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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob

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Speaker 1: and this is Joe and we're bringing you an episode

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Speaker 1: from the vault today. Uh. This is one that we

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Speaker 1: did on the movie Mr Vampire, a great martial arts

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Speaker 1: hopping vampire movie of of Hong Kong cinema from what

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Speaker 1: is this? I guess this came out in nine five?

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Speaker 1: Is that right? That's correct. Yeah. It has kicks, it

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Speaker 1: has furniture, it has rice was so much great rice action.

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Speaker 1: This is a really fun flick. Yeah. It always has

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Speaker 1: a great uh Taoist priest who who who knows all

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Speaker 1: the spells to keep the dead from reviving? Uh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's It's a lot of fun. So this one originally

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Speaker 1: published on July nine, and we hope you enjoyed this

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Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema rewind. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your

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Speaker 1: Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird

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Speaker 1: House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 1: And today we are hopping into the world of Daoist sorcery,

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Speaker 1: Hong Kong monsters, glutinous rice, martial arts, and and much

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Speaker 1: more with our very first Jong She movie. I've been

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Speaker 1: wanting to do one of these movies for a while

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Speaker 1: because I had never actually seen a Young She film

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Speaker 1: and uh and and I was aware of them for

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Speaker 1: a while having I guess I've seen like pictures of

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Speaker 1: them on the internet. Uh so, so this has been

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Speaker 1: in my mind for years, and finally we got to

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Speaker 1: see one. Today We're gonna be talking about Mr Vampire. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I'm excited as well because I think I was in

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Speaker 1: the same boat as you. I I knew about Jan She.

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Speaker 1: I knew they they existed in in Chinese folklore as

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Speaker 1: as being this kind of vampire, kind of zombie zombie

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Speaker 1: creature with with unique characteristics all their own. But I'd

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Speaker 1: never watched a Jiangshi movie. Uh Though, interestingly enough, right

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Speaker 1: this was before you brought up the idea of of

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Speaker 1: of of doing one. I had picked up the new

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Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons book Van Ripton's Guide to Raven Loft,

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Speaker 1: and it includes a domain in it inspired by Chinese

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Speaker 1: mythology and folklore, so it includes stats for Jiangshi monsters.

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Speaker 1: It's a in in Dungeons and Dragons. It's a ninth

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Speaker 1: level undead entity with the power to drain the energy

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Speaker 1: of its victims and a shape shift, so young she

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Speaker 1: is both a class of Chinese mythological monster and a

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Speaker 1: specific genre of especially nineteen eighties Hong Kong martial arts

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Speaker 1: comedy films. That's correct, Yeah, it's and this is one

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Speaker 1: of the big films. We started looking around like, well,

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Speaker 1: which which youngshi movies should we do? And the signs

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Speaker 1: increasingly pointed to Mr Vampire from five because it's it

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Speaker 1: was a huge hit. It was responsible for really popularizing

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Speaker 1: it in not only within Chinese cinema and creating a

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Speaker 1: whole sub genre, but also spreading out and it was

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Speaker 1: very popular in Japan and ultimately you know across to

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Speaker 1: to Uh to the West as well. So and also

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Speaker 1: this is the one we could rent from our local

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Speaker 1: video store video drum. Yeah, these movies are not widely

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Speaker 1: digitally available, at least that I could find, but at

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Speaker 1: least not right now. I feel like they have been recently.

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Speaker 1: But um, I have to say, Amazon Prime used to

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Speaker 1: be my go to place for a lot of weird movies,

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Speaker 1: but I feel like their selection is not as expansive

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Speaker 1: as it was just a couple of years ago. So Mr.

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Speaker 1: Vampire is really a title that sort of grabs me

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Speaker 1: by the fangs or by the fingernails, as it may be.

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Speaker 1: To begin with, Uh, there's something a little bit cheeky

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Speaker 1: about it. But also I think this is not a

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Speaker 1: direct translation of the original title, which I think uh

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Speaker 1: in the Cantonese original title was it translates to like

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Speaker 1: hold your breath for a moment or something. Ah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and that and the reason for that is because that's

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Speaker 1: that's one of the plot points. And how do you

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Speaker 1: avoid the young she discovering where you are and draining

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Speaker 1: the life out of you. Well, just don't breathe and

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Speaker 1: then it can't detect your presence. But Mr Vampire, Uh,

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Speaker 1: that that also that also kind of works. It's it's

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Speaker 1: not the name of a vampire in it, but it's

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Speaker 1: referring to our main character, who is a Dallas priest

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Speaker 1: whose expertise is the management and sometimes slaying of of

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Speaker 1: of vampires, and therefore he's Mr Vampire in the same

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Speaker 1: way that someone who comes and fixes your pipes might

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Speaker 1: be Mr Plumbing or Mr Plumber. I was thinking of

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Speaker 1: it more along the lines of Mr Coffee, Like he

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Speaker 1: is a machine that is designed to perfectly execute this function,

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Speaker 1: and so in this case, our hero in the film,

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Speaker 1: the Taoist priest played by Uh Chining Lamb, is the

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Speaker 1: machine that perfectly executes the Jung She cycle. So let's

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Speaker 1: talk for just a little bit about the young She

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Speaker 1: because some of you may be super familiar with this already.

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Speaker 1: Maybe you've read the New Raven Loft book and so

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Speaker 1: you know, you're like, I know all the stats, Rob,

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Speaker 1: you don't have to go into the details, but I

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Speaker 1: will anyway because it's super interesting and I think it

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Speaker 1: it enhances our understanding of this film. Even though this

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Speaker 1: film is very much a horror comedy, it's not like

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Speaker 1: it has I think, you know, really deep things to say,

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Speaker 1: but it is. It is a treatment of some of

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

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

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Speaker 1: first of all, jang She literally means the stiff or

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Speaker 1: the rigid dead, and uh and and and the reason

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Speaker 1: for that will become clear when we start talking about

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Speaker 1: how they move, especially, So I'd love to just set

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Speaker 1: the scene for you here if I may. Okay, let's

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Speaker 1: get it. Imagine yourself out on a road so frustratingly

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Speaker 1: close to the walls of the city you've been traveling to,

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Speaker 1: and yet night is falling, the mist is rolling in,

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Speaker 1: and then up ahead you see several figures in the gloom.

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

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

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Speaker 1: there 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 bipedal 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 Chain 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 chee from your body. Yeah, I think I

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Speaker 1: think the thing about the hopping really the hopping is

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Speaker 1: key because it's such a vital part of of the folklore,

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Speaker 1: and yet at the same time it can seem ridiculous

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Speaker 1: because it is so unnatural, and sometimes it's hard for

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Speaker 1: us to really like figure out, like where does at

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

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Speaker 1: point does the ridiculous then become the uncanny? Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I won't deny that it looks funny in

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Speaker 1: the movie when they're hopping, and it clearly is supposed

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Speaker 1: to look funny in the movie because this isn't like

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Speaker 1: a straight horror movie. This is a horror comedy. But

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Speaker 1: I can see how the hopping could be quite unnerving

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Speaker 1: given the right cultural associations, and if it were I

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Speaker 1: don't know, maybe if it were filmed from the right

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Speaker 1: angle to because like you can get the funny aspects,

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Speaker 1: like it's kind of a sack Ray zombie, right, it's

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Speaker 1: just the feet can't move independently. It's hopping up and

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Speaker 1: down with the arms outstretched. But on the other hand,

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Speaker 1: it symbolizes that this body no longer works as it should.

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Speaker 1: In fact, it is no longer really a human body,

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Speaker 1: but something else exactly so, so that's the the Yangshi.

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Speaker 1: But as as most of you know from listening to

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Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind, monsters don't just exist in

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Speaker 1: a vacuum. Monsters always means something. And so I was curious,

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Speaker 1: like I know a number of you are curious, where

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Speaker 1: does this come from, what does it mean? What is

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Speaker 1: the hopping all about? Why does the riga mortis seem

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Speaker 1: to be so key to this depiction of the undead?

