble

726
00:40:16,960 --> 00:40:21,040
Speaker 1: cast that somehow involves a mission to Vietnam. Um. And

727
00:40:21,080 --> 00:40:23,560
Speaker 1: then Billy Low also shows up in a number of

728
00:40:23,640 --> 00:40:27,640
Speaker 1: vampire movies, including rid Or Mortis. Another tick in that column. Yeh,

729
00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:30,840
Speaker 1: Billy Low is way over the top in this movie.

730
00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:33,959
Speaker 1: But he's also he's good. He's very funny. Like I said,

731
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:36,920
Speaker 1: this is a movie of many paricos and uh and

732
00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:39,160
Speaker 1: you know what, they played pretty well together in this.

733
00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:42,239
Speaker 1: He plays a character with almost every negative characteristic you

734
00:40:42,280 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 1: could imagine. He's just this like dumb incompetent creep. Yeah,

735
00:40:47,640 --> 00:40:51,399
Speaker 1: he's great. Alright. The next actor of note um Uh

736
00:40:51,440 --> 00:40:55,560
Speaker 1: Sue Fung Wong plays Jade, who we we spoiler alert,

737
00:40:55,640 --> 00:40:57,200
Speaker 1: but we find out she's a ghost. I guess it's

738
00:40:57,200 --> 00:41:00,120
Speaker 1: pretty clear early on she's a ghost that she you

739
00:41:00,160 --> 00:41:03,200
Speaker 1: know from the first Yeah, she well, she appears being

740
00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:06,400
Speaker 1: like brought in in the forest in a kind of

741
00:41:06,440 --> 00:41:09,799
Speaker 1: translucent mist, to being being borne by these guys in

742
00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:14,000
Speaker 1: strange in strange makeup, and then she flies through the air.

743
00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:16,799
Speaker 1: I think, I think it's clear she's a ghost. Yeah,

744
00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:20,399
Speaker 1: so she's a She's an actor producer born sixty two,

745
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:22,880
Speaker 1: within a number of films including Love with the Perfect

746
00:41:22,920 --> 00:41:27,439
Speaker 1: Stranger from five, Web of Deception, and plus it looks

747
00:41:27,440 --> 00:41:30,520
Speaker 1: seems like a fair sprinkling of vampire and supernatural films.

748
00:41:31,080 --> 00:41:33,360
Speaker 1: One thing that's funny about her character, So the movie

749
00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:39,640
Speaker 1: basically has two major supernatural antagonists. One is the main

750
00:41:39,760 --> 00:41:43,080
Speaker 1: vampire and the other is the ghost played by Sufing Wong,

751
00:41:43,680 --> 00:41:47,080
Speaker 1: And these two antagonists kind of a running parallel storylines

752
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:49,680
Speaker 1: that are in some cases not even fully intertwined from

753
00:41:49,719 --> 00:41:52,680
Speaker 1: what I could tell, except that they involved the same characters.

754
00:41:53,520 --> 00:41:56,319
Speaker 1: But then also there's a funny thing about so her

755
00:41:56,480 --> 00:41:59,960
Speaker 1: when her true form is revealed by Master Gau towards

756
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:02,759
Speaker 1: the end of the movie. She wears some exceptionally not

757
00:42:02,960 --> 00:42:06,600
Speaker 1: good monster makeup that somehow works anyway. It involves a

758
00:42:06,640 --> 00:42:09,319
Speaker 1: sort of eyeball and a stalk that juts out of

759
00:42:09,360 --> 00:42:12,920
Speaker 1: her half rotten face. Yeah, this is what was interesting

760
00:42:12,960 --> 00:42:14,640
Speaker 1: about this to me is that on one level, you

761
00:42:14,680 --> 00:42:16,160
Speaker 1: look at it and you're like, oh, well, that that

762
00:42:16,200 --> 00:42:18,960
Speaker 1: didn't They didn't quite pull that off, did they. And

763
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:22,080
Speaker 1: yet it does kind of work, and it it reminds

764
00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:26,759
Speaker 1: me of the deliberate, uh special effects choices in the

765
00:42:26,800 --> 00:42:30,879
Speaker 1: famous Japanese Haunted House movie house, you know, where there

766
00:42:30,960 --> 00:42:35,200
Speaker 1: was a deliberate choice by the director to have effects

767
00:42:35,200 --> 00:42:37,560
Speaker 1: that were I'm not sure how to describe them exactly,

768
00:42:37,719 --> 00:42:40,239
Speaker 1: because I don't want to say shoddy, but almost I

769
00:42:40,239 --> 00:42:43,640
Speaker 1: think childlike like like it is if if if you

770
00:42:43,719 --> 00:42:47,240
Speaker 1: had only children creating the effects or envisioning the effects.

771
00:42:48,160 --> 00:42:50,160
Speaker 1: Thinking about the effects in house, I might say, in

772
00:42:50,160 --> 00:42:55,080
Speaker 1: some cases almost kind of stagy, more like the special

773
00:42:55,120 --> 00:42:58,399
Speaker 1: effects you would see in a good stage production rather

774
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:01,520
Speaker 1: than in a movie. Yeah, that's a that's a good description.

775
00:43:01,640 --> 00:43:03,920
Speaker 1: So I thought about that, and and it made me

776
00:43:03,960 --> 00:43:08,719
Speaker 1: sort of contemplate the sometimes thin line between the imperfect

777
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:11,000
Speaker 1: and the and the uncanny. You know, it kind of

778
00:43:11,040 --> 00:43:13,400
Speaker 1: comes back to the idea of the hopping vampire, Like,

779
00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:16,399
Speaker 1: on one level, it's ridiculous, but it's also unnatural. It's

780
00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:20,239
Speaker 1: also uncanny. Yeah, yeah, all right, And finally there there

781
00:43:20,280 --> 00:43:21,799
Speaker 1: is an actor by the name of Way Yun who

782
00:43:21,800 --> 00:43:25,719
Speaker 1: plays the vampire. Born nineteen fifty. I'm gonna mention him

783
00:43:25,719 --> 00:43:27,480
Speaker 1: because he has a hundred He had a hundred nine

784
00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:31,000
Speaker 1: three acting credits, including The Landlord and Kung Fu Hustle

785
00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:34,680
Speaker 1: from four Oh. He's the guy with the when it's

786
00:43:34,760 --> 00:43:38,200
Speaker 1: revealed that he's a kung Fu master. Spoiler sorry, he's

787
00:43:38,200 --> 00:43:40,839
Speaker 1: got the floppy rubbery body. Yeah, I think so. It's

788
00:43:40,880 --> 00:43:43,040
Speaker 1: been a while since I've seen Kung Fu Hustle, but

789
00:43:43,040 --> 00:43:45,719
Speaker 1: but this guy did stunts. In nineteen seventy two is

790
00:43:45,719 --> 00:43:48,440
Speaker 1: The Way of the Dragon, starring Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris.

791
00:43:48,440 --> 00:43:50,120
Speaker 1: So he's been in tons of things. Have you seen

792
00:43:50,160 --> 00:43:52,640
Speaker 1: Way of the Dragon? You know that one? I think

793
00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:54,839
Speaker 1: this is one. I probably saw parts of it on

794
00:43:54,880 --> 00:43:56,680
Speaker 1: TBS back in the day, but I don't have a

795
00:43:56,680 --> 00:44:00,279
Speaker 1: clear memory of it. Of so, you know, brew Lee

796
00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:03,360
Speaker 1: had this this short but very memorable run of films

797
00:44:03,360 --> 00:44:05,640
Speaker 1: in the early seventies, maybe the late sixties too. I

798
00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:07,799
Speaker 1: think maybe the first one was in seventy or so.

799
00:44:08,600 --> 00:44:11,600
Speaker 1: But most of them are great martial arts action movies,

800
00:44:11,640 --> 00:44:14,120
Speaker 1: but they're very serious. Way of the Dragon is definitely

801
00:44:14,200 --> 00:44:17,520
Speaker 1: the most comedy oriented of them. It's the one where

802
00:44:17,520 --> 00:44:20,960
Speaker 1: Bruce Lee travels to Rome. It actually takes place in

803
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:23,879
Speaker 1: Italy because he's got a relative who I think he's

804
00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:27,399
Speaker 1: running a restaurant there that is being menaced by the mafia,

805
00:44:27,640 --> 00:44:30,000
Speaker 1: and then he comes in to defend it from these

806
00:44:30,040 --> 00:44:32,839
Speaker 1: these mafia thugs, and so they end up recruiting their

807
00:44:32,840 --> 00:44:36,560
Speaker 1: own fighters, such as Chuck Norris. So they bring in

808
00:44:36,640 --> 00:44:39,279
Speaker 1: Chuck Norris to defeat Bruce Lee, but Norris doesn't stand

809
00:44:39,280 --> 00:44:42,680
Speaker 1: a chance. But anyway, that movie is actually quite silly

810
00:44:42,719 --> 00:44:45,080
Speaker 1: as well, because, like I remember, there's a major subplot

811
00:44:45,160 --> 00:44:48,360
Speaker 1: in it about Bruce Lee eating too much soup and

812
00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:52,800
Speaker 1: then having to go pee a lot. All right, he

813
00:44:52,880 --> 00:44:58,000
Speaker 1: doesn't influence his style though, right, it's not like run Master. Yeah,

814
00:44:58,080 --> 00:45:04,120
Speaker 1: pp Master. No, it's it's not pp Master. Oh yeah,

815
00:45:04,200 --> 00:45:06,040
Speaker 1: maybe I haven't seen that one at all. Main Mainly

816
00:45:06,080 --> 00:45:08,399
Speaker 1: I guess that my the main Bruce Lee. Movie I've

817
00:45:08,400 --> 00:45:10,799
Speaker 1: seen is of course Entered the Dragon, which is is

818
00:45:10,800 --> 00:45:14,120
Speaker 1: pretty serious. One last thing about Way of the Dragon.

