WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema: Mr. Vampire 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:05.400 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:15.280 Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:18.080 Rob Land and I'm Joe McCormick. In Today, we are 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:22.480 hopping into the world of Taoist sorcery, Hong Kong monsters, 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:26.400 glutinous rice, martial arts, and and much more with our 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:30.000 very first Young She movie. I've been wanting to do 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:32.239 one of these movies for a while because I had 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:36.720 never actually seen a Young She film, and uh and 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:38.600 and I was aware of them for a while having 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:41.080 I guess I've seen like pictures of them on the internet. 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:43.680 Uh so, so this has been in my mind for years, 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:45.880 and finally we got to see one. Today we're gonna 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:49.760 be talking about Mr Vampire. Yeah. I'm excited as well 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:51.519 because I think I was in the same boat as you. 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:55.840 I knew about Young She. I knew they existed in 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:59.600 in Chinese folklore, as is, being this kind of vampire, 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:03.120 kind of by zombie creature with with unique characteristics all 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:07.199 their own. But I never watched a Jangshi movie. Uh though, 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:10.920 interestingly enough, right this was before you brought up the 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:14.440 idea of of of of doing one. I had picked 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:18.360 up the new Dungeons and Dragons book Van Ripton's Guide 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:21.200 to Raven Loft, and it includes a domain in it 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:25.200 inspired by Chinese mythology and folklore, so it includes stats 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:29.319 for Jangshi monsters. It's a in in Dungeons and Dragons. 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:31.720 It's a ninth level undead entity with the power to 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:34.720 drain the energy of its victims and a shape shift. 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:40.800 So jung shei is both a class of Chinese mythological 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:46.839 monster and a specific genre of especially nineteen eighties Hong 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:50.720 Kong martial arts comedy films. That's correct, Yeah, it's and 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:53.400 this is one of the big films. We started looking 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:55.800 around like, well, which which jangshi movies should we do, 0:01:56.520 --> 0:02:01.680 and the signs increasingly pointed to Mr Vampire from because 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:04.600 It's it was a huge hit. It was responsible for 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:09.440 really popularizing it in not only within Chinese cinema and 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:12.440 creating a whole sub genre, but also spreading out and 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:15.919 it was very popular in Japan and ultimately you know 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:19.079 across to to Uh to the West as well. So 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:20.960 and and also this is the one we could rent 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:24.280 from our local video store video Drum. Yeah, these movies 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:27.240 are not widely digitally available at least that I could find, 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:29.639 but at least not right now. I feel like they 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:32.040 have been recently. But um, I have to say Amazon 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:34.560 Prime used to be my go to place for a 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:37.639 lot of weird movies, but I feel like their selection 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:41.120 is not as expansive as it was just a couple 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:44.080 of years ago. So Mr. Vampire is really a title 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:46.320 that sort of grabs me by the fangs or by 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:50.040 the fingernails as it may be. To begin with, Uh, 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:52.320 there's something a little bit cheeky about it. But also 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:54.960 I think this is not a direct translation of the 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:59.040 original title, which I think uh in the Cantonese original 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:02.160 title was it translates to like hold your breath for 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:04.960 a moment or something. Uh. Yeah, and that and the 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:06.800 reason for that is because that's that's one of the 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:10.519 plot points. And how do you avoid the Jungshi discovering 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:13.040 where you are and draining the life out of you. Well, 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:15.679 just don't breathe and then it can't detect your presence. 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:19.720 But Mr Vampire, Uh, that that also that also kind 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:22.600 of works. It's it's not the name of a vampire 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:25.280 in it, but it's referring to our main character, who 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:29.959 is a Dallas priest whose expertise is the management and 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:34.359 sometimes slaying of of of vampires, and therefore he's Mr 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:37.120 Vampire in the same way that someone who comes and 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:40.480 fixes your pipes might be Mr Plumbing or Mr Plumber. 