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Speaker 1: And I read rand Acry. I looked at a few

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Speaker 1: different sources, and then I found this paper by historian

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Speaker 1: Juhy Sue. And this is actually their Doctor of Philosophy

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Speaker 1: dissertation at Washington University from twenty nineteen. But it's titled

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Speaker 1: The Afterlife of Corpses, A Social History of Unburied dead

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Speaker 1: Bodies in the Ching Dynasty sixty four through nineteen eleven. Interesting,

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Speaker 1: So what can you tell us about these creatures? Okay? So,

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Speaker 1: while Chinese mythology and folklore is filled with various ghosts

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Speaker 1: and monsters, obviously, uh the jiang Xi seemed to emerge

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Speaker 1: out of a Ching Dynasty crisis concerning the burial of

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Speaker 1: the dead. So Sue writes that numerous records from the

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Speaker 1: eighteenth and nineteenth century discussed the problem of unburied bodies

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Speaker 1: left on the ground without proper burial. And the interesting

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Speaker 1: thing is these were not exclusively say, the victims of

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Speaker 1: war or famine or disaster, you know, something where even

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Speaker 1: in the best of situations can overwhelm your ability to

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Speaker 1: deal with the dead. They were seemingly, for the most part,

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Speaker 1: individuals who simply had no permanent grave, and this, Sue writes,

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Speaker 1: was due to changing socio economic structure during this time

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Speaker 1: period and the 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 necessarily like immediately discarded,

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Speaker 1: but it might be put somewhere and then it would

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Speaker 1: never find its way to a permanent destination. This actually

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

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

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Speaker 1: a comedy movie. Part of the incitement of the vampire

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: was forced to sell the land didn't like this. And

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Speaker 1: so a dispute about land rights and the burial of

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

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

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

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

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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, while the the

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Speaker 1: young non region was most impacted by this situation. It

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

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Speaker 1: the dead and in dealing with the dead, but it

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

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Speaker 1: decline in devotion to 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 in it, really 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 framing the wrong guy for the

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

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Speaker 1: that the the government and the law is not maintaining

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Speaker 1: any the necessary order, and that this lack of order

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Speaker 1: also applies to our our honor to the dead. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And so the character in the movie who wants to

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Speaker 1: have his ancestor reburied, which again, this is one of

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Speaker 1: the inciting incidents in the film. He seems to be

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

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

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Speaker 1: it is to be inter pritty 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 Gal 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. Were gonna again that I'm not okay,

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Speaker 1: all right? So that is, I believe from the original

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Speaker 1: Cantonese trailer. So that is if you if there's any

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Speaker 1: language in any dialogue in that trailer that you heard

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Speaker 1: that is Cantonese, and um, I I recommend watching the

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Speaker 1: film in Cantonese if you can. I listened. I watched

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Speaker 1: about half of it dubbed and then switched over to

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Speaker 1: Cantonese with subtitles. Yeah, about halfway through, and I really

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Speaker 1: enjoyed the original language more. I was gonna say the

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Speaker 1: same thing. I watched it with the Cantonese audio with subtitles,

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Speaker 1: and I think that's the better way to do it,

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Speaker 1: because there's a lot of the line delivery in Cantonese

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Speaker 1: that is quite funny, even even if you don't speak

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Speaker 1: can't and he can't understand what they're saying. I would

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Speaker 1: single out the main star of the movie, Chining Lamb

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

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Speaker 1: lines in certain scenes, like I really like the scene

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Speaker 1: where his his assistant who is turning into a vampire,

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

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Speaker 1: 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. Yeah, yeah, um,

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Speaker 1: And we'll get back to him. But he is. He

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Speaker 1: is indeed great in this It's hard to imagine that

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Speaker 1: the film without him, because his character is at once

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Speaker 1: stern and serious and heroic and capable, and he had

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Speaker 1: at the same time does occasionally look like a buffoon

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Speaker 1: as his befitting of a horror comedy. But it's a

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Speaker 1: careful line to walk, like how do you make your

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Speaker 1: hero buffoonish enough but also a capable action horror star.

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Speaker 1: I want to come back to that theme. All right, Well,

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Speaker 1: let's let's start talking about some of the folks involved

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Speaker 1: in this film, because it does have a lot of

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Speaker 1: interesting people in it. Uh. First of all, let's talk

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Speaker 1: about the director, who also was one of the screenwriters,

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Speaker 1: Ricky law Low was born in nineteen nine and Mr.

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Speaker 1: Vampire is is his big hit. I mean it was

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Speaker 1: a huge hit. So he went on to do and

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Speaker 1: is still doing plenty of films in this vein h

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Speaker 1: including The Romance of the Vampires in nineteen and more

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Speaker 1: recently Dallas Prieste, a film starring Sue Ho Chin, one

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Speaker 1: of the stars from Mr. Vampire. This this is a trend.

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Speaker 1: We'll see a lot. Who is Sue Ho Chen in

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Speaker 1: Mr Vampire. He's the handsome assistant. Uh and we'll get

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Speaker 1: to him in a second. Yeah, okay, yeah, he's good

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Speaker 1: now with the producer on this film is also a

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Speaker 1: huge name in Hong Kong cinema, though I'm to understand

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Speaker 1: he was largely hands off with Mr. Vampire. But we

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Speaker 1: have to point out that Samuel Hung was the producer. Um,

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Speaker 1: and I think everybody's heard of Sama Hung. He's one

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Speaker 1: of the he's one of the big his names in

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: Of something. Yeah, yeah, legendary rotund Hong Kong actor, martial artist,

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Speaker 1: producer and director. And um yeah, he's he's been in

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Speaker 1: it's been so many things. In fact, he was in

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

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Speaker 1: the horror comedy, the Hong Kong Horror Comedy, and that

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: has it at least has spooky stuff in it. It

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Speaker 1: has Encounters of the Spooky Kind in it. But I said,

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Speaker 1: I sadly haven't seen it yet. It's really the next

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Speaker 1: one I should see because it's it's a huge and

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Speaker 1: very influential. Now. I was reading in a book called

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Speaker 1: Spooky Encounter It's a Guilo's Guide to Hong Kong Horror

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

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Speaker 1: Hung wasn't was. Samohung was inspired by stories that his

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Speaker 1: mother told him when he was a child, as well

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Speaker 1: as a particular story from Poushsong Ling's Tales from a

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Speaker 1: Chinese Studio, which I was excited to read because I'm

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Speaker 1: really fond of Tales from a Chinese Studio. I have

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Speaker 1: the I think it's the Penguin Books edition, which doesn't

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Speaker 1: include all of Poushong Ling's stories and retellings of these

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Speaker 1: various weird tales from China, but it has a number

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

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Speaker 1: e book version of this that did have the story

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

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Speaker 1: The story is called the resurrect Or. No, not the

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Speaker 1: Resurrector Corps, the Resuscitated Corps. Yes, I believe you're right,

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Speaker 1: and it's uh. I was. I was improuded. So the

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Speaker 1: thing about Pooh song links stories is that they 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.