819
00:45:14,200 --> 00:45:16,799
Speaker 1: Chuck Norris playing this villainous fighter and it has no

820
00:45:16,920 --> 00:45:21,719
Speaker 1: facial hair and it's disturbing. Oh yeah, yeah, because he

821
00:45:21,719 --> 00:45:24,920
Speaker 1: has known for the beer in the mustache um. Normally,

822
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:27,879
Speaker 1: at this point I mentioned the music. Well, the music

823
00:45:27,920 --> 00:45:29,760
Speaker 1: is fine in this is not like the music is offensive.

824
00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:33,439
Speaker 1: But the score is credited to one Melody Bank, which

825
00:45:33,480 --> 00:45:37,000
Speaker 1: I'm sure is not someone's name. I'm thinking it's just

826
00:45:37,040 --> 00:45:41,200
Speaker 1: like a storehouse of music. I don't know, melody like

827
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:44,799
Speaker 1: it is a database or yeah, and they're they're only

828
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:50,040
Speaker 1: five films credited to Melody Bank on on IMDb. Maybe

829
00:45:50,040 --> 00:45:53,120
Speaker 1: I'm wrong, but the theme music was composed by Alistair

830
00:45:53,280 --> 00:45:57,759
Speaker 1: Monteth Hodge and California born Anders Nelson. So if that

831
00:45:57,760 --> 00:46:09,200
Speaker 1: means anything to you, there you go. Now, I guess

832
00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:11,120
Speaker 1: here we're getting to the part where we would usually

833
00:46:11,160 --> 00:46:13,520
Speaker 1: go into a full plot breakdown. But I was thinking

834
00:46:13,920 --> 00:46:15,799
Speaker 1: for talking about this today, just to mix it up

835
00:46:15,840 --> 00:46:18,359
Speaker 1: a bit, I thought maybe rather than going scene by

836
00:46:18,360 --> 00:46:21,200
Speaker 1: scene in order, I would just sort of lay down

837
00:46:21,239 --> 00:46:23,960
Speaker 1: the basic plot situation and then we could mention a

838
00:46:23,960 --> 00:46:26,800
Speaker 1: few things throughout the run time that we thought were interesting,

839
00:46:27,320 --> 00:46:29,040
Speaker 1: But before I get into that, I did want to

840
00:46:29,040 --> 00:46:33,080
Speaker 1: mention the opening scene in detail, because because the opening

841
00:46:33,080 --> 00:46:35,600
Speaker 1: scene is fabulous. It really is one of the most

842
00:46:35,640 --> 00:46:38,000
Speaker 1: memorable things about the movie, and it really sets the

843
00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:41,759
Speaker 1: tone for the movie. So after the credits finish, and

844
00:46:41,760 --> 00:46:43,680
Speaker 1: the credits, by the way, are great just because they

845
00:46:43,680 --> 00:46:47,640
Speaker 1: have a wonderful green ooze color to them. But two,

846
00:46:48,160 --> 00:46:50,759
Speaker 1: once we finally open on the action to someone not

847
00:46:50,920 --> 00:46:53,799
Speaker 1: familiar with the conventions of Jong Shei movies, as I

848
00:46:53,880 --> 00:46:56,440
Speaker 1: was not really once I started watching this, it's a

849
00:46:56,520 --> 00:46:59,360
Speaker 1: very w t F kind of opening because we have

850
00:46:59,440 --> 00:47:01,319
Speaker 1: this guy going around who we find out is one

851
00:47:01,320 --> 00:47:04,319
Speaker 1: of the assistance of the Taoist priest. But he's going

852
00:47:04,360 --> 00:47:06,680
Speaker 1: around with a bunch of incense in this room that

853
00:47:06,840 --> 00:47:11,360
Speaker 1: is just covered in magical amulets and trinkets and pieces

854
00:47:11,400 --> 00:47:13,600
Speaker 1: of paper with writing on them, things that seem like

855
00:47:13,640 --> 00:47:17,160
Speaker 1: they have magical significance in one way or another, and

856
00:47:17,280 --> 00:47:20,719
Speaker 1: he is tending to coffins in this room. At first,

857
00:47:20,760 --> 00:47:23,080
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure what these objects were, but they're these

858
00:47:23,719 --> 00:47:27,080
Speaker 1: It's just these rows of horizontal wooden cylinders you do

859
00:47:27,200 --> 00:47:29,920
Speaker 1: find out that their coffins. Yeah, and I was not

860
00:47:29,960 --> 00:47:32,120
Speaker 1: really I don't know that I've really seen I don't

861
00:47:32,120 --> 00:47:34,719
Speaker 1: know if I've seen these before, but these are depictions

862
00:47:34,760 --> 00:47:38,640
Speaker 1: of basically the traditional Chinese style of of casket, which

863
00:47:38,680 --> 00:47:42,239
Speaker 1: looks rather different from the Western style. I think it's

864
00:47:42,239 --> 00:47:45,600
Speaker 1: my understanding. You still see both used in China. So

865
00:47:45,600 --> 00:47:47,920
Speaker 1: if you look up, I can do a Google image

866
00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:52,480
Speaker 1: search for Chinese coffins Chinese caskets, you'll likely see some

867
00:47:52,520 --> 00:47:56,160
Speaker 1: pictures that include both styles. When you'll see Western variations.

868
00:47:56,440 --> 00:48:00,200
Speaker 1: And then also these these more or ornate look king

869
00:48:00,200 --> 00:48:03,960
Speaker 1: traditional coffins that are sometimes described as having humps. Yeah,

870
00:48:04,040 --> 00:48:07,480
Speaker 1: the humps or I was actually thinking about it like petals,

871
00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:09,399
Speaker 1: Like if you look at them end on, they look

872
00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:12,600
Speaker 1: kind of like a flower with four petals. Yeah, yeah,

873
00:48:12,640 --> 00:48:14,880
Speaker 1: they're quite beautiful. Though of course I can't help but

874
00:48:14,920 --> 00:48:16,480
Speaker 1: look at a picture of it. I'm just like, oh, yeah, well,

875
00:48:16,520 --> 00:48:19,080
Speaker 1: that one has a Western vampire in it. This one

876
00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:22,959
Speaker 1: has a jangshi in it. Um so am I thinking

877
00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:24,680
Speaker 1: of That may also be compounded by the by the

878
00:48:24,680 --> 00:48:28,600
Speaker 1: fact that I know that there two or more films

879
00:48:28,719 --> 00:48:32,959
Speaker 1: in which a Western vampire and an Eastern Vampire meet

880
00:48:33,280 --> 00:48:36,799
Speaker 1: in Chinese cinema. That's worth looking up. Yeah, but I

881
00:48:36,840 --> 00:48:39,680
Speaker 1: also like that Mr. Vampire does not make you wait

882
00:48:39,920 --> 00:48:42,279
Speaker 1: to see vampires. It's not like you've got to get

883
00:48:42,320 --> 00:48:44,640
Speaker 1: into the you know, have to have all the magic unleashed.

884
00:48:45,080 --> 00:48:48,520
Speaker 1: It's their right from the opening. So while the assistant

885
00:48:48,560 --> 00:48:50,239
Speaker 1: is going around doing all this stuff, we see Dan

886
00:48:50,360 --> 00:48:54,480
Speaker 1: messing around with the sense uh he He also uncovers

887
00:48:54,520 --> 00:48:57,120
Speaker 1: he like peels back a curtain to reveal a boot

888
00:48:57,200 --> 00:49:02,120
Speaker 1: camp style lineup of swaying, uncon anxious fiends of some kind. Again,

889
00:49:02,400 --> 00:49:04,560
Speaker 1: if you don't know the conventions of the genre, you're like,

890
00:49:04,960 --> 00:49:08,759
Speaker 1: you know, wtf what is this? And there again, they're

891
00:49:08,840 --> 00:49:11,960
Speaker 1: dressed in this Ching Dynasty era clothing with these hats on,

892
00:49:12,400 --> 00:49:15,879
Speaker 1: and there are yellow strips of paper covered in red

893
00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:19,160
Speaker 1: writing pinned to their hats so that they hang down

894
00:49:19,239 --> 00:49:23,279
Speaker 1: over their faces. Yeah, and these are essentially spells that

895
00:49:23,320 --> 00:49:26,319
Speaker 1: are binding them and keeping them from running them up. Yeah. Look,

896
00:49:26,400 --> 00:49:28,480
Speaker 1: this movie is to suggest, and I guess this is

897
00:49:28,640 --> 00:49:32,600
Speaker 1: somewhat historically accurate, that a lot of Taoist magic rituals

898
00:49:32,640 --> 00:49:35,040
Speaker 1: involved like writing a spell on a piece of paper

899
00:49:35,120 --> 00:49:37,759
Speaker 1: and then doing something with that paper, like eating it

900
00:49:37,880 --> 00:49:40,600
Speaker 1: or putting it on something. Yeah. I mean, ultimately, I

901
00:49:40,600 --> 00:49:43,680
Speaker 1: guess it comes down to the magical use of language. Yeah.