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:42.600 I was thinking of it more along the lines of 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:45.480 Mr Coffee, like he is a machine that is designed 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:48.600 to perfectly execute this function. And so in this case, 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:52.640 our hero in the film, the Taoist priest played by 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:57.080 Uh Chining Lamb, is the machine that perfectly executes the 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:00.600 jung Shei cycle. So let's talk for just a little 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:03.120 bit about the Young she because some of you may 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:06.040 be super familiar with this already. Maybe you've read the 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:08.120 New Raven Loft book and so you know, you're like, 0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:10.000 I know all the stats, Rob, you don't have to 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:12.200 go into the details, but I will anyway because it's 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:15.200 super interesting and I think it it enhances our understanding 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:17.720 of this film. Even though this film is very much 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:20.520 a horror comedy, it's not like it has I think, 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:23.039 you know, really deep things to say, but it is. 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:26.279 It is a treatment of some of of a monster, 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:29.960 a monster that emerged out of Chinese history, out of 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:33.800 Chinese folklore and out of real anxieties. So first of all, 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:38.359 jiang she literally means the stiff or the rigid dead, 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:41.400 and uh and and and and the reason for that 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:44.960 will become clear when we start talking about how they move, especially, 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:47.600 So I'd love to just set the scene for you 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:50.799 here if I may. Okay, let's get it. Imagine yourself 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:54.040 out on a road so frustratingly close to the walls 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:56.839 of the city you've been traveling to, and yet night 0:04:56.960 --> 0:04:59.840 is falling, the mist is rolling in, and then up 0:04:59.880 --> 0:05:02.720 a heads you see several figures in the gloom. Who 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:06.160 are they? Are they fellow travelers, perhaps headed to where 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:09.440 you're going, or coming from the opposite direction, maybe there 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:11.640 are a patrol of guards from the city, And you 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:15.039 even entertain the possibility that they might be bandits. But 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:19.640 then they do something quite unnatural. They hop, They hop, 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:24.120 like creatures whose legs are bound or stiff with rigor mortis, 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:28.520 perhaps even forgetful of proper bipedo locomotion, and forced to 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:33.040 lunge themselves forward through physical space like a writhing worm 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:36.599 stood on end. The creatures hop and they hop again, 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:39.560 ever closer to you, And as they get closer, you 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:43.200 see that they are undead horrors dressed in robes from 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:47.800 the Cheaing dynasty, decayed corpses, burning with unnatural life, and 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:51.240 as they hop, they reach out towards you with elongated 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:55.039 finger nails, they gasp with bloody thing tooth jaws, and 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:58.000 if they catch you, they will drain every last ounce 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:02.400 of precious chea from your body. Oh I got the shivers. Yeah, 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:05.799 I think. I think the thing about the hopping, really, 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:08.360 the hopping is key because it's such a vital part 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:12.000 of of the folklore, and yet at the same time 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:16.120 it can seem ridiculous because it is so unnatural, and 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:18.160 sometimes it's hard for us to really like figure out, 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:21.320 like where does at what point does the unnatural become 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:24.160 the ridiculous? At what point does the ridiculous then become 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:28.120 the uncanny? Well, yeah, I mean, I won't deny that 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:30.880 it looks funny in the movie when they're hopping, and 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:33.440 it clearly is supposed to look funny in the movie, 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:35.520 because this isn't like a straight horror movie. This is 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:39.200 a horror comedy. But I can see how the hopping 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:43.400 could be quite unnerving given the right cultural associations, And 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:45.320 if it were, I don't know, maybe if it were 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:48.480 filmed from the right angle too, because like you can 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:50.600 get the funny aspects, like it's kind of a sack 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:54.280 Ray zombie, right, It's just the feet can't move independently. 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:56.599 It's hopping up and down with the arms outstretched. But 0:06:56.680 --> 0:07:00.320 on the other hand, it symbolizes that this body no 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:02.960 longer works as it should. In fact, it is no 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:08.440 longer really a human body, but something else exactly. So, 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:11.360 so that's the the Jiangxi. But as as most of 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:13.080 you know from listening to stuff to blow your mind, 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:17.520 monsters don't just exist in a vacuum. Monsters always means something. 