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: night because the night has come on, and that they

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Speaker 1: can't stay outside and there's no it must be an

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Speaker 1: inn because basically there's no room at the end, and

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Speaker 1: they say, okay, well can you give us somewhere to stay,

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Speaker 1: you know, even if we don't have our own rooms,

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Speaker 1: And so the homeowner, the innkeeper, is like, well, okay,

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Speaker 1: you can stay in this room with my dead daughter

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Speaker 1: in law's corpse that hasn't been buried yet, right, very

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Speaker 1: very good, very cool. And this is of course getting

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Speaker 1: into the idea, you know, like she hasn't been buried

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Speaker 1: yet perhaps because they have, they have not found a

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Speaker 1: place to bury her, right, and again getting into these

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Speaker 1: big concerns about you know, maybe bad magic comes on

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Speaker 1: when somebody doesn't receive the right kind of ritual burial

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Speaker 1: in a timely manner. So the four travelers go to

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Speaker 1: sleep in the room, and then in the middle of

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Speaker 1: the night, one of them wakes up and realizes that

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Speaker 1: the body of the dead daughter in law is getting

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Speaker 1: up off of the table where it's resting, and the

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Speaker 1: dead daughter in law goes around to each of the

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Speaker 1: sleeping travelers and breathes in their faces, and the breathing

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Speaker 1: on them there seems to be something very sinister about this,

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Speaker 1: But eventually the one traveler who's awake while this is happening,

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Speaker 1: gets up and runs out, and the dead daughter in

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Speaker 1: law is very mad about him running away, and she

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Speaker 1: chases him, chases him all the way to a monastery

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Speaker 1: where he bangs on the door and begs to be

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Speaker 1: let in, and the priest is like, I don't know

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Speaker 1: who you are, you can't come in, And so he's

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Speaker 1: running around outside. He hides behind a tree and then

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Speaker 1: the the zombie lady attacks him, but gets her arms

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Speaker 1: wrapped around the tree. Did I understand that right? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Like basically, like he she reaches to the left and

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Speaker 1: he ducks to the other side, and then she reaches

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Speaker 1: on that side and he ducks the other side, and

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Speaker 1: they're just going back and forth. It's like it's it's

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Speaker 1: very much a Hong Kong martial arts comedy skit. And

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Speaker 1: they do this until they're absolutely exhausted, the both of them,

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Speaker 1: even the corpse. Uh. And then I guess the corpse

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Speaker 1: gets the bright idea, I'll just reach out and grab

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Speaker 1: him on both sides of the tree at the same time.

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Speaker 1: But then what happens is her long scary ghost fingernails

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Speaker 1: get stuck in the tree, and so she's just stuck

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Speaker 1: to the trees, and the next morning the authorities come

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Speaker 1: and this resurrected corpse is stuck to the tree with

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Speaker 1: her fingernails in the wood. The end. And that's the

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00:22:25,640 --> 00:22:27,840
Speaker 1: great thing about this stories. I think I think the

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Speaker 1: last I may be remembering this wrong, but I think

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Speaker 1: the last line is something like the local governor made

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Speaker 1: a report of the incident. Yes, they often ill often

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Speaker 1: that's the form of these stories. They'll often begin with saying, uh,

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Speaker 1: telling you who told you this? Who told him this story?

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Speaker 1: You know, to give it, I guess kind of it

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Speaker 1: gives it an air of authenticity. Or it ends with

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Speaker 1: something like that, saying like where it was recorded, and uh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I love it? And then everything was fine. So Mr

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Speaker 1: Vampire not a direct adaptation of that, but you can

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Speaker 1: definitely see some of the connections there, some of the

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Speaker 1: you know, the com edy car right, alright. So a

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Speaker 1: couple of the screenwriters were just gonna blow through here

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Speaker 1: kind of quickly, but they were accomplished screenwriters. There's Chuck

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Speaker 1: Hon Sato I believe it is, who wrote on some

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Speaker 1: major Hong Kong films featuring stars such as Jackie Chan

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Speaker 1: and Jet Lee. Their screenwriter Barry Wong who lived, who

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Speaker 1: worked on such films as Fight Back to School starring

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Speaker 1: Stephen Chow, and two different John Wu films, Heart Boiled

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Speaker 1: and The Killer, both starring Chow Yun Fat, some of

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Speaker 1: the most famous of the recent well not that recent anymore,

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Speaker 1: but recent decades Hong Kong action movies. Yeah, definitely names

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Speaker 1: in Hong Kong cinema that resonate globally. Yeah, but it's

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Speaker 1: interesting to see the connection to Stephen Chow as well,

427
00:23:46,560 --> 00:23:49,560
Speaker 1: because I would say, in many ways, I think Stephen

428
00:23:49,640 --> 00:23:52,840
Speaker 1: Chow is kind of a modern inheritor of this kind

429
00:23:52,880 --> 00:23:57,240
Speaker 1: of martial arts action comedy thing with with supernatural elements

430
00:23:57,240 --> 00:23:59,920
Speaker 1: like we see in Mr. Vampire. Not so much in

431
00:24:00,040 --> 00:24:04,040
Speaker 1: the horror vein, but still supernatural fighting comedies. I'm thinking

432
00:24:04,040 --> 00:24:06,840
Speaker 1: of his working Kung Fu Hustle, I think has some

433
00:24:06,840 --> 00:24:10,120
Speaker 1: some some inspiration points in films like Mr. Vampire would

434
00:24:10,119 --> 00:24:12,840
Speaker 1: seem to me. Now, the story on this film came

435
00:24:12,920 --> 00:24:15,520
Speaker 1: from Ying Wong, who was born in nineteen sixty eight.

436
00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:18,280
Speaker 1: And I don't know much about Ying Wong, but he's

437
00:24:18,320 --> 00:24:20,120
Speaker 1: had his hands in a number of really cool looking

438
00:24:20,160 --> 00:24:23,600
Speaker 1: film projects, both as a writer and a director. He

439
00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:26,359
Speaker 1: wrote the novel that served as the basis for nineteen

440
00:24:26,440 --> 00:24:30,040
Speaker 1: eight threes Bastard Swordsman, and his other credits include Return

441
00:24:30,040 --> 00:24:33,640
Speaker 1: of the Demon from seven, which he also directed nineteen

442
00:24:33,720 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 1: nineties The Swordsman, and an interesting looking Chinese mummy movie,

443
00:24:37,280 --> 00:24:39,800
Speaker 1: which said just based on based on the cover, it

444
00:24:39,800 --> 00:24:44,720
Speaker 1: looks like it involves like jade armor, like jade burial armor. Um.

445
00:24:44,760 --> 00:24:48,200
Speaker 1: And I think that that one also has Ghostbusters in it. Uh,

446
00:24:48,440 --> 00:24:53,480
Speaker 1: not you know, our Ghostbusters, but in general Ghostbusters. Most notably, however,

447
00:24:53,680 --> 00:24:57,200
Speaker 1: Wong co wrote the that other earlier important Hong Kong

448
00:24:57,240 --> 00:25:01,320
Speaker 1: supernatural comedy Encounters of the Spooky Kind uh that starred

449
00:25:01,359 --> 00:25:04,520
Speaker 1: Semo Hung in nineteen eighty. Okay, well that one's still

450
00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:06,960
Speaker 1: in the list for me. But I feel like we

451
00:25:07,040 --> 00:25:08,800
Speaker 1: got to get to our star. We've been sort of

452
00:25:09,359 --> 00:25:11,880
Speaker 1: burying the lead as we sometimes do here because I've

453
00:25:11,880 --> 00:25:14,720
Speaker 1: just been wanting to talk about Chin Ying Lamb. Yes,

454
00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:19,560
Speaker 1: he plays Mr Gao a k A Mr Vampire. Um,

455
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:21,680
Speaker 1: he's a He's an actor who lived nineteen fifty two

456
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:26,840
Speaker 1: through so, you know, sadly short lived, but boy he

457
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:30,359
Speaker 1: he acted a lot during that period. Um. He's very

458
00:25:30,440 --> 00:25:33,200
Speaker 1: much the star of this picture. He's our Mono Brow

459
00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:37,080
Speaker 1: Dallas priest who specializes in the handling of Jiangshi and

460
00:25:37,119 --> 00:25:40,520
Speaker 1: other various spirits, and he has a pretty interesting history.

461
00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:43,320
Speaker 1: Started out in stunt work for the Shaw Brothers and

462
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:46,880
Speaker 1: Golden Harvest Studio. He was a personal assistant to Bruce Lee,

463
00:25:47,320 --> 00:25:50,399
Speaker 1: and then he joined Semohunk's the Stunt Team and the

464
00:25:50,440 --> 00:25:54,560
Speaker 1: two became friends. He'd done various roles prior to Mr. Vampire,

465
00:25:54,600 --> 00:25:56,560
Speaker 1: but this was the role that really made him famous,

466
00:25:56,600 --> 00:25:58,879
Speaker 1: So it should come as no surprise that he played

467
00:25:58,880 --> 00:26:03,200
Speaker 1: a lot of Dallas priests battled supernatural forces during his career.