902
00:49:43,760 --> 00:49:47,399
Speaker 1: And also I noted that the spells tend to be

903
00:49:47,560 --> 00:49:49,520
Speaker 1: in I think every case I can think of in

904
00:49:49,560 --> 00:49:52,480
Speaker 1: the movie, written in some kind of red color, red ink,

905
00:49:52,600 --> 00:49:55,319
Speaker 1: or in some cases in blood. And that made me

906
00:49:55,360 --> 00:49:57,319
Speaker 1: think that I do believe it's the case that in

907
00:49:57,680 --> 00:50:00,360
Speaker 1: broadly in Chinese culture read is can that are a

908
00:50:00,440 --> 00:50:04,600
Speaker 1: lucky or holy color? Right? Yes? And in addition to that,

909
00:50:04,640 --> 00:50:07,560
Speaker 1: there are obviously all these amulets and everything everywhere, And

910
00:50:07,560 --> 00:50:09,760
Speaker 1: and Dan is going around with a bunch of sticks

911
00:50:09,800 --> 00:50:13,279
Speaker 1: of burning incense, and he's he's saying to the corpses

912
00:50:13,400 --> 00:50:16,360
Speaker 1: in the in the coffins, He's like, here's your dinner,

913
00:50:16,520 --> 00:50:19,360
Speaker 1: time for time, time for supper, and stuffing the incense

914
00:50:19,400 --> 00:50:22,920
Speaker 1: into the coffins. Oh, and he also makes clear that

915
00:50:22,960 --> 00:50:25,680
Speaker 1: there's a candle burning in front of all the young

916
00:50:25,760 --> 00:50:28,880
Speaker 1: chie lined up with the spells over their faces, and

917
00:50:28,920 --> 00:50:31,000
Speaker 1: he can't let the candle go out because if the

918
00:50:31,040 --> 00:50:33,520
Speaker 1: candle goes out, they will get loose. And he makes

919
00:50:33,520 --> 00:50:35,680
Speaker 1: clear he's like, I can't handle all of you, so

920
00:50:35,760 --> 00:50:37,600
Speaker 1: I've got to keep you. I don't know what in

921
00:50:37,840 --> 00:50:40,719
Speaker 1: a trance or whatever it is. Yes, it's an interesting

922
00:50:40,760 --> 00:50:43,520
Speaker 1: place to start, especially again if you have known nothing

923
00:50:43,520 --> 00:50:47,680
Speaker 1: about the genre, where you have not just a supernatural element,

924
00:50:47,719 --> 00:50:51,520
Speaker 1: but this kind of magical containment, ongoing magical containment and

925
00:50:51,600 --> 00:50:57,640
Speaker 1: management of supernatural entities. Right. They regard these particular vampires

926
00:50:57,680 --> 00:51:01,080
Speaker 1: that are lined up here not really with utter terror,

927
00:51:01,320 --> 00:51:03,879
Speaker 1: but more is like something that you know, you more

928
00:51:03,960 --> 00:51:06,760
Speaker 1: like something that you would work with on a regular basis,

929
00:51:06,800 --> 00:51:09,520
Speaker 1: so you're not mortified by it, but also you realize

930
00:51:09,560 --> 00:51:11,839
Speaker 1: it could be dangerous if you screw up when you're

931
00:51:11,880 --> 00:51:16,879
Speaker 1: dealing with it. It's like like handling dangerous chemicals or something. Right,

932
00:51:17,280 --> 00:51:19,920
Speaker 1: And so he's going around craming the incense and the coffins,

933
00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:22,200
Speaker 1: and then there's there's a really funny part where one

934
00:51:22,239 --> 00:51:24,160
Speaker 1: of the coffins, like a skull pops out of it

935
00:51:24,200 --> 00:51:26,680
Speaker 1: and bites him on the hand. Um, so I enjoyed

936
00:51:26,680 --> 00:51:30,560
Speaker 1: the skull bite. But then there's a good vampire fake out. So, uh,

937
00:51:30,600 --> 00:51:34,040
Speaker 1: the Dan gets attacked by what you think is one

938
00:51:34,080 --> 00:51:37,120
Speaker 1: of the vampires. It hops at him and menaces him

939
00:51:37,160 --> 00:51:40,520
Speaker 1: with fangs. But then oh no, it's like a cat scare.

940
00:51:40,560 --> 00:51:42,480
Speaker 1: It turns out that it's not really him. It's his

941
00:51:42,600 --> 00:51:45,480
Speaker 1: handsome buddy in a in a makeup I guess like

942
00:51:45,560 --> 00:51:48,480
Speaker 1: pranking him, and it comes dangerously close to the film

943
00:51:48,480 --> 00:51:50,879
Speaker 1: mistake of making your fake monster look a little bit

944
00:51:50,880 --> 00:51:54,080
Speaker 1: too good. Um well, he really does look exactly like

945
00:51:54,120 --> 00:51:57,440
Speaker 1: the real ones. So I I was a little confused

946
00:51:57,440 --> 00:52:00,520
Speaker 1: when that happened. But it's not too long. Much longer

947
00:52:00,520 --> 00:52:03,160
Speaker 1: that you have to wait until you see some more vampires,

948
00:52:03,160 --> 00:52:04,960
Speaker 1: and some of them isn't more of the jang xi

949
00:52:05,400 --> 00:52:10,600
Speaker 1: that look better, that look more undead. But this, this prank,

950
00:52:10,840 --> 00:52:12,880
Speaker 1: you know, prank's pranks in horror movie is just a

951
00:52:12,920 --> 00:52:15,200
Speaker 1: bad idea because it of course leads to I don't

952
00:52:15,239 --> 00:52:18,880
Speaker 1: remember exactly how they do this, but through some clutzinus,

953
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:21,279
Speaker 1: they end up unleashing all of the jiang chi, like

954
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:23,879
Speaker 1: they knock the I think they knocked the candle over,

955
00:52:24,040 --> 00:52:25,920
Speaker 1: and then the strips of writing come off of their

956
00:52:25,960 --> 00:52:29,440
Speaker 1: foreheads and then they start hopping around attacking them. So

957
00:52:29,480 --> 00:52:32,280
Speaker 1: of course the bumbling students need help from their master.

958
00:52:32,520 --> 00:52:35,040
Speaker 1: And these two students that the master they work for

959
00:52:35,200 --> 00:52:38,319
Speaker 1: is played by Chinging Lamb. This is the this is

960
00:52:38,400 --> 00:52:41,000
Speaker 1: master Gao the hero of the film, and from the

961
00:52:41,080 --> 00:52:44,359
Speaker 1: moment you see him, you know he means business. This

962
00:52:44,440 --> 00:52:46,680
Speaker 1: is the moment when I noticed the uni brow when

963
00:52:46,680 --> 00:52:48,560
Speaker 1: he first comes in, and I was thinking, like, that's

964
00:52:48,600 --> 00:52:51,719
Speaker 1: not a funny unibrow, that's a unibrow I respect. Yeah,

965
00:52:51,800 --> 00:52:53,600
Speaker 1: he's serious and he he knows what he's doing, like

966
00:52:53,640 --> 00:52:57,640
Speaker 1: when he starts fixing the problem, he gets fixed. He's fast,

967
00:52:57,680 --> 00:53:00,880
Speaker 1: he's deliberate, he's got the moves. Yeah, speaking of moves.

968
00:53:00,880 --> 00:53:04,000
Speaker 1: So it turns in this movie has an interesting combination

969
00:53:04,280 --> 00:53:07,799
Speaker 1: of magic and martial arts. So a lot of what MMR.

970
00:53:07,880 --> 00:53:11,560
Speaker 1: Gau does to fight the vampires is like doing spells

971
00:53:11,600 --> 00:53:14,600
Speaker 1: and rituals and stuff like that, but other things. But

972
00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:16,640
Speaker 1: but on the other hand, it's also just like fighting.

973
00:53:16,680 --> 00:53:20,200
Speaker 1: It's you know, kicks and punches and standard comedy martial arts.