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:20.280 And so I was curious, like I know a number 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:22.440 of you are curious, where does this come from, What 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:24.560 does it mean? What is the hopping all about? Why 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:27.160 does the riga mortis seem to be so key to 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:30.680 this depiction of the undead? And I ran Randy. I 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:32.720 looked at a few different sources, and then I found 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:37.080 this paper by historian Juhy Sue. And this is actually 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:41.120 their Doctor of Philosophy dissertation at Washington University from twenty nineteen, 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:45.000 but it's titled The Afterlife of Corpses, A Social History 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.800 of Unburied Dead bodies in the Ching dynasty sixty four 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:51.640 through nineteen eleven. Interesting, So, what can you tell us 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:55.720 about these creatures? Okay? So, while Chinese mythology and folklore 0:07:55.760 --> 0:07:58.600 is filled with various ghosts and monsters, obviously, uh, the 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:01.760 jang Hi seemed to immerge out of a Ching dynasty 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:05.720 crisis concerning the burial of the dead. So Sue writes 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:09.120 that numerous records from the eighteenth and nineteenth century discussed 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:12.960 the problem of unburied bodies left on the ground without 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:15.880 proper burial. And the the interesting thing is these were 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:20.080 not exclusively, say, the victims of war or famine or disaster, 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:23.120 you know, something where even in the best of situations 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:26.960 can overwhelm your ability to deal with the dead. They 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:30.080 were seemingly, for the most part, individuals who simply had 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:33.840 no permanent grave, and this, Sue writes, was due to 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:37.520 changing socio economic structure during this time period and the 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:43.320 resulting imbalance between population and arable land. Interesting. Yeah, so, 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:45.760 I mean the idea here is that a family would 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:48.360 need a secure claim to the land in order to 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:51.760 bury a deceased loved one, and if a grave could 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:54.640 not be obtained, then they were then the body would 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:56.880 would just be left out or would be uh you know, 0:08:56.920 --> 0:09:00.520 abandoned or lost, um, you know, not necess necessarily like 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:04.280 immediately discarded, but it might be put somewhere and then 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:07.160 it would never find its way to a permanent destination. 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:10.480 This actually plays into the movie. I hadn't thought about this, 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:13.520 but in the plot of Mr. Vampire. Though again this 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:17.440 is a comedy movie, part of the incitement of the 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:20.720 vampire curse in this film seems to be a dispute 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:24.079 about over the land on which a body is buried. 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:27.800 That there's like a dispute between this wealthy family. Uh 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:31.559 this you know, this wealthy family with this businessman patriarch 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:36.000 and a fortune teller who originally wanted access to some 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:39.800 kind of burial plot, and the businessman bought it off 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:42.840 the for fortune teller seemingly with some kind of coercion 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:45.839 for the for the purchase because it was said to 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:48.520 be a very lucky place to bury a body that 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:51.320 would bring great fortune to the further, you know, the 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:55.160 future generations of the family. But obviously the fortune teller 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:57.720 who was forced to sell the land didn't like this, 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:00.720 and so a dispute about land to rights and the 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:02.880 burial of the body seems to be at the root 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:07.040 of whatever black magic causes the vampire to begin with. Yeah, 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:10.280 and that that plays right into this this historical setting 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:13.280 out of which it emerges this idea that that that 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:17.080 land in which you can properly bury the dead and 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:20.280 do the dead justice, uh, is in short supply, and 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:23.720 not everyone has has the access that they once enjoyed 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.839 to it. And while the sue rights that while the 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:32.280 the young Non region was most impacted by this situation, 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:36.120 it became an empire wide crisis because it wasn't just 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:39.480 about the dead and then dealing with the dead, but 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:43.680 it perceived cultural decline and funeral custom and and even 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:47.840 a decline in devotion to one's ancestors, which has an 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:51.640 enormous cultural significance. Well, this is another thing I would 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:55.960 say in in Mr. Vampire. Again, it's hard to say 0:10:56.000 --> 0:10:58.360 because the movie I would say is ultimately it's it's 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:01.800 a light comedy, you know, it's light horror, martial arts comedy, 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:03.960 so it's not getting too serious about anything. But I 