468
00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:05,720
Speaker 1: I can't even begin to list them all here, but

469
00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:10,000
Speaker 1: they include all sorts of Mr. Vampire inspired films, loose

470
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:14,560
Speaker 1: Mr Vampire spinoffs, and the Vampire Expert TV show. So

471
00:26:14,600 --> 00:26:17,800
Speaker 1: you might consider him, in a way, repeatedly typecast and

472
00:26:17,840 --> 00:26:21,879
Speaker 1: a certain type of supernatural horror movie hero role, the

473
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:24,240
Speaker 1: way like Peter Cushing would have been in the Hammer

474
00:26:24,280 --> 00:26:29,160
Speaker 1: horror movies, you know, repeatedly playing this Van Helsing type character. Yeah,

475
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:31,760
Speaker 1: even though like we're not even dealing with direct sequels,

476
00:26:31,800 --> 00:26:34,280
Speaker 1: it's like we want, we want that character in our film,

477
00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:36,800
Speaker 1: even if we call him something else. Who were going

478
00:26:36,840 --> 00:26:38,240
Speaker 1: to get to play him. Of course we're going to

479
00:26:38,320 --> 00:26:41,200
Speaker 1: get chinging lamb uh. Though though he also did I

480
00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:42,840
Speaker 1: want to point out he did. Look it does look

481
00:26:42,840 --> 00:26:45,359
Speaker 1: like he did some unrelated and serious roles as well,

482
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:48,440
Speaker 1: so you know, hopefully it balanced out in his career.

483
00:26:57,440 --> 00:27:00,920
Speaker 1: So in this movie, they have made a very interesting

484
00:27:01,280 --> 00:27:04,960
Speaker 1: costuming and makeup decision to give our hero the sort

485
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:11,200
Speaker 1: of the unflappable, stern competent master Taoist priest a unibrow

486
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:14,000
Speaker 1: as you as you said, a mono brow. I guess

487
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:17,480
Speaker 1: you could use either term. But I was thinking about

488
00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:20,200
Speaker 1: the meaning of the unibrow in this movie. It wasn't

489
00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:23,080
Speaker 1: just his natural facial hair that is that that is

490
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:28,280
Speaker 1: something they clearly have accented with makeup. And in American cinema,

491
00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:32,520
Speaker 1: the unibrow is used exclusively for comedy, right, It's something

492
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:36,240
Speaker 1: that's supposed to look funny, and this is a comedy movie.

493
00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:40,560
Speaker 1: But I don't think Master Gow's unibrow is supposed to

494
00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:44,160
Speaker 1: be funny. This is a unibrow that signals an eagle

495
00:27:44,320 --> 00:27:49,080
Speaker 1: like seriousness, dignity, knowledge. It reads to me as a

496
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:53,320
Speaker 1: unibrow of respect. Yeah, I I was thinking about this,

497
00:27:53,400 --> 00:27:56,680
Speaker 1: and I think you're right, it seems to be sternness.

498
00:27:57,080 --> 00:28:00,440
Speaker 1: I can't really tell how comedic it's supposed still look,

499
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:03,840
Speaker 1: because it it doesn't look just ridiculous. It does look

500
00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:07,480
Speaker 1: like it's part of the costume. But but in that respect,

501
00:28:07,520 --> 00:28:12,199
Speaker 1: it's not as ridiculous as is some of the the

502
00:28:12,240 --> 00:28:14,879
Speaker 1: hair and makeup effects that you see in you certainly

503
00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:17,440
Speaker 1: earlier Hong Kong cinema, because you know, if you see

504
00:28:17,920 --> 00:28:21,240
Speaker 1: various shaolin type films, you'll see a lot of obvious

505
00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:25,119
Speaker 1: fake facial hair and you know, long hair. Uh, you know,

506
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:28,080
Speaker 1: whatever you can do to sort of differentiate one character

507
00:28:28,119 --> 00:28:30,480
Speaker 1: from another, even if they're played by you know, sort

508
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:35,600
Speaker 1: of the same troop of of of of stunt people. Clearly,

509
00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:40,120
Speaker 1: the the cultural the valance of a unibrow changes with culture.

510
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:42,280
Speaker 1: I mean, again, as we said, in American movies, it

511
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:45,280
Speaker 1: is something that is always taken as funny. But there

512
00:28:45,280 --> 00:28:48,720
Speaker 1: are cultures where a unibrow or monta brow is considered

513
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:52,280
Speaker 1: a desirable trade. It's considered very handsome or beautiful to

514
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:55,959
Speaker 1: have a single brow. Yeah, it's definitely gonna gonna range

515
00:28:56,000 --> 00:29:00,400
Speaker 1: across time and uh in space, I think specifically, especially

516
00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:02,760
Speaker 1: in some like Central Asian culture as a unit brow

517
00:29:02,920 --> 00:29:06,560
Speaker 1: was considered very desirable. Yeah. Now I was looking around

518
00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:10,320
Speaker 1: for any indication on what it might have meant uh

519
00:29:10,520 --> 00:29:12,840
Speaker 1: to Chinese audiences, or if it was a statement on

520
00:29:12,920 --> 00:29:15,880
Speaker 1: something that was common, uh, you know, amongst say Dallas

521
00:29:15,880 --> 00:29:18,280
Speaker 1: priest or something, and I couldn't really find an answer.

522
00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:21,160
Speaker 1: I mean, you see bushy eyebrow show up in in

523
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 1: various Chinese um illustrations and depictions, often attributed to gods

524
00:29:27,440 --> 00:29:30,080
Speaker 1: and immortals. You know, there's a there's a wise nature

525
00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:32,800
Speaker 1: to it. But I just couldn't find anything about mono

526
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:36,400
Speaker 1: brows other than I did see that our our, our

527
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:40,720
Speaker 1: priest character in this film is sometimes described as uh

528
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:44,240
Speaker 1: something that is translated as one eyebrow priest. Huh. Well,

529
00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:45,840
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think how to read that. Does that

530
00:29:45,880 --> 00:29:48,600
Speaker 1: mean more that it's just a particular trait of this

531
00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:51,840
Speaker 1: one character, or that he is of a type like

532
00:29:51,920 --> 00:29:55,040
Speaker 1: the one eyebrowed priest type. I don't know. I mean,

533
00:29:55,840 --> 00:30:00,000
Speaker 1: it's I wonder if there are other mono browed Dallas

534
00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:04,760
Speaker 1: priests in films that are not depicted as an homage

535
00:30:04,800 --> 00:30:08,600
Speaker 1: to this film, you know, I guess that's an open question.

536
00:30:09,080 --> 00:30:12,040
Speaker 1: I want to talk about another personal grooming thing that

537
00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 1: ties in interestingly with the plot, which is that both

538
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:20,680
Speaker 1: the monsters in this film and the hero have long fingernails. Yes,

539
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:25,040
Speaker 1: uh so Chinging Lung has these the very the long sculpted,

540
00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:28,440
Speaker 1: well manicured fingernails, but also the vampires do. And the

541
00:30:28,520 --> 00:30:31,560
Speaker 1: vampires not only have them, they use them to kill

542
00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:34,880
Speaker 1: sometimes in lieu of using the fangs to kill. Yeah. Now,

543
00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 1: in our our past episode on fingernails, we we talked

544
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 1: a little bit about about long fingernails of particularly Amanda

545
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:45,640
Speaker 1: Chinese scholars in the old days, and one of the

546
00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 1: characters that came up was a poet by the name

547
00:30:48,800 --> 00:30:53,760
Speaker 1: of Lee He who lived I believe a seven ninety

548
00:30:53,920 --> 00:30:59,320
Speaker 1: or seven ninety one through eight sixteen or eight seventeen. See, Yeah,

549
00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:01,960
Speaker 1: he was a Tang dynasty poet. You remember, you have

550
00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:04,720
Speaker 1: found some source that described him as like the bad

551
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 1: boy of Tang dynasty poets. He was. He was like

552
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:11,520
Speaker 1: a very weird poet who wrote strange almost this sounds

553
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:13,760
Speaker 1: like an anachronistic comment to make, but having read a

554
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:15,760
Speaker 1: lot of his poems now I think it's sort of accurate,

555
00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:20,959
Speaker 1: almost psychedelic poetry. Yeah, like talking about what owl's burning

556
00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:24,520
Speaker 1: with goblin fire in the forest, things of that nature. Uh.