974
00:53:20,600 --> 00:53:23,040
Speaker 1: Maybe not quite as virtuosic as you'd see in like

975
00:53:23,120 --> 00:53:25,719
Speaker 1: one of the comedy action movies of Jackie Chan, but

976
00:53:25,760 --> 00:53:29,880
Speaker 1: a similar kind of vibe that you know, funny fighting. Yeah. Yeah,

977
00:53:29,880 --> 00:53:31,960
Speaker 1: it did remind me of some of the Jackie Chan

978
00:53:32,040 --> 00:53:35,360
Speaker 1: films I've seen, where they'll be really great and inventive

979
00:53:35,440 --> 00:53:38,600
Speaker 1: use of some sort of a set piece like a chair. Yeah,

980
00:53:38,640 --> 00:53:40,520
Speaker 1: there's that. There's at least a little of the of

981
00:53:40,560 --> 00:53:42,440
Speaker 1: that in this. And I have to admit I'm not

982
00:53:42,760 --> 00:53:44,960
Speaker 1: I'm not well versed enough in Hong Kong action to

983
00:53:45,080 --> 00:53:48,120
Speaker 1: know you have if what I'm watching in Mr. Vampire

984
00:53:48,400 --> 00:53:51,600
Speaker 1: he is truly great comedy martial arts or if it's

985
00:53:51,640 --> 00:53:54,360
Speaker 1: just like really good or even just decent, but it

986
00:53:54,360 --> 00:53:57,520
Speaker 1: certainly feels awesome when I'm watching it on screen, like

987
00:53:57,560 --> 00:54:01,839
Speaker 1: these are these are well thought out action sequences. Yeah,

988
00:54:02,000 --> 00:54:04,399
Speaker 1: same here, I agree. And so there are a lot

989
00:54:04,400 --> 00:54:06,239
Speaker 1: of funny things to it, Like one of them is

990
00:54:06,280 --> 00:54:10,200
Speaker 1: that actually when Master Gal comes in, there's another Taoist

991
00:54:10,239 --> 00:54:12,839
Speaker 1: priest with him, this guy wearing glasses who is at

992
00:54:12,880 --> 00:54:14,960
Speaker 1: the beginning and the end of the film, and this

993
00:54:15,000 --> 00:54:18,160
Speaker 1: guy together they like I think, what they do is

994
00:54:18,200 --> 00:54:22,200
Speaker 1: they bite their fingers and make them bleed, and then

995
00:54:22,400 --> 00:54:25,719
Speaker 1: they use the blood on their fingertips to touch the

996
00:54:25,840 --> 00:54:30,200
Speaker 1: foreheads of the vampires to essentially pause them, like freeze

997
00:54:30,239 --> 00:54:32,320
Speaker 1: them in place. And I think, again, this is because

998
00:54:32,360 --> 00:54:34,719
Speaker 1: of either it's something about the blood or it could

999
00:54:34,719 --> 00:54:37,200
Speaker 1: have to do with putting the red color on their foreheads.

1000
00:54:37,920 --> 00:54:40,040
Speaker 1: But but it's funny because they will they will have

1001
00:54:40,080 --> 00:54:42,840
Speaker 1: to like pause them and unpause them. So, for example,

1002
00:54:42,880 --> 00:54:45,200
Speaker 1: the other priest, at one point, one of the vampires

1003
00:54:45,200 --> 00:54:47,400
Speaker 1: is choking him, and he puts the mark on the

1004
00:54:47,440 --> 00:54:49,879
Speaker 1: vampire's forehead and it freezes the vampire. But now it's

1005
00:54:49,920 --> 00:54:52,080
Speaker 1: frozen choking him, and he has to wipe it off

1006
00:54:52,080 --> 00:54:54,319
Speaker 1: and unfreeze him so that he'll get his hands off

1007
00:54:54,320 --> 00:54:56,719
Speaker 1: of him and then he can freeze him again. Yeah,

1008
00:54:56,760 --> 00:55:00,799
Speaker 1: there's a there's there's a level of attention shown to

1009
00:55:00,880 --> 00:55:03,040
Speaker 1: the to the the action in a film like this.

1010
00:55:03,120 --> 00:55:05,279
Speaker 1: It did not even just to say action, but like

1011
00:55:05,280 --> 00:55:08,160
Speaker 1: the physical movements, like every physical movement in one of

1012
00:55:08,160 --> 00:55:11,400
Speaker 1: these scenes is is so elegantly choreographed. It's it's it's

1013
00:55:11,400 --> 00:55:14,440
Speaker 1: wonderful to watch, right. But eventually they fix all the

1014
00:55:14,480 --> 00:55:17,600
Speaker 1: malfunctioning vampires. They fix them with martial arts and magic,

1015
00:55:18,040 --> 00:55:20,400
Speaker 1: and then they send them off with this other priests.

1016
00:55:20,440 --> 00:55:22,960
Speaker 1: The guy wearing glasses. Uh. And I was wondering at

1017
00:55:22,960 --> 00:55:25,680
Speaker 1: the beginning, what did this guy like buy a bunch

1018
00:55:25,719 --> 00:55:29,120
Speaker 1: of jung shi from from Master Gal? But I don't

1019
00:55:29,120 --> 00:55:32,160
Speaker 1: think so. I think actually he's another priest, and I

1020
00:55:32,200 --> 00:55:35,320
Speaker 1: think what's happening is he is taking them off somewhere

1021
00:55:35,400 --> 00:55:38,000
Speaker 1: to be to be given a proper burial so that

1022
00:55:38,040 --> 00:55:40,640
Speaker 1: they are no longer vampires. Yeah, that was That was

1023
00:55:40,680 --> 00:55:42,600
Speaker 1: what I got from it too, which which again it

1024
00:55:42,680 --> 00:55:44,880
Speaker 1: ties in with what we discussed earlier about the origin

1025
00:55:44,960 --> 00:55:47,759
Speaker 1: of this monster in general, that it it emerges from

1026
00:55:47,840 --> 00:55:52,000
Speaker 1: anxiety and concern over the improper burial or the lack

1027
00:55:52,040 --> 00:55:55,279
Speaker 1: of burial for individuals. And so it makes sense that

1028
00:55:55,520 --> 00:55:59,160
Speaker 1: our Dallas priests here are are they're part of the solution.

1029
00:55:59,160 --> 00:56:02,720
Speaker 1: They're trying to get these folks buried, putting the uh,

1030
00:56:02,760 --> 00:56:05,759
Speaker 1: the unruly dead to rest. Yeah. And then and when

1031
00:56:05,800 --> 00:56:08,719
Speaker 1: he leads them away, like they're hopping, they've got the

1032
00:56:08,719 --> 00:56:10,719
Speaker 1: they've got the spells back on their faces, so they're

1033
00:56:10,760 --> 00:56:13,160
Speaker 1: not hopping of their own accord. They're sort of hopping

1034
00:56:13,200 --> 00:56:16,600
Speaker 1: as directed. They're being obedient now. But other than that,

1035
00:56:16,680 --> 00:56:19,319
Speaker 1: just to give an idea of the main plot situation.

1036
00:56:19,440 --> 00:56:23,160
Speaker 1: So after this, Master GW is hired by a wealthy

1037
00:56:23,200 --> 00:56:28,200
Speaker 1: businessman named Mr Yam to help with a strategic reburial

1038
00:56:28,239 --> 00:56:31,880
Speaker 1: of Mr. Yam's dead father. And the story is that

1039
00:56:31,960 --> 00:56:36,320
Speaker 1: a perhaps ski vie or perhaps revenge oriented fortune teller

1040
00:56:36,960 --> 00:56:40,880
Speaker 1: has prophesied that if Yam that if Master Yam digs

1041
00:56:41,000 --> 00:56:44,080
Speaker 1: up his father's corpse and buries it in a different place,

1042
00:56:44,520 --> 00:56:47,560
Speaker 1: this will lead to great fortune. And I think this

1043
00:56:47,719 --> 00:56:50,319
Speaker 1: great fortune is to be interpreted as money because he

1044
00:56:50,320 --> 00:56:53,000
Speaker 1: mentions that his business is not doing so well lately.

1045
00:56:53,520 --> 00:56:55,920
Speaker 1: And then it's also worth noting that Mr Yam has

1046
00:56:55,960 --> 00:56:59,080
Speaker 1: a beautiful daughter named Ting. This is Moonlely, and then

1047
00:56:59,120 --> 00:57:01,800
Speaker 1: a nephew named Why who is this guy? We mentioned?

1048
00:57:01,800 --> 00:57:06,560
Speaker 1: This odious and just magnificently incompetent police commander who is

1049
00:57:06,600 --> 00:57:12,320
Speaker 1: also romantically obsessed with his cousin Ting. Yeah, he's fabulous.

1050
00:57:12,640 --> 00:57:15,960
Speaker 1: So Master Gao serves as a kind of ritual magic

1051
00:57:16,080 --> 00:57:21,040
Speaker 1: consultant for the reburial process of Yam's father, and unfortunately,

1052
00:57:21,160 --> 00:57:25,840
Speaker 1: once the body is disinterred, Gal notices the telltale signs

1053
00:57:25,880 --> 00:57:29,280
Speaker 1: of vampiresm that his body is fat and fresh when

1054
00:57:29,320 --> 00:57:32,240
Speaker 1: it should have been decomposed. So it ends up being

1055
00:57:32,280 --> 00:57:36,120
Speaker 1: transported to GAO's magical workshop and sealed shut and its

1056
00:57:36,160 --> 00:57:39,000
Speaker 1: coffin for protection. And I guess for him to ultimately

1057
00:57:39,040 --> 00:57:40,720
Speaker 1: figure out what to do with it, maybe find a

1058
00:57:40,720 --> 00:57:43,080
Speaker 1: place to bury it. But of course, you know, in

1059
00:57:43,080 --> 00:57:45,680
Speaker 1: a movie like this, no coffin can stay sealed, so

1060
00:57:45,800 --> 00:57:49,320
Speaker 1: the vampire is unleashed, setting off a chain of vampiric

1061
00:57:49,400 --> 00:57:53,479
Speaker 1: infections and transformations. Mr Yam gets at first, his father

1062
00:57:53,560 --> 00:57:56,240
Speaker 1: comes to him and vamps him. Then he goes on

1063
00:57:56,280 --> 00:57:59,560
Speaker 1: a rampage, and uh and and so forth, and there's

1064
00:57:59,640 --> 00:58:02,280
Speaker 1: this scene of you know how vampire movie goes after

1065
00:58:02,320 --> 00:58:05,360
Speaker 1: this that the structure is very similar to the vampire movies.