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:08.160 also I kind of detect a strain of critique of 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:11.480 modernity and it generally and it's set during so it 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:14.679 was made in the nineteen eighties, but it's set during 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:17.840 the Republican period of China, so in the first half 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:20.200 of the twentieth century, and in it there seems to 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:23.360 be a sort of a critique of of a modern, 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:27.160 maybe Western influenced way of living. There's a very comedic 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:32.239 police officer who seems to embody all the negative attributes 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:35.720 all of the police like he is abusive and stupid, 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:37.960 and you know, is is framing the wrong guy for 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:41.640 the murder, is not addressing any problems. And so there's 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:44.720 this idea, yeah, that the the government and the law 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:48.640 is not maintaining any the necessary order and that this 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:53.440 lack of order also applies to our our honor to 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:57.040 the dead. Yeah. And so the character in the movie 0:11:57.040 --> 0:11:59.719 who wants to have his ancestor reburied, which again this 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:02.800 one the inciting incidents in the film, he seems to 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:05.840 be making decisions that could be again I don't know 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:08.480 exactly the right cultural way to read this, but I 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:12.000 think it is to be interpreted as he's making decisions 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:15.880 that are somewhat disrespectful to his own ancestors in hopes 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:19.200 of making money. Yeah, Okay, well, we're maybe sort of 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:21.600 getting ahead of ourselves here because we started getting into 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.240 the details. But Rob, what's the basic elevator pitch for 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:27.280 Mr Vampire before we hit the trailer audio? All right? 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:30.680 When Sheean dynasty vampires rise up and cause havoc in 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:34.000 early twentieth century China. Again, this is the Republic of China. 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:37.680 Only the Dallas priest Master Gao and his two assistants 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:40.439 can stop the evil. You know, you kind of get 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:42.640 the sense that Master Gau would have had a better 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:46.559 chance stopping the evil without his two assistants. Well, it's 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:50.160 hard to get good help in the vampire busting business. Yes, 0:12:50.559 --> 0:13:11.120 let's hear some audio here going again, I'm gonna I'm 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:34.960 not hey do all right? So that is, I believe 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:38.079 from the original Cantonese trailer. So that is if you 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:41.760 if there's any language in any dialogue in that trailer 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:45.480 that you heard, that is Cantonese, and um, I I 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:48.920 recommend watching the film in Cantonese if you can. I listened. 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:52.120 I watched about half of it dubbed and then switched 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:56.000 over to Cantonese with subtitles. Yeah about halfway through, and 0:13:56.120 --> 0:13:59.840 I really enjoyed the original language more. I was going 0:13:59.880 --> 0:14:02.440 to say the same thing. I watched it with the 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:05.080 Cantonese audio with subtitles, and I think that's the better 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:06.520 way to do it, because there's a lot of the 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:09.560 line delivery in Cantonese that is quite funny, even though 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.319 even if you don't speak cantonies, can't understand what they're saying. 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:14.720 I would single out the main star of the movie, 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:19.479 Chining Lamb for some of his very funny, stern delivery 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:22.240 of particular lines in certain scenes, like I really like 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:25.880 the scene where his his assistant who is turning into 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:28.200 a vampire, is saying, like, what's going to happen to me? 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:30.880 And he says, your blood will stiffen, and then he says, well, 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:32.800 how what will happen when it stiffens? And he says 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:36.680 it will get hard, And it's the way he delivers 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:39.200 his lines in the original language I think is much funnier. 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:42.720 Yeah yeah, um. And we'll get back to him. But 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:44.440 he is. He is indeed great in this. It's hard 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:47.560 to imagine that the film without him, because his character 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:51.360 is at once stern and serious and heroic and capable, 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:54.440 and he had at the same time does occasionally look 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:57.320 like a buffoon, as is befitting of a horror comedy, 0:14:57.320 --> 0:14:59.240 but it's a careful line to walk, like how do 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.800 you make your hear row buffoonish enough but also a 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:06.040 capable action horror star. I want to come back to 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:08.640 that theme. All right, Well, let's let's start talking about 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:11.320 some of the folks involved in this film, because it 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:13.760 does have a lot of interesting people in it. Uh. 