557
00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:25,840
Speaker 1: And I think he did have kind of you know,

558
00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:27,840
Speaker 1: he had kind of a uh, you know, this bad

559
00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:30,400
Speaker 1: boy image, this kind of uh you know, he was

560
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:33,400
Speaker 1: he was interested in kind of dark and mysterious and

561
00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:38,160
Speaker 1: magical things, yes, totally. But he was also considered morbid,

562
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:42,160
Speaker 1: kind of deathly. Uh. For some reason, I'm associating him

563
00:31:42,200 --> 00:31:46,800
Speaker 1: with connotations of illness and morbidity, and yet he had

564
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:50,680
Speaker 1: this very distinctive personal style that definitely included long fingernails.

565
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:54,040
Speaker 1: The crazy thing, though, is this is not something we

566
00:31:54,040 --> 00:31:56,320
Speaker 1: realized previously. But I had just looked him up to

567
00:31:56,320 --> 00:31:58,480
Speaker 1: to make sure I had the right individual in mind.

568
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:01,360
Speaker 1: And um, I pulled up the Wikipedia page on him

569
00:32:01,360 --> 00:32:03,400
Speaker 1: and just did like a quick search for fingernails to

570
00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:07,000
Speaker 1: make sure that I wasn't misremembering his fingernails. But the

571
00:32:07,040 --> 00:32:10,320
Speaker 1: Wikipedia article not only mentions his nails, it mentions his

572
00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:13,720
Speaker 1: uni brow. What. Yeah, apparently he was known for his

573
00:32:13,840 --> 00:32:18,120
Speaker 1: uni brow according to this Wikipedia entry. So so again

574
00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:19,920
Speaker 1: I've got to ask, is this tap is this just

575
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:23,280
Speaker 1: a coincidence? Is this tapping a broader cultural meaning in

576
00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:26,479
Speaker 1: Chinese history of the uni brow or maybe in some

577
00:32:26,560 --> 00:32:28,800
Speaker 1: way is the Is the Taoist priest of the Mr.

578
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:32,960
Speaker 1: Vampire franchise a take on lee He? I'm not sure.

579
00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:35,560
Speaker 1: I think it'll have to remain an open question. Just

580
00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 1: to give a taste of that psychedelic nous. I just

581
00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:40,480
Speaker 1: found a place where I transcribed one of his poems

582
00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:45,120
Speaker 1: as translated by a Chinese poetry scholar named David Hinton,

583
00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:48,640
Speaker 1: who has a wonderful collection of translations of classic Chinese

584
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 1: poetry that I highly recommend. But Hinton's translation of one

585
00:32:52,320 --> 00:32:55,760
Speaker 1: of Lehi's poems called Cheating Spirit Song, I just want

586
00:32:55,800 --> 00:32:58,400
Speaker 1: to read a few lines from that. It goes black

587
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:02,800
Speaker 1: as your puma, cat, weeping blood, fox dyeing a cold death,

588
00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:07,520
Speaker 1: an opalescent dragon on ancient walls, tail inscribed in gold,

589
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:10,520
Speaker 1: then the rain god writing it down into a lake's

590
00:33:10,560 --> 00:33:14,360
Speaker 1: autumn waters, and that ancient hundred year old owl. It's

591
00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:18,959
Speaker 1: a forest demon now, sound of laughter, emerald fire rising

592
00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:22,120
Speaker 1: up out of its nest. It's beautiful. I love it

593
00:33:22,440 --> 00:33:25,440
Speaker 1: so yeah. Serious recommendation in this if you're looking for

594
00:33:25,480 --> 00:33:28,960
Speaker 1: a good collection of translations of Chinese poetry across the ages.

595
00:33:29,040 --> 00:33:31,600
Speaker 1: David Hinton's book is awesome. Alright, well let's get back

596
00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:34,680
Speaker 1: to Mr Vampire. We've we've we've discussed Mr Gao, and

597
00:33:34,680 --> 00:33:37,080
Speaker 1: we'll keep coming back to him. But let's talk about

598
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:40,880
Speaker 1: his two assistants. So first up, Chao Shing, the handsome one,

599
00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:45,920
Speaker 1: is played by That's exactly right, he is the handsome one.

600
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:48,640
Speaker 1: I was trying to remember what his name is, like

601
00:33:48,680 --> 00:33:52,000
Speaker 1: the English translation was, because they in the subtitles they

602
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:54,360
Speaker 1: give them English translated names, or at least one of them.

603
00:33:54,400 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 1: The less handsome assistant is named Dan, but I forget

604
00:33:58,320 --> 00:34:01,640
Speaker 1: what this one's name was. But this guy is the uh,

605
00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:05,880
Speaker 1: the less comedic, more competent, more martial arts competent, and

606
00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:09,960
Speaker 1: just generally uh handsome and heroic of the two. Yeah,

607
00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:12,520
Speaker 1: he and uh he's good in this he Uh. It's

608
00:34:12,560 --> 00:34:16,400
Speaker 1: another case, though, where Mr Vampire was so successful that

609
00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:19,160
Speaker 1: it was I think perhaps hard or impossible or just

610
00:34:19,239 --> 00:34:21,480
Speaker 1: you know, just not reasonable to to try and do

611
00:34:21,520 --> 00:34:24,600
Speaker 1: anything other than various other vampire films. So Chen went

612
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:28,040
Speaker 1: on to do various vampire films that follow loosely in

613
00:34:28,040 --> 00:34:30,440
Speaker 1: this one's wake. He did other stuff to be to

614
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:33,479
Speaker 1: be sure, including some important roles in Big Hong Kong

615
00:34:33,560 --> 00:34:37,000
Speaker 1: films like tai Chi Master and Fist of Legend. And

616
00:34:37,120 --> 00:34:40,880
Speaker 1: he also started in the twenty thirteen film Rigor Mortis,

617
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:43,719
Speaker 1: which I have not seen. I think I almost saw it,

618
00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:45,920
Speaker 1: Like I think I rented it and never watched it,

619
00:34:46,200 --> 00:34:48,719
Speaker 1: and I'm glad that I didn't now because its whole

620
00:34:48,760 --> 00:34:51,239
Speaker 1: thing is that it's supposed to be a stylish homage

621
00:34:51,680 --> 00:34:55,440
Speaker 1: to the old vampire movies, including Mr. Vampire. So I

622
00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:56,919
Speaker 1: feel like a lot of that would have been lost

623
00:34:57,000 --> 00:34:59,720
Speaker 1: on me if I just skipped right to the twenty

624
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:03,880
Speaker 1: keen uh stylish homage as opposed to you know, watching

625
00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:06,480
Speaker 1: at least Mr Vampire. Yeah, better do it. In order,

626
00:35:06,520 --> 00:35:09,200
Speaker 1: we should watch all of the Mr. Vampire sequels, then

627
00:35:09,280 --> 00:35:13,000
Speaker 1: do Encounters to the Spooky Kind, then watch Reportis. Oh, man,

628
00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:14,920
Speaker 1: I think our eyes might be bigger than our stomach

629
00:35:14,920 --> 00:35:17,520
Speaker 1: on that one. There's so many Yeah, alright, so that's

630
00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:20,200
Speaker 1: the handsome one. But then there's also Dan. I think

631
00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:23,600
Speaker 1: his actual character's name is man Cho, I think, but

632
00:35:24,400 --> 00:35:28,520
Speaker 1: the the captions and the dubbing refer to him as Dan. Yeah.