1066
00:58:05,400 --> 00:58:09,680
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, like there's gonna be cascading effects leading,

1067
00:58:09,960 --> 00:58:13,840
Speaker 1: you know, emanating out from this master vampire, but eventually

1068
00:58:13,880 --> 00:58:17,400
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to deal with that master vampire exactly. Meanwhile,

1069
00:58:17,440 --> 00:58:21,200
Speaker 1: I mentioned there's also this simultaneous plot where the handsome

1070
00:58:21,240 --> 00:58:24,840
Speaker 1: young hero, one of the two assistants, is targeted by

1071
00:58:24,920 --> 00:58:28,360
Speaker 1: a malicious ghost who I think attaches to him after

1072
00:58:28,480 --> 00:58:33,720
Speaker 1: he looks at her tombstone. Yes, yeah, I've never heard

1073
00:58:33,760 --> 00:58:37,560
Speaker 1: of a ghost targeting somebody in that way before, but

1074
00:58:37,560 --> 00:58:39,360
Speaker 1: but that seems to be what happens. He like looks

1075
00:58:39,400 --> 00:58:41,920
Speaker 1: at her tombstone and he hears a voice, and after

1076
00:58:41,960 --> 00:58:44,920
Speaker 1: that she's just creeping on him. There's this great scene

1077
00:58:44,960 --> 00:58:47,400
Speaker 1: where he's writing by the cemetery, I think, where he's

1078
00:58:47,440 --> 00:58:50,640
Speaker 1: riding through the woods on a Is he on a horse, No,

1079
00:58:50,720 --> 00:58:53,160
Speaker 1: he's not a bicycle. He's on a bicycle, and she

1080
00:58:53,920 --> 00:58:57,800
Speaker 1: she like ghost flies across the forest. It's a one

1081
00:58:57,920 --> 00:59:02,240
Speaker 1: one of several wonderful wire based martial arts effects where

1082
00:59:02,280 --> 00:59:05,920
Speaker 1: she flies through the forest and she she lands gingerly

1083
00:59:06,080 --> 00:59:08,040
Speaker 1: right on the back of his bicycle, like all right,

1084
00:59:08,120 --> 00:59:10,360
Speaker 1: I'm with you, now, let's go. But then he does.

1085
00:59:10,440 --> 00:59:14,560
Speaker 1: He rides underneath a low hanging tree branch and he ducks,

1086
00:59:14,800 --> 00:59:17,000
Speaker 1: and then the branch hits her and knocks her off

1087
00:59:17,040 --> 00:59:21,120
Speaker 1: the bicycle. Um which which of course reminded me of

1088
00:59:21,440 --> 00:59:24,200
Speaker 1: John Carpenter's Big Trouble and a Little China, where we

1089
00:59:24,280 --> 00:59:27,240
Speaker 1: have the low pon the the ghost of the spirit

1090
00:59:27,840 --> 00:59:31,120
Speaker 1: entity who passes through a vehicle. But then as also,

1091
00:59:31,200 --> 00:59:32,680
Speaker 1: you know, we can see that he can pass through things,

1092
00:59:32,680 --> 00:59:34,640
Speaker 1: but he can also be hit by a truck, very

1093
00:59:34,640 --> 00:59:37,440
Speaker 1: similar in this film, where this ghost has all these

1094
00:59:37,440 --> 00:59:40,640
Speaker 1: ghostly powers, but she can also just run smack into

1095
00:59:40,680 --> 00:59:42,520
Speaker 1: a tree limb. So I wanted to think for a

1096
00:59:42,560 --> 00:59:45,920
Speaker 1: minute about some of the conventions of of these vampire movies,

1097
00:59:45,960 --> 00:59:48,680
Speaker 1: because so in Western vampire movies you've got the tropes

1098
00:59:48,720 --> 00:59:51,040
Speaker 1: that always appear you've got the things that can be

1099
00:59:51,160 --> 00:59:55,680
Speaker 1: used to defeat the vampire, like you know, steaks, crosses, garlic,

1100
00:59:56,120 --> 00:59:59,200
Speaker 1: h vampire doesn't show up in a mirror, all those

1101
00:59:59,280 --> 01:00:02,520
Speaker 1: kinds of things. And this universe seems to have uh

1102
01:00:02,880 --> 01:00:05,600
Speaker 1: similar types of tropes, Like there are things that are

1103
01:00:05,760 --> 01:00:09,720
Speaker 1: used for ritual magical effect against vampires or things that

1104
01:00:09,760 --> 01:00:12,880
Speaker 1: seem to be true of the vampires, and I wanted

1105
01:00:12,920 --> 01:00:14,320
Speaker 1: to try to think about what some of them were.

1106
01:00:14,440 --> 01:00:16,880
Speaker 1: One that I found very interesting was the power of

1107
01:00:16,920 --> 01:00:22,439
Speaker 1: glutinous rice. Yuh, this movie uses Master Gal repeatedly uses

1108
01:00:22,480 --> 01:00:26,400
Speaker 1: sticky rice to ward off vampires or to counteract the

1109
01:00:26,400 --> 01:00:29,160
Speaker 1: effects of a person turning into a vampire when Dan

1110
01:00:29,200 --> 01:00:32,040
Speaker 1: gets vammed. Yeah, I love this part of the film.

1111
01:00:32,160 --> 01:00:33,840
Speaker 1: The one hand, it makes perfect sense. It reminds me

1112
01:00:33,840 --> 01:00:35,560
Speaker 1: a lot of what we talked about with the use

1113
01:00:35,600 --> 01:00:39,600
Speaker 1: of beans and some cultures as a zooki beans or

1114
01:00:40,080 --> 01:00:42,560
Speaker 1: or other beans and other cultures used as in a

1115
01:00:42,600 --> 01:00:45,040
Speaker 1: way to fight back against the supernatural or having some

1116
01:00:45,120 --> 01:00:48,520
Speaker 1: link to the supernatural. So yeah, I love the idea

1117
01:00:48,600 --> 01:00:50,800
Speaker 1: that that the sticky rice could be utilized in such

1118
01:00:50,840 --> 01:00:53,680
Speaker 1: a fashion. But this film goes even further by by

1119
01:00:53,720 --> 01:00:57,480
Speaker 1: asking the question, Well, what happens when an outbreak of

1120
01:00:57,480 --> 01:01:01,760
Speaker 1: of vampires in your town or city causes, um uh,

1121
01:01:02,560 --> 01:01:05,320
Speaker 1: a huge demand for sticky rice. How does the local

1122
01:01:05,480 --> 01:01:09,320
Speaker 1: rice shop owners respond? And in this film, they respond

1123
01:01:09,360 --> 01:01:13,320
Speaker 1: crookedly by cutting of sticky rice with other varieties of rice.

1124
01:01:13,720 --> 01:01:15,520
Speaker 1: That was one of my favorite parts of the movie. Yeah.

1125
01:01:15,520 --> 01:01:18,760
Speaker 1: So there's a commodities demand problem. Uh you need all

1126
01:01:18,800 --> 01:01:21,000
Speaker 1: the sticky rice to fight vampires, and it turns out

1127
01:01:21,040 --> 01:01:24,240
Speaker 1: regular rice is no good, does not help you at all.

1128
01:01:24,320 --> 01:01:27,200
Speaker 1: It's got to be sticky rice. And so yeah, there's

1129
01:01:27,240 --> 01:01:29,280
Speaker 1: a scene where a character is sent to the rice

1130
01:01:29,360 --> 01:01:31,640
Speaker 1: shop to get a whole bunch of sticky rice to

1131
01:01:31,640 --> 01:01:34,600
Speaker 1: to fight off the vampire. And an unethical rice shop

1132
01:01:34,600 --> 01:01:37,560
Speaker 1: owner tells his dim witted son, why don't you mix

1133
01:01:37,640 --> 01:01:40,800
Speaker 1: thirty caddies of of regular rice with the twenty of

1134
01:01:40,840 --> 01:01:43,960
Speaker 1: sticky rice. They'll never know the difference. And so and

1135
01:01:44,000 --> 01:01:46,760
Speaker 1: I think the dimwitted sun gets it wrong, but still

1136
01:01:46,840 --> 01:01:49,960
Speaker 1: does dilute it. Yeah, and of course that is causes

1137
01:01:50,000 --> 01:01:52,560
Speaker 1: the whole outbreak to get even worse. Uh So, yeah,

1138
01:01:52,560 --> 01:01:54,640
Speaker 1: I definitely love the use of the sticky rice. We

1139
01:01:54,680 --> 01:01:58,960
Speaker 1: already mentioned the spells, but Master Gal uses a number

1140
01:01:58,960 --> 01:02:03,040
Speaker 1: of different like holy relics and artifacts to battle. I

1141
01:02:03,040 --> 01:02:05,800
Speaker 1: think my favorite one that he uses against the vampires

1142
01:02:06,240 --> 01:02:10,080
Speaker 1: is the glowing dagger, the dagger that is made out

1143
01:02:10,080 --> 01:02:13,960
Speaker 1: of Chinese coins and infused by the power of the moon. Right,

1144
01:02:14,000 --> 01:02:16,920
Speaker 1: there's a part focuses the power of the moon on

1145
01:02:16,960 --> 01:02:19,960
Speaker 1: it and it makes it glow. Yeah. I don't know

1146
01:02:20,000 --> 01:02:21,400
Speaker 1: what to deal with that is, but I thought that

1147
01:02:21,440 --> 01:02:23,520
Speaker 1: was cool. Yeah. So I mean we I guess, you know,

1148
01:02:23,560 --> 01:02:25,240
Speaker 1: we we do see some of the similar ideas like

1149
01:02:25,280 --> 01:02:32,520
Speaker 1: holy elements, elements involving reflections and light um, celestial energy,

1150
01:02:32,880 --> 01:02:35,360
Speaker 1: you know, solar energy and the more western varieties, but

1151
01:02:35,440 --> 01:02:37,720
Speaker 1: the idea that lunar and energy could be utilized as well.