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:16.640 First of all, let's talk about the director, who also 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:19.920 was one of the screenwriters, Ricky Law. Law was born 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:24.240 in nineteen nine and Mr. Vampire is his big hit. 0:15:24.400 --> 0:15:26.040 I mean, it was a huge hit, so he went 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:29.200 on to do and is still doing plenty of films 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:33.240 in this vein, including The Romance of the Vampires in 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:39.000 nine and more recently Dallas Priest One, a film starring 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:42.080 Sue Ho Chin, one of the stars from Mr. Vampire. 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:45.600 This this is a trend. We'll see a lot. Who 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:48.920 is Sue Ho Chen in Mr Vampire. He's the handsome assistant. 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:52.080 Uh and we'll get to him in a second. Oh yeah, okay, yeah, 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:56.400 he's good now with the producer on this film is 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:59.280 also a huge name in Hong Kong cinema, though I'm 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:02.480 to understand he is largely hands off with Mr. Vampire. 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:05.640 But we have to point out that Samuel Hung was 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:08.240 the producer. And I think everybody's heard of Samue Hung. 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:10.040 He's one of the he's one of the biggest names 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:13.400 in Hong Kong cinema, certainly outside of Hong Kong, well, 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:15.600 when you get into like just international cinema. He's one 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:17.640 of those people who you just look at a picture 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:19.760 of him and you're like, that guy's the boss. He's 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:24.200 the boss of something. Yeah. Yeah, legendary rotund Hong Kong actor, 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:28.720 martial artist, producer and director and um yeah, he's he's 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:30.560 been in done so many things. In fact, he was 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:34.480 in one of the other key films of this genre, 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.200 this the horror comedy, the Hong Kong horror Comedy, and 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:40.160 that was an Encounters of the Spooky Kind that occurred, 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:42.560 uh several years later. It was it was sort of 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:46.040 the first big horror comedy as I understand it. Oh yeah, 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:48.560 so I also wanted to see Encounters of the Spooky Kind. 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:50.480 I haven't seen that one either. But is it also 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:54.000 about Jiung Shi or is it about something else? I 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:57.080 am not entirely sure, but it one of the same 0:16:57.120 --> 0:16:59.760 writers was involved in it. Um so I know that 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:02.440 it had as it at least has spooky stuff in it. 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:04.919 It has encounters of the spooky kind in it, But 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:07.040 I said, I sadly haven't seen it yet. It's really 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:08.960 the next one I should see because it's it's a 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:11.920 huge and very influential. Now, I was reading in a 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:15.399 book called Spooky Encounter. It's a Guilos Guide to Hong 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:19.920 Kong Horror by Daniel O'Brien, and in that O'Brien says 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:23.080 that that Hung wasn't was Samo. Hung was inspired by 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:26.840 stories that his mother told him when he was a child, 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:30.359 as well as a particular story from Poush Song Lings 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:33.679 Tales from a Chinese Studio, which I was excited to 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:37.120 read because I'm really fond of tales from a Chinese studio. 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:40.520 I have the I think it's the Penguin Books edition, 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:44.400 which doesn't include all of Poushong Ling's stories and retellings 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:47.399 of these various weird tales from China, but it has 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:49.560 a number of them. Now, you sent me a link 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:52.320 to a e book version of this that did have 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:54.520 the story in it, and so I read this story 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:56.639 the one. The story is called the resurrect or no, 0:17:56.760 --> 0:18:00.560 not the resurrection corps, the resuscitated corpse. Yes, I believe 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:03.119 you're right, and it's uh, I was, I was improused. 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:06.080 So the thing about possong links stories is that they 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:11.040 vary wildly in tone. There are some where basically just 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:13.560 he's He's like, hey, um, this scholar from such and 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:16.040 such city told me about this thing that once happened, 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:19.560 and it was weird, and that's the end. Uh. My 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:22.600 son and I enjoy reading them together. And occasionally they 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:24.679 just stopped abruptly like that. It's like a man solid 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:28.120 fairy in the woods the end, um a man saw 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:31.920 some fleas do a cool uh trick or circus performance 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:35.639 on a backpack the end. Other times they're longer. Sometimes 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:39.720 they're just really grotesque and brutal, like a troll choose 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:42.199 on somebody's skull, and then they never find out what 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:44.200 