633
00:35:28,920 --> 00:35:34,000
Speaker 1: And he's played by Ricky who who lived Leven And

634
00:35:34,040 --> 00:35:36,480
Speaker 1: this guy is totally our comic relief character. And he's

635
00:35:36,520 --> 00:35:39,880
Speaker 1: he's pretty fabulous. Oh yeah, he's he's an excellent physical

636
00:35:39,960 --> 00:35:43,200
Speaker 1: comedy actor. He's got he's got a very funny haircut

637
00:35:43,239 --> 00:35:45,319
Speaker 1: in the movie. It kind of he's got a kind

638
00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:47,799
Speaker 1: of like one of those sagging bowl cuts that I

639
00:35:47,840 --> 00:35:50,440
Speaker 1: think is clearly supposed to look funny. And he's the

640
00:35:50,440 --> 00:35:52,680
Speaker 1: butt of all the jokes. There's a really funny sequence

641
00:35:52,719 --> 00:35:55,920
Speaker 1: towards the end where he is gradually transforming into a vampire,

642
00:35:56,520 --> 00:35:59,120
Speaker 1: and in order to prevent the transformation, he has to

643
00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:01,640
Speaker 1: keep doing all these things like lying on a bed

644
00:36:01,840 --> 00:36:05,680
Speaker 1: of glutinous rice and continually dancing in a in a

645
00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:10,439
Speaker 1: ludicrous fashion. Yes, yes, while also having regular freakouts about

646
00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:13,840
Speaker 1: what's happening to him. Uh yeah, he's he's great, and

647
00:36:13,840 --> 00:36:16,480
Speaker 1: he's our drop. Oh, he's this film's drop. O. He's

648
00:36:16,480 --> 00:36:19,600
Speaker 1: this film's sort of the film's paraco. To draw back

649
00:36:19,640 --> 00:36:22,840
Speaker 1: to the Santo picture we discussed, well, I was gonna

650
00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:25,920
Speaker 1: generally agree, except I also wonder is this film's paraco

651
00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:30,960
Speaker 1: not Billy law as why the incompetent policeman. Ultimately, Mr

652
00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:35,719
Speaker 1: Vampire is a is a film with comedy to have

653
00:36:35,800 --> 00:36:39,000
Speaker 1: many paracos, or at least two prominent paraicos. You can

654
00:36:39,040 --> 00:36:42,880
Speaker 1: have two characters that are that are performed with a

655
00:36:42,960 --> 00:36:46,920
Speaker 1: broad physical style of comedic acting that defies all language barriers.

656
00:36:47,239 --> 00:36:50,279
Speaker 1: I hope Dan is in all of the Mr. Vampire sequels.

657
00:36:50,880 --> 00:36:53,520
Speaker 1: He's He's He's actually not. He seems to this actor

658
00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:56,440
Speaker 1: seems to have been successful enough and enough of like

659
00:36:56,480 --> 00:37:00,440
Speaker 1: a comedy star, uh that he he rep rised it

660
00:37:00,560 --> 00:37:05,279
Speaker 1: in the in the movie Mr. Vampire. But otherwise he

661
00:37:05,320 --> 00:37:08,480
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to have drunk from the the Mr. V

662
00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:10,919
Speaker 1: well as much as as some of the other people

663
00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:14,520
Speaker 1: involved were. He he was in several big comedy blockbusters

664
00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:16,719
Speaker 1: in Hong Kong back in the seventies and eighties. Now,

665
00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:18,840
Speaker 1: the next star in the movie we should probably mention

666
00:37:19,080 --> 00:37:22,920
Speaker 1: is Moon Lee, And upon looking at her biography, I

667
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:26,440
Speaker 1: was very interested because in this movie she plays a

668
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:29,880
Speaker 1: very uh she she is a very passive character. You know,

669
00:37:29,960 --> 00:37:33,239
Speaker 1: she's the daughter of the rich businessman who is you know,

670
00:37:33,280 --> 00:37:35,920
Speaker 1: the beautiful daughter who is the object of love by

671
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:38,960
Speaker 1: several characters. But it turns out that she actually had

672
00:37:39,040 --> 00:37:42,920
Speaker 1: a career mostly doing like stunts and action movies and

673
00:37:42,960 --> 00:37:45,120
Speaker 1: playing characters who would blow your head off with a

674
00:37:45,160 --> 00:37:48,879
Speaker 1: big gun. Yeah. Yeah, Moonley, it seems to have largely

675
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:51,279
Speaker 1: been an action character, while in this one she's not.

676
00:37:52,280 --> 00:37:54,120
Speaker 1: You might be tempted to assume O. I guess she's

677
00:37:54,120 --> 00:37:57,080
Speaker 1: like the damsel in distress, but she's more just the

678
00:37:57,280 --> 00:38:01,600
Speaker 1: necessary female for comedic interaction. Yeah, she's not really in

679
00:38:01,600 --> 00:38:04,359
Speaker 1: distress much. She's mostly like hanging out, hanging out while

680
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:07,960
Speaker 1: other characters just act ridiculous. Yeah. So she does play

681
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:10,799
Speaker 1: some good pranks in the movie though. For example, when

682
00:38:11,239 --> 00:38:14,640
Speaker 1: when master Gow and Dan go to a go to

683
00:38:14,800 --> 00:38:18,640
Speaker 1: English style te to a tea house, uh, to meet

684
00:38:18,680 --> 00:38:21,719
Speaker 1: with the rich with her rich father, the businessman Mr

685
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:26,320
Speaker 1: m she pranks them by convincing them that they're supposed

686
00:38:26,360 --> 00:38:29,839
Speaker 1: to drink their coffee and their creams separately because they're

687
00:38:29,840 --> 00:38:32,319
Speaker 1: not familiar with the conventions of coffee. Oh, and to

688
00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:35,239
Speaker 1: eat the sugar with the spoons separately. And then when

689
00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:37,399
Speaker 1: their father comes back, that's what they're doing, and they

690
00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:41,040
Speaker 1: look they're they're quite ashamed. Yes, but she did a

691
00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:44,640
Speaker 1: number of of Hong Kong action movies from the eighties

692
00:38:44,760 --> 00:38:47,600
Speaker 1: through the nineties. Yeah, a couple of that came up

693
00:38:47,640 --> 00:38:49,560
Speaker 1: for me, And again, I'm not familiar with these pictures.

694
00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:54,480
Speaker 1: But Fighting Madam from seven, The Avenging Quarter from Yeah,

695
00:38:54,520 --> 00:38:56,880
Speaker 1: and she was a stunt performer in addition to being

696
00:38:56,920 --> 00:38:58,600
Speaker 1: an actress. It looks like she ended up doing a

697
00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:01,919
Speaker 1: lot of you know your high octane crime thrillers where

698
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:04,080
Speaker 1: she would play a cop with a big gun who

699
00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:07,960
Speaker 1: hunts down diamond smugglers or something. And in one movie

700
00:39:08,280 --> 00:39:09,840
Speaker 1: I found one movie she was in the had a

701
00:39:09,880 --> 00:39:11,759
Speaker 1: title so good I had to mention it from the

702
00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:14,600
Speaker 1: year nineteen ninety, in which she co starred with Robin Show.

703
00:39:15,280 --> 00:39:18,440
Speaker 1: American audiences might know Robin Show best from movies in

704
00:39:18,480 --> 00:39:20,960
Speaker 1: the nineties like Mortal Kombat, in which he played Luke

705
00:39:21,040 --> 00:39:23,400
Speaker 1: Kang or Beverly Hills Ninja, but you know, he's a

706
00:39:23,440 --> 00:39:25,920
Speaker 1: long time the actor who did a lot of a

707
00:39:25,960 --> 00:39:28,759
Speaker 1: lot of Chinese action movies and stuff. But the movie

708
00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:32,160
Speaker 1: they were in together in nineteen nine is called Fatal Termination.