1152
01:02:37,760 --> 01:02:39,960
Speaker 1: I like that. Yeah. But there here's one thing. I

1153
01:02:40,000 --> 01:02:42,480
Speaker 1: don't know if you picked up on this seeming contradiction,

1154
01:02:42,520 --> 01:02:45,520
Speaker 1: maybe I just don't understand. But um, so, one thing

1155
01:02:45,960 --> 01:02:50,280
Speaker 1: is it's implied that the vampires are blind and that

1156
01:02:50,320 --> 01:02:53,720
Speaker 1: they can only detect you by hearing you, right, And

1157
01:02:53,800 --> 01:02:56,720
Speaker 1: that was the reason that you could hold your breath

1158
01:02:56,840 --> 01:03:00,080
Speaker 1: to hide from the vampire, because if you're not breathe ing,

1159
01:03:00,120 --> 01:03:02,840
Speaker 1: the vampire can't find you. Or is it that they

1160
01:03:02,920 --> 01:03:06,120
Speaker 1: smell your breath, because remember there's a scene where Dan

1161
01:03:07,040 --> 01:03:09,600
Speaker 1: buys himself a few moments of time to escape, which

1162
01:03:09,600 --> 01:03:11,440
Speaker 1: he you know, doesn't use. He just like gloats, I

1163
01:03:11,440 --> 01:03:13,560
Speaker 1: think for a second, but he sticks some things in

1164
01:03:13,600 --> 01:03:17,960
Speaker 1: the young cheese nos in its nostrils can't detect him.

1165
01:03:18,000 --> 01:03:20,920
Speaker 1: Maybe it is the smell, so for it's either hearing

1166
01:03:21,000 --> 01:03:24,640
Speaker 1: or smell or some combination thereof the vampire can't find

1167
01:03:24,640 --> 01:03:27,200
Speaker 1: you if you're not breathing, so characters repeatedly hold their

1168
01:03:27,240 --> 01:03:29,959
Speaker 1: breath for a moment. As the original title says, while

1169
01:03:30,080 --> 01:03:33,280
Speaker 1: the vampires like looking right in their face, whatever the effect,

1170
01:03:33,280 --> 01:03:35,520
Speaker 1: it's supposed to not be able to see them. But

1171
01:03:35,680 --> 01:03:37,800
Speaker 1: also I've read that it's supposed to be a convention

1172
01:03:37,920 --> 01:03:41,320
Speaker 1: of these stories that the vampires are afraid of their

1173
01:03:41,360 --> 01:03:44,480
Speaker 1: own reflections in a mirror, and I wondered how that

1174
01:03:44,560 --> 01:03:47,280
Speaker 1: works if they can't actually see So I'm not sure

1175
01:03:47,280 --> 01:03:49,360
Speaker 1: about that. Maybe it's just something that's not consistent in

1176
01:03:49,400 --> 01:03:52,520
Speaker 1: the lore, or maybe I don't quite understand well. Also,

1177
01:03:52,600 --> 01:03:55,360
Speaker 1: the Master Vampire, and this seems to be less limited

1178
01:03:55,400 --> 01:03:58,840
Speaker 1: when he comes back after his first initial defeat um

1179
01:03:58,920 --> 01:04:00,760
Speaker 1: because when he comes back, he looks a bit different.

1180
01:04:00,840 --> 01:04:02,760
Speaker 1: He seems to be looking around with eyes more. He

1181
01:04:02,800 --> 01:04:06,240
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be as Um is based in scent,

1182
01:04:06,880 --> 01:04:10,720
Speaker 1: so which raises additional questions about exactly how how these

1183
01:04:10,800 --> 01:04:15,400
Speaker 1: these these beings work, but they seems to come back

1184
01:04:15,440 --> 01:04:19,000
Speaker 1: more powerful. So generally in Daoist rituals, is the moon

1185
01:04:19,160 --> 01:04:22,200
Speaker 1: considered a holy thing that can ward off evil because

1186
01:04:22,200 --> 01:04:25,440
Speaker 1: I remember there's also a part where Um when the

1187
01:04:25,520 --> 01:04:29,280
Speaker 1: ghost first appears to try to uh, to seduce the

1188
01:04:29,320 --> 01:04:33,600
Speaker 1: handsome young hero in the forest. Uh. There's a song

1189
01:04:33,720 --> 01:04:36,360
Speaker 1: that is being sung on the soundtrack and the translation

1190
01:04:36,440 --> 01:04:39,120
Speaker 1: on the subtitles of the song there is a line

1191
01:04:39,120 --> 01:04:42,280
Speaker 1: that said, who would want a ghostly bride to worship

1192
01:04:42,360 --> 01:04:46,080
Speaker 1: the moon with her? I didn't know quite what to

1193
01:04:46,120 --> 01:04:48,120
Speaker 1: make of that, but well, I mean, the moon has

1194
01:04:48,160 --> 01:04:51,880
Speaker 1: a has been important roles in Chinese mythology, you know,

1195
01:04:51,920 --> 01:04:55,280
Speaker 1: and is in the place of the elixir of the immortals.

1196
01:04:55,320 --> 01:04:58,560
Speaker 1: That is a you know, a place where the goddess resides.

1197
01:04:58,640 --> 01:05:01,760
Speaker 1: It is a place where the where the rabbit lives.

1198
01:05:01,800 --> 01:05:03,920
Speaker 1: I mean, there's there's a lot of a lot of

1199
01:05:03,960 --> 01:05:07,600
Speaker 1: cool magical ideas about the moon. Is is not only

1200
01:05:07,680 --> 01:05:11,520
Speaker 1: like an entity but a place in in in Chinese mythology,

1201
01:05:11,520 --> 01:05:14,160
Speaker 1: whereas I'm not sure that the response that there's as

1202
01:05:14,240 --> 01:05:16,440
Speaker 1: much about that with the sun. You know, when you

1203
01:05:16,440 --> 01:05:19,360
Speaker 1: think about prominent solar Chinese myths, I mean, obviously the

1204
01:05:19,400 --> 01:05:21,240
Speaker 1: one that comes to mind is the shooting of the

1205
01:05:21,240 --> 01:05:24,000
Speaker 1: surplus suns out of the sky by the Great Archer,

1206
01:05:24,720 --> 01:05:26,520
Speaker 1: But in that it's like that, it's more like the

1207
01:05:26,520 --> 01:05:29,120
Speaker 1: sun is an entity or multiple entities that must be

1208
01:05:29,160 --> 01:05:31,520
Speaker 1: dealt with. I'm sure I'm missing something that there's a

1209
01:05:31,520 --> 01:05:34,360
Speaker 1: lot of Chinese mythology is a broad tent, and uh

1210
01:05:34,400 --> 01:05:36,720
Speaker 1: likely there's some exceptions to this that I just don't

1211
01:05:36,760 --> 01:05:38,840
Speaker 1: have in my head at the moment. I guess we

1212
01:05:38,920 --> 01:05:40,760
Speaker 1: got to wrap up in a minute here. But one

1213
01:05:40,800 --> 01:05:42,720
Speaker 1: more thing I wanted to do before we did was

1214
01:05:42,760 --> 01:05:47,440
Speaker 1: the excellent jail scene. I love Yes. So one point

1215
01:05:47,440 --> 01:05:52,040
Speaker 1: in the movie, Master Gao is framed for the murder

1216
01:05:52,080 --> 01:05:54,800
Speaker 1: of a character. I think it's for the murder of

1217
01:05:55,040 --> 01:05:58,360
Speaker 1: Mr Yam, the wealthy businessman who hired him, and it

1218
01:05:58,440 --> 01:06:01,240
Speaker 1: goes like this. He shows up when the body is found,

1219
01:06:01,760 --> 01:06:05,600
Speaker 1: and why the incompetent policeman is saying, well, he has

1220
01:06:05,680 --> 01:06:08,200
Speaker 1: holes in his neck, so those must have been caused

1221
01:06:08,240 --> 01:06:11,680
Speaker 1: by a gun, and then everybody's like, wait, that doesn't

1222
01:06:11,720 --> 01:06:14,720
Speaker 1: really make sense, and he's like, oh, yeah, that's right, um,

1223
01:06:14,880 --> 01:06:17,680
Speaker 1: because the neck is really torn up. And then he's like,

1224
01:06:17,720 --> 01:06:19,920
Speaker 1: well it maybe it was caused by someone who is

1225
01:06:19,920 --> 01:06:23,040
Speaker 1: a martial arts expert, who was an expert in the

1226
01:06:23,160 --> 01:06:26,360
Speaker 1: ninefold darts. I don't know what that means. I tried

1227
01:06:26,360 --> 01:06:28,320
Speaker 1: to look that up and I couldn't find anything about it,

1228
01:06:28,440 --> 01:06:31,080
Speaker 1: so maybe I was not using the right search terms.