it was about. There's a lot of never finding out 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:48.960 what happened. Something strange happens and no explanation has ever made, 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:51.920 nothing has ever, you know, really done about it. Other 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:54.639 Times they're humorous. Sometimes they're a little bit on the 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:58.880 raunchy side, uh in rare instances. But yeah, this one 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:01.520 is I think an example of of a story that 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:07.119 is both terrifying in parts but also ultimately ridiculous and humorous. Yeah, so, 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:10.240 the basic story here is that there are four travelers 0:19:10.720 --> 0:19:13.399 who arrive at is it an inn or a house 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:15.119 that they're they're on the road, and they get to 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:17.000 someplace where they really need to stay for the night 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:19.879 because the night has come on and they can't stay outside, 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:22.640 and there's no it must be an inn because basically 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:25.679 there's no room at the end, and they say, okay, 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:27.600 well can you give us somewhere to stay, you know, 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:30.280 even if we don't have our own rooms. And so 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:33.800 the homeowner, the innkeeper, is like, well, okay, you can 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:36.760 stay in this room with my dead daughter in law's 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:41.280 corpse that hasn't been buried yet. Very very good, very cool. 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:43.720 And this is of course getting into the idea, you know, 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:46.280 like she hasn't been buried yet perhaps because they have 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:48.720 they have not found a place to bury her right, 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:51.359 and again getting into these big concerns about you know, 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:54.919 maybe bad magic comes on when somebody doesn't receive the 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:58.720 right kind of ritual burial in a timely manner. So 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:01.480 the four travelers go to sleep in the room and 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:03.360 then in the middle of the night, one of them 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:06.640 wakes up and realizes that the body of the dead 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:09.040 daughter in law is getting up off of the table 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:12.160 where it's resting, and the dead daughter in law goes 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:16.000 around to each of the sleeping travelers and breathes in 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:19.159 their faces, and the breathing on them there seems to 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:23.000 be something very sinister about this. But eventually the one 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:26.199 traveler who's awake while this is happening gets up and 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:29.080 runs out, and the dead daughter in law is very 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:32.159 mad about him running away, and she chases him, chases 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:35.560 him all the way to a monastery where he bangs 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:37.320 on the door and begs to be let in, and 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:38.880 the priest is like, I don't know who you are. 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:42.760 You can't come in, And so he's running around outside. 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:46.240 He hides behind a tree and then the the zombie 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:50.280 lady attacks him, but gets her arms wrapped around the tree. 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:54.080 Did I understand that right? Yeah? Like basically like he 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:56.600 she reaches to the left and he ducks to the 0:20:56.600 --> 0:20:59.119 other side, and then she reaches on that side, he 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:01.080 ducks the other side. They're just going back and forth. 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:03.720 It's like it's it's very much a Hong Kong martial 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:08.520 arts comedy skit, and they do this until they're absolutely exhausted, 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:11.040 the both of them, even the corpse. Uh. And then 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:13.639 I guess the corpse gets the bright idea, I'll just 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:15.760 reach out and grab him on both sides of the 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:18.919 tree at the same time. But then what happens is 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:23.000 her long, scary ghost fingernails get stuck in the tree, 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:25.560 and so she's just stuck to the trees. And the 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:29.760 next morning the authorities come and this resurrected corpse is 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:32.159 stuck to the tree with her fingernails in the wood 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:36.240 the end. And that's the great thing about the stories. 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:38.600 I think I think the last I may be remembering 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:40.240 this wrong, but I think the last line is something 0:21:40.280 --> 0:21:43.560 like the local governor made a report of the incident. Yes, 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:46.159 they often ill often that's the form of these stories. 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:49.800 They'll often begin with saying, uh, telling you who told 0:21:49.840 --> 0:21:52.080 you this? Who told him this story? You know to 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:53.320 give it, I guess kind of it gives it an 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:56.399 air of authenticity. Or it ends with something like that, 0:21:56.480 --> 0:22:00.560 saying like where it's recorded, and uh, yeah, I love it, 0:22:00.800 --> 0:22:04.959 and then everything was fine. So Mr Vampire not a 0:22:05.000 --> 0:22:07.720 direct adaptation of that, but you can definitely see some 0:22:07.760 --> 0:22:09.240