709
00:39:34,480 --> 00:39:37,719
Speaker 1: Moonley is also in Mr. Vampire two from nineteen eighties six,

710
00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:40,160
Speaker 1: which makes me think again the sequels might be worth

711
00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:42,640
Speaker 1: a look. I kind of feel like, maybe I'm gonna

712
00:39:42,680 --> 00:39:44,239
Speaker 1: watch all of these sequels if I can get my

713
00:39:44,280 --> 00:39:46,600
Speaker 1: hands on them. I'm not sure, but it might be

714
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:50,080
Speaker 1: worth it. But also I read that, so I mentioned

715
00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:53,560
Speaker 1: that she was also a stunt performer. I think at

716
00:39:53,640 --> 00:39:55,759
Speaker 1: some point it was either in the late eighties or

717
00:39:55,760 --> 00:39:59,840
Speaker 1: early nineties, I read that she was seriously injured performing

718
00:39:59,840 --> 00:40:02,200
Speaker 1: a stunt for some action movie she was in, Like

719
00:40:02,239 --> 00:40:05,000
Speaker 1: she was supposed to jump out of a window and

720
00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:07,360
Speaker 1: then there was an explosion that was supposed to happen

721
00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:09,160
Speaker 1: in the room she was jumping out of, but the

722
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:12,320
Speaker 1: pyrotechnics went off early and she was pretty badly burned.

723
00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:16,719
Speaker 1: But she she survived and she's apparently doing fine. All Right.

724
00:40:16,800 --> 00:40:20,480
Speaker 1: We mentioned this next actor briefly, but Billy Law plays uh,

725
00:40:21,239 --> 00:40:25,799
Speaker 1: basically the world's worst policeman. Yes, this this character? What's

726
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:30,560
Speaker 1: this character's name again? Why? Why? And hey? Yeah he

727
00:40:30,560 --> 00:40:33,719
Speaker 1: he shows up at first, Yeah he's he's after the

728
00:40:34,200 --> 00:40:38,560
Speaker 1: love interest played by moon Ley Um. But then from

729
00:40:38,560 --> 00:40:41,480
Speaker 1: there he just he gets involved in the the investigation

730
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 1: of vampire related murders and just botches everything, botches everything

731
00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:48,520
Speaker 1: he touches. Uh. So I couldn't It wasn't able to

732
00:40:48,560 --> 00:40:50,520
Speaker 1: find a found a find a birthdate for him, but

733
00:40:50,560 --> 00:40:52,560
Speaker 1: he seems to be still active as of twenty At

734
00:40:52,600 --> 00:40:55,600
Speaker 1: least of as nineteen, he did a lot of comedic

735
00:40:55,640 --> 00:41:00,239
Speaker 1: action roles, including Eastern Condors from I think that's though

736
00:41:00,440 --> 00:41:03,080
Speaker 1: that's a hung production as well, And I think if

737
00:41:03,080 --> 00:41:05,520
Speaker 1: i'm if that's the one I'm thinking of, and maybe

738
00:41:05,520 --> 00:41:07,920
Speaker 1: I think that one might be an ensemble cast that

739
00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:12,080
Speaker 1: somehow involves a mission to Vietnam. Um and then Billy

740
00:41:12,160 --> 00:41:14,920
Speaker 1: Low also shows up in a number of vampire movies,

741
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:18,200
Speaker 1: including rid or Mortis. Another tick in that column. Yeh,

742
00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:21,360
Speaker 1: Billy Low is way over the top in this movie,

743
00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:24,479
Speaker 1: but he's also he's good. He's very funny. Like I said,

744
00:41:24,520 --> 00:41:27,480
Speaker 1: this is a movie of many pericos and uh and

745
00:41:27,520 --> 00:41:29,680
Speaker 1: you know what, they played pretty well together in this

746
00:41:29,800 --> 00:41:32,759
Speaker 1: He plays a character with almost every negative characteristic you

747
00:41:32,800 --> 00:41:38,160
Speaker 1: could imagine. He's just this like dumb, incompetent creep. Yeah,

748
00:41:38,200 --> 00:41:41,920
Speaker 1: he's great, alright. The next actor of note Um, uh

749
00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:46,120
Speaker 1: su Fon Wong plays Jade, who we we spoiler alert,

750
00:41:46,160 --> 00:41:47,719
Speaker 1: but we find out she's a ghost. I guess it's

751
00:41:47,719 --> 00:41:51,880
Speaker 1: pretty clear early on she's a ghost. The first Yeah,

752
00:41:52,120 --> 00:41:55,359
Speaker 1: she well, she appears being like brought in in the

753
00:41:55,400 --> 00:41:59,160
Speaker 1: forest in a kind of translucent mist to being being

754
00:41:59,200 --> 00:42:02,840
Speaker 1: born by these guy eyes in strange h in strange makeup,

755
00:42:02,960 --> 00:42:05,040
Speaker 1: and then she flies through the air. I think, I

756
00:42:05,080 --> 00:42:08,120
Speaker 1: think it's clear she's a ghost. Yeah, so she's a

757
00:42:08,520 --> 00:42:11,840
Speaker 1: She's an actor, producer born two, within a number of

758
00:42:11,840 --> 00:42:15,560
Speaker 1: films including Love with the Perfect Stranger from Web Deception

759
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:19,400
Speaker 1: and plus it looks seems like a fair sprinkling of

760
00:42:19,480 --> 00:42:23,160
Speaker 1: vampire and supernatural films. One thing that's funny about her character.

761
00:42:23,239 --> 00:42:29,680
Speaker 1: So the movie basically has two major supernatural antagonists. One

762
00:42:29,800 --> 00:42:32,400
Speaker 1: is the main vampire and the other is the ghost

763
00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:35,640
Speaker 1: played by Sufing Wong, And these two antagonists kind of

764
00:42:35,640 --> 00:42:38,799
Speaker 1: a running parallel storylines that are in some cases not

765
00:42:38,840 --> 00:42:41,640
Speaker 1: even fully intertwined from what I could tell, except that

766
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:45,400
Speaker 1: they involved the same characters. But then also there's a

767
00:42:45,440 --> 00:42:48,600
Speaker 1: funny thing about so her When her true form is

768
00:42:48,680 --> 00:42:51,240
Speaker 1: revealed by Master Gao towards the end of the movie,

769
00:42:51,600 --> 00:42:55,200
Speaker 1: she wears some exceptionally not good monster makeup that somehow

770
00:42:55,239 --> 00:42:58,279
Speaker 1: works anyway. It involves a sort of eyeball and a

771
00:42:58,400 --> 00:43:02,400
Speaker 1: stalk that juts out of her half rotten face. Yeah.

772
00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:04,279
Speaker 1: This is what was interesting about this to me is

773
00:43:04,280 --> 00:43:06,319
Speaker 1: that on one level you look at it and you're like, oh, well,

774
00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:08,600
Speaker 1: that that didn't They didn't quite pull that off, did

775
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:12,120
Speaker 1: they and yet it does kind of work, and it

776
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:16,120
Speaker 1: it reminds me of the deliberate, uh special effects choices

777
00:43:16,320 --> 00:43:20,480
Speaker 1: in the famous Japanese Haunted House movie house, you know,

778
00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:24,000
Speaker 1: where there was a deliberate choice by the director to

779
00:43:24,200 --> 00:43:27,200
Speaker 1: have effects that were I'm not sure how to describe

780
00:43:27,239 --> 00:43:30,120
Speaker 1: them exactly, because I don't want to say shoddy, but

781
00:43:30,200 --> 00:43:33,680
Speaker 1: almost I think childlike like, like it is if if

782
00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:37,200
Speaker 1: if you had only children creating the effects or envisioning

783
00:43:37,239 --> 00:43:40,160
Speaker 1: the effects. Thinking about the effects in the house, I

784
00:43:40,239 --> 00:43:44,120
Speaker 1: might say, in some cases almost kind of stagy, more

785
00:43:44,200 --> 00:43:47,160
Speaker 1: like the special effects you would see in a good

786
00:43:47,440 --> 00:43:51,040
Speaker 1: stage production rather than in a movie. Yeah, that's a

787
00:43:51,120 --> 00:43:53,960
Speaker 1: that's a good description. So I thought about that, and

788
00:43:54,040 --> 00:43:57,280
Speaker 1: it made me sort of contemplate the sometimes thin line

789
00:43:57,400 --> 00:44:00,920
Speaker 1: between the imperfect and the and the canny. You know.