1229
01:06:31,200 --> 01:06:34,800
Speaker 1: But then finally Master Gau reveals it looks like these

1230
01:06:34,840 --> 01:06:39,000
Speaker 1: holes were actually made by long fingernails, right, so the

1231
01:06:39,000 --> 01:06:42,160
Speaker 1: the vampire like sticks long fingernails in the victim's neck

1232
01:06:42,600 --> 01:06:45,920
Speaker 1: and then why the Policeman's like, hey, Master Gau, you

1233
01:06:45,960 --> 01:06:51,720
Speaker 1: have long fingernails. You're under arrest, and then he takes

1234
01:06:51,800 --> 01:06:54,480
Speaker 1: him back to the jail to torture him for information.

1235
01:06:55,240 --> 01:06:58,320
Speaker 1: But while he's in his jail cell overnight and repeatedly

1236
01:06:58,320 --> 01:07:02,040
Speaker 1: getting his head stuck between the bar, the handsome two

1237
01:07:02,080 --> 01:07:04,640
Speaker 1: of his assistants shows up to rescue him, but then

1238
01:07:04,640 --> 01:07:07,040
Speaker 1: the vampire also comes to life, and then why is

1239
01:07:07,080 --> 01:07:09,439
Speaker 1: running around causing problems as well. There's a great fight

1240
01:07:09,480 --> 01:07:11,200
Speaker 1: scene that that that whole part was one of the

1241
01:07:11,200 --> 01:07:14,720
Speaker 1: best parts of the movie. I agree. But before we

1242
01:07:14,760 --> 01:07:18,400
Speaker 1: go should we should we discuss the gorilla scene. What

1243
01:07:18,440 --> 01:07:21,040
Speaker 1: was that supposed to be a gorilla? Okay, so I

1244
01:07:21,080 --> 01:07:24,040
Speaker 1: think it was Okay, Okay, we're setting the scene here.

1245
01:07:24,920 --> 01:07:28,760
Speaker 1: At one point, the police, I guess, being led by

1246
01:07:28,800 --> 01:07:32,120
Speaker 1: by why the world's worst policemen are out in the countryside.

1247
01:07:32,120 --> 01:07:34,600
Speaker 1: They've left the city and they're like on a on

1248
01:07:34,640 --> 01:07:38,200
Speaker 1: a grassy hill and they find a cave opening, and

1249
01:07:38,240 --> 01:07:41,000
Speaker 1: the police go out into the cave opening, I think

1250
01:07:41,040 --> 01:07:45,320
Speaker 1: with their guns drawn, uh, maybe believing that the vampire

1251
01:07:45,560 --> 01:07:47,840
Speaker 1: is in the cave. That That's one thing that's interesting

1252
01:07:47,840 --> 01:07:50,800
Speaker 1: in this movie. The police are fully on board with

1253
01:07:50,880 --> 01:07:54,080
Speaker 1: the supernatural villain and they're they're ready to go fight

1254
01:07:54,200 --> 01:07:57,680
Speaker 1: the vampire with guns. Say what you will about them.

1255
01:07:58,440 --> 01:08:00,760
Speaker 1: Once it's clear that it's supernatural, they're like, all right, yeah,

1256
01:08:00,720 --> 01:08:02,120
Speaker 1: we're on board. We'll do what we need to do.

1257
01:08:02,160 --> 01:08:03,880
Speaker 1: We'll go we'll help go find this thing before it

1258
01:08:03,880 --> 01:08:06,360
Speaker 1: gets dark and it becomes more powerful. But when they

1259
01:08:06,360 --> 01:08:09,560
Speaker 1: go into the cave chased out by a guerrilla yeah,

1260
01:08:09,920 --> 01:08:13,080
Speaker 1: chase a guy in a guerrilla suit. Yeah, I mean

1261
01:08:14,360 --> 01:08:18,000
Speaker 1: I haven't really researched it or anything and see what

1262
01:08:18,000 --> 01:08:20,639
Speaker 1: what critics have said about it over the years by

1263
01:08:20,640 --> 01:08:22,800
Speaker 1: but based on just a couple of brief mentions, I

1264
01:08:22,840 --> 01:08:25,920
Speaker 1: think this was just included as a gag. It's it's

1265
01:08:25,960 --> 01:08:28,439
Speaker 1: just like a sight gag of like, what if then

1266
01:08:28,439 --> 01:08:30,640
Speaker 1: a guerrilla chased them out of the cave, wouldn't that

1267
01:08:30,680 --> 01:08:34,040
Speaker 1: be funny? Um? Though it it does seem at least

1268
01:08:34,040 --> 01:08:37,280
Speaker 1: to my you know, um, you know my eyes. And

1269
01:08:37,560 --> 01:08:39,840
Speaker 1: again I'm not familiar with all, you know, everything that

1270
01:08:39,880 --> 01:08:44,040
Speaker 1: would have been considered like normal within comedy at the time,

1271
01:08:44,120 --> 01:08:47,800
Speaker 1: Like what what makes a normal action comedy in mid

1272
01:08:47,880 --> 01:08:51,080
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties Hong Kong cinema? Uh Like, so maybe this

1273
01:08:51,160 --> 01:08:53,200
Speaker 1: isn't that far out of line to have a sudden

1274
01:08:53,240 --> 01:08:56,040
Speaker 1: guerrilla jagg show up, but it felt out of line.

1275
01:08:56,040 --> 01:08:58,600
Speaker 1: It felt like like where did that come from? I

1276
01:08:58,640 --> 01:09:00,559
Speaker 1: almost feel like I'm part of one of those those

1277
01:09:00,600 --> 01:09:04,320
Speaker 1: guerrilla costume experiments where they're they're checking to see if

1278
01:09:04,320 --> 01:09:08,200
Speaker 1: you're paying attention to the scene. Well deployed random gorilla

1279
01:09:08,280 --> 01:09:11,439
Speaker 1: is a is a good trick. Yeah, So that scene

1280
01:09:11,520 --> 01:09:15,040
Speaker 1: is just really that's that's a really crazy sequence that

1281
01:09:15,040 --> 01:09:17,439
Speaker 1: that doesn't have huge bearing on the plot. I guess

1282
01:09:17,439 --> 01:09:19,439
Speaker 1: that's the other thing. It doesn't really connect to any

1283
01:09:19,479 --> 01:09:22,360
Speaker 1: other sequence, so you can sort of compartmentalize it is

1284
01:09:22,400 --> 01:09:25,200
Speaker 1: just one of the one of the police chiefs um

1285
01:09:25,520 --> 01:09:29,600
Speaker 1: wacky adventures. Have you ever seen the movie Ape? I

1286
01:09:29,640 --> 01:09:32,080
Speaker 1: think it's just called Ape. It's a bad rip off

1287
01:09:32,080 --> 01:09:34,640
Speaker 1: of King Kong. It's just a giant ape movie. But

1288
01:09:34,720 --> 01:09:36,400
Speaker 1: the main thing I remember about it, it's been a

1289
01:09:36,400 --> 01:09:37,800
Speaker 1: long time since I saw it. The main thing I

1290
01:09:37,800 --> 01:09:40,600
Speaker 1: remember is there's a scene where a guy in a

1291
01:09:40,640 --> 01:09:43,599
Speaker 1: guerrilla costume just gives the middle finger to the camera

1292
01:09:43,760 --> 01:09:47,160
Speaker 1: for a solid fifteen seconds. Oh, I've I have seen

1293
01:09:47,280 --> 01:09:49,800
Speaker 1: that sequence. I believe there was you know, there was

1294
01:09:49,840 --> 01:09:52,479
Speaker 1: a there was an old film title that came from

1295
01:09:52,479 --> 01:09:56,519
Speaker 1: Hollywood that Dan Ackroyd and John Candy and a number

1296
01:09:56,560 --> 01:09:58,679
Speaker 1: of folks did, and it had a lot of clips

1297
01:09:58,720 --> 01:10:01,799
Speaker 1: from old films um and they had a whole section

1298
01:10:01,800 --> 01:10:04,880
Speaker 1: on guerilla movies that was that was pretty fabulous. And

1299
01:10:04,920 --> 01:10:08,559
Speaker 1: I remember that APE. I definitely remember that Ape. Okay,

1300
01:10:08,600 --> 01:10:11,400
Speaker 1: I think maybe we gotta call it there from Mr Vampire. Yeah,

1301
01:10:11,439 --> 01:10:15,320
Speaker 1: but hopefully we've we've we we've raised everyone's interest level

1302
01:10:15,840 --> 01:10:21,439
Speaker 1: regarding Mr. Vampire. I it's definitely worth seeking out. I look,

1303
01:10:21,479 --> 01:10:23,960
Speaker 1: I didn't look around much for this. I think there's

1304
01:10:24,040 --> 01:10:26,479
Speaker 1: some some rips of it out there, but I can't

1305
01:10:26,479 --> 01:10:29,360
Speaker 1: speak to the quality. There have been various DVD and

1306
01:10:29,360 --> 01:10:33,160
Speaker 1: Blu Ray releases over the years. The DVD version is

1307
01:10:33,160 --> 01:10:35,320
Speaker 1: the one that we watched, and we rented it from

1308
01:10:35,560 --> 01:10:39,360
Speaker 1: Atlanta's own Video Drome, the last video rental store here

1309
01:10:39,400 --> 01:10:42,519
Speaker 1: in Atlanta. But I think you can buy copies of it.

1310
01:10:42,560 --> 01:10:45,320
Speaker 1: I think it's commercially available. Uh. And I have seen

1311
01:10:45,360 --> 01:10:48,560
Speaker 1: it on streaming services before, just I don't think currently.

1312
01:10:48,880 --> 01:10:52,000
Speaker 1: But this stuff changes, so who knows it may become.

1313
01:10:52,200 --> 01:10:54,479
Speaker 1: Perhaps there's and and it's also possible that there's maybe

1314
01:10:54,479 --> 01:10:57,360
Speaker 1: a Hong Kong cinema centric service that I'm just not

1315
01:10:57,720 --> 01:11:00,320
Speaker 1: privy to that would be the ideal placed you go

1316
01:11:00,520 --> 01:11:04,599
Speaker 1: for your Mr. Vampire and Mr Vampire related titles. If

1317
01:11:04,640 --> 01:11:06,840
Speaker 1: you do end up watching it, be warned in advanced

1318
01:11:07,240 --> 01:11:10,680
Speaker 1: about content. Uh, it's just worth reading about a bit. Uh.

1319
01:11:10,720 --> 01:11:12,479
Speaker 1: There's one thing that came to my mind, which is

1320
01:11:12,520 --> 01:11:14,240
Speaker 1: that there are a couple of scenes in the movie

1321
01:11:14,240 --> 01:11:17,360
Speaker 1: where it appears that real animals are killed on screen,

1322
01:11:17,560 --> 01:11:19,640
Speaker 1: like there's a chicken and a and a snake, I

1323
01:11:19,680 --> 01:11:24,000
Speaker 1: think a dead snake for something. Yeah, I think I

1324
01:11:24,040 --> 01:11:26,840
Speaker 1: read that they the snake that they used was then

1325
01:11:27,000 --> 01:11:30,879
Speaker 1: made into a soup, which I guess is partially comforting.

1326
01:11:30,880 --> 01:11:34,240
Speaker 1: But yes, so be aware. But then again I think

1327
01:11:34,360 --> 01:11:36,400
Speaker 1: it's a good idea if you're if you're looking at

1328
01:11:36,400 --> 01:11:41,160
Speaker 1: some of these older movies, UM would be aware. In general, Yeah, IMDb.

1329
01:11:41,360 --> 01:11:45,160
Speaker 1: IMDb has been pretty good for me recently on selections

1330
01:11:45,600 --> 01:11:49,880
Speaker 1: where they have the parental um guidance section, which I

1331
01:11:49,960 --> 01:11:52,600
Speaker 1: used to just not care about, but especially as a

1332
01:11:52,680 --> 01:11:54,160
Speaker 1: as a parent, now I care about it. But also

1333
01:11:54,200 --> 01:11:57,200
Speaker 1: in terms of selecting things for weird house cinema. It's

1334
01:11:57,240 --> 01:11:59,960
Speaker 1: a great way on at least more well known films

1335
01:12:00,040 --> 01:12:02,479
Speaker 1: to just trying to just check in and see what

1336
01:12:02,600 --> 01:12:06,719
Speaker 1: has been flagged. And sometimes it's it's hilariously fun where

1337
01:12:06,720 --> 01:12:09,240
Speaker 1: someone will be like, well, it is implied that a

1338
01:12:09,320 --> 01:12:11,400
Speaker 1: human is naked in this film. It is not shown,

1339
01:12:11,680 --> 01:12:15,040
Speaker 1: but it is heavily implied, so beware. Uh. So I

1340
01:12:15,080 --> 01:12:18,559
Speaker 1: love the uh some of the warnings that are just

1341
01:12:18,640 --> 01:12:20,519
Speaker 1: a bet over the top like that, But then you

1342
01:12:20,560 --> 01:12:22,880
Speaker 1: can also if you know, find out if there are

1343
01:12:23,479 --> 01:12:26,280
Speaker 1: you know, examples of potential animal cruelty or depicted animal

1344
01:12:26,280 --> 01:12:28,240
Speaker 1: cruelty that you just might not want to watch, even

1345
01:12:28,280 --> 01:12:31,160
Speaker 1: if it uh, you know, even if no animals are harmed.

1346
01:12:31,160 --> 01:12:32,920
Speaker 1: Sometimes you don't want to see the fictional version of

1347
01:12:32,960 --> 01:12:36,200
Speaker 1: something either. So I've had good luck with the IMDb

1348
01:12:36,479 --> 01:12:40,559
Speaker 1: Parental Guidance section. A good idea, used as needed, used

1349
01:12:40,560 --> 01:12:43,839
Speaker 1: as needed. All Right, We're gonna go ahead and close

1350
01:12:44,040 --> 01:12:46,360
Speaker 1: the coffin on this one and uh and give it

1351
01:12:46,400 --> 01:12:49,439
Speaker 1: a proper burial. But who knows, maybe in the future

1352
01:12:49,520 --> 01:12:53,320
Speaker 1: we will be back with more Jangshi action. I have

1353
01:12:53,360 --> 01:12:55,600
Speaker 1: to admit there is there's at least one title that

1354
01:12:55,680 --> 01:12:58,120
Speaker 1: has been on my list uh since the beginning of

1355
01:12:58,160 --> 01:13:01,599
Speaker 1: World Weird How Cinema. We may come back to Weird

1356
01:13:01,600 --> 01:13:04,960
Speaker 1: How Cinema, of course, is are a Friday episode that

1357
01:13:05,000 --> 01:13:06,599
Speaker 1: we put out in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind

1358
01:13:06,640 --> 01:13:09,479
Speaker 1: podcast feed. We're normally a science and culture podcast, and

1359
01:13:09,520 --> 01:13:12,720
Speaker 1: our core episodes published on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We do

1360
01:13:12,760 --> 01:13:15,280
Speaker 1: a little bit of listener mail on Monday's. We do

1361
01:13:15,479 --> 01:13:18,400
Speaker 1: the Artifact on Wednesdays, which is a short form episode,

1362
01:13:18,640 --> 01:13:21,320
Speaker 1: But then Friday is Weird Our Cinema and You can

1363
01:13:21,360 --> 01:13:23,760
Speaker 1: find all of this wherever you get your podcast. Just

1364
01:13:23,800 --> 01:13:25,840
Speaker 1: look for the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed.

1365
01:13:26,600 --> 01:13:28,439
Speaker 1: If you want to get to it quickly, you can

1366
01:13:28,479 --> 01:13:30,280
Speaker 1: go to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That

1367
01:13:30,280 --> 01:13:33,760
Speaker 1: will sends you over to the I Heart Radio um

1368
01:13:34,280 --> 01:13:37,479
Speaker 1: page for our show, and there's actually a store button

1369
01:13:37,479 --> 01:13:39,400
Speaker 1: on there. You can go there if you want, and

1370
01:13:39,479 --> 01:13:41,200
Speaker 1: you can buy some stuff to Blow your Mind merch

1371
01:13:41,360 --> 01:13:44,280
Speaker 1: and you can actually buy some weird how cinema merch. Now,

1372
01:13:44,680 --> 01:13:47,439
Speaker 1: as of this recording, the only thing available is a

1373
01:13:47,479 --> 01:13:51,519
Speaker 1: button no sorry, a sticker or a magnet. But I'm

1374
01:13:51,560 --> 01:13:53,280
Speaker 1: hoping that we get a shirt in there soon. We

1375
01:13:53,320 --> 01:13:55,680
Speaker 1: just have to get some other sort of file for

1376
01:13:55,720 --> 01:13:59,080
Speaker 1: that to work properly, so um uh at anyway, check

1377
01:13:59,120 --> 01:14:01,840
Speaker 1: that out if you're interests huge thanks as always to

1378
01:14:01,880 --> 01:14:05,320
Speaker 1: our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would

1379
01:14:05,360 --> 01:14:07,160
Speaker 1: like to get in touch with us with feedback on

1380
01:14:07,200 --> 01:14:09,839
Speaker 1: this episode or any other to suggest topic for the future,

1381
01:14:09,960 --> 01:14:12,640
Speaker 1: just to say hello, you can email us at contact

1382
01:14:12,680 --> 01:14:22,320
Speaker 1: at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to

1383
01:14:22,320 --> 01:14:24,840
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For

1384
01:14:24,960 --> 01:14:27,160
Speaker 1: more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart

1385
01:14:27,200 --> 01:14:29,920
Speaker 1: Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

1386
01:14:29,960 --> 01:14:30,639
Speaker 1: favorite shows.