790
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:02,400
Speaker 1: It kind of comes back to the idea of the

791
00:44:02,440 --> 00:44:05,759
Speaker 1: hopping vampire. Like on one level, it's ridiculous, but it's

792
00:44:05,760 --> 00:44:10,320
Speaker 1: also unnatural. It's also uncanny. Yeah, yeah, all right. And finally,

793
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:11,839
Speaker 1: there there is an actor by the name of way

794
00:44:11,920 --> 00:44:15,839
Speaker 1: Yun who plays the vampire born nineteen fifty. I'm gonna

795
00:44:15,840 --> 00:44:17,440
Speaker 1: mention him because he has a hundred He had a

796
00:44:17,520 --> 00:44:20,960
Speaker 1: hundred nine three acting credits, including The Landlord and Kung

797
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:24,360
Speaker 1: Fu Hustle from four Oh he's the guy with the

798
00:44:24,719 --> 00:44:28,000
Speaker 1: when it's revealed that he's a kung fu master. Spoiler sorry,

799
00:44:28,560 --> 00:44:31,200
Speaker 1: he's got the floppy rubbery body. Yeah, I think so.

800
00:44:31,239 --> 00:44:33,040
Speaker 1: It's been a while since I've seen Kung Fu Hustle,

801
00:44:33,080 --> 00:44:36,160
Speaker 1: but but this guy did stunts. In nineteen seventy two

802
00:44:36,200 --> 00:44:38,320
Speaker 1: is The Way of the Dragon, starring Bruce Lee and

803
00:44:38,400 --> 00:44:40,319
Speaker 1: Chuck Norris. So he's been in tons of things. Have

804
00:44:40,360 --> 00:44:42,040
Speaker 1: you seen Way of the Dragon? You know that one?

805
00:44:42,880 --> 00:44:45,000
Speaker 1: I think this is one. I probably saw parts of

806
00:44:45,040 --> 00:44:47,000
Speaker 1: it on TBS back in the day, but I don't

807
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:50,279
Speaker 1: have a clear memory of it. Of so, you know,

808
00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:53,359
Speaker 1: Bruce Lee had this this short but very memorable run

809
00:44:53,400 --> 00:44:56,080
Speaker 1: of films in the early seventies, maybe the late sixties too,

810
00:44:56,080 --> 00:44:58,319
Speaker 1: I think maybe the first one was in seventy or so.

811
00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:02,120
Speaker 1: But most of them a great martial arts action movies,

812
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:04,719
Speaker 1: but they're very serious. Way of the Dragon is definitely

813
00:45:04,719 --> 00:45:08,040
Speaker 1: the most comedy oriented of them. It's the one where

814
00:45:08,080 --> 00:45:11,480
Speaker 1: Bruce Lee travels to Rome. It actually takes place in

815
00:45:11,560 --> 00:45:14,320
Speaker 1: Italy because he's got a relative who I think he

816
00:45:14,400 --> 00:45:17,080
Speaker 1: is running a restaurant there that is being menaced by

817
00:45:17,120 --> 00:45:19,960
Speaker 1: the mafia, and then he comes in to defend it

818
00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:22,719
Speaker 1: from these these mafia thugs, and so they end up

819
00:45:22,719 --> 00:45:26,839
Speaker 1: recruiting their own fighters, such as Chuck Norris. So they

820
00:45:26,840 --> 00:45:29,200
Speaker 1: bring in Chuck Norris to defeat Bruce Lee. But Norris

821
00:45:29,239 --> 00:45:32,520
Speaker 1: doesn't stand a chance. But anyway, that movie is actually

822
00:45:32,560 --> 00:45:34,719
Speaker 1: quite silly as well, because, like I remember, there's a

823
00:45:34,760 --> 00:45:38,359
Speaker 1: major subplot in it about Bruce Lee eating too much

824
00:45:38,400 --> 00:45:42,799
Speaker 1: soup and then having to go pee a lot. All right,

825
00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:46,759
Speaker 1: he doesn't influence his style though, right, it's not like

826
00:45:46,880 --> 00:45:54,600
Speaker 1: Drunken Master. Yeah, Pep Master. No, it's it's not Pep Master. Yeah.

827
00:45:54,760 --> 00:45:56,560
Speaker 1: Maybe I haven't seen that one at all, main mainly,

828
00:45:56,640 --> 00:45:58,920
Speaker 1: I guess. But my the main Bruce Lee movie I've

829
00:45:58,920 --> 00:46:01,320
Speaker 1: seen is, of course, Entered the Dragon, which is is

830
00:46:01,360 --> 00:46:04,640
Speaker 1: pretty serious. One last thing about Way of the Dragon.

831
00:46:04,719 --> 00:46:07,360
Speaker 1: Chuck Norris playing this villainous fighter and it has no

832
00:46:07,480 --> 00:46:12,359
Speaker 1: facial hair and it's disturbing. Oh yeah, yeah, because he's

833
00:46:12,440 --> 00:46:15,640
Speaker 1: known for the beer in the mustache. Um Normally at

834
00:46:15,640 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 1: this point I mentioned the music, Well, the music is

835
00:46:18,520 --> 00:46:20,280
Speaker 1: fine in this is not like the music is offensive,

836
00:46:20,480 --> 00:46:23,960
Speaker 1: but The score is credited to one Melody Bank, which

837
00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:27,520
Speaker 1: I'm sure is not someone's name. I'm thinking it's just

838
00:46:27,560 --> 00:46:31,759
Speaker 1: like a storehouse of music. I don't know, melody like

839
00:46:31,800 --> 00:46:35,680
Speaker 1: it is a database. Yeah, and they're they're only five

840
00:46:36,160 --> 00:46:41,000
Speaker 1: films credited to Melody Bank on on IMDb. Maybe I'm wrong,

841
00:46:41,080 --> 00:46:44,800
Speaker 1: but the theme music was composed by Alistair Monteth Hodge

842
00:46:45,080 --> 00:46:48,840
Speaker 1: and California born Anders Nelson. So if that means anything

843
00:46:48,880 --> 00:47:00,279
Speaker 1: to you, there you go. Now, I guess here getting

844
00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:02,200
Speaker 1: to the part where we would usually go into a

845
00:47:02,239 --> 00:47:05,120
Speaker 1: full plot breakdown, but I was thinking, we're talking about

846
00:47:05,120 --> 00:47:06,800
Speaker 1: this today, just to mix it up a bit, I

847
00:47:06,880 --> 00:47:09,719
Speaker 1: thought maybe rather than going scene by scene in order,

848
00:47:10,480 --> 00:47:12,760
Speaker 1: I would just sort of lay down the basic plot

849
00:47:12,840 --> 00:47:15,480
Speaker 1: situation and then we could mention a few things throughout

850
00:47:15,520 --> 00:47:18,280
Speaker 1: the run time that we thought were interesting. But before

851
00:47:18,280 --> 00:47:20,359
Speaker 1: I get into that, I did want to mention the

852
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:24,759
Speaker 1: opening scene in detail, because because the opening scene is fabulous.

853
00:47:24,840 --> 00:47:27,200
Speaker 1: It really is one of the most memorable things about

854
00:47:27,239 --> 00:47:29,920
Speaker 1: the movie, and it really sets the tone for the movie.

855
00:47:30,560 --> 00:47:32,880
Speaker 1: Uh So, after the credits finish, and the credits, by

856
00:47:32,880 --> 00:47:34,840
Speaker 1: the way, are great, just because they have a wonderful

857
00:47:34,920 --> 00:47:39,440
Speaker 1: green ooze color to them, but too once we finally

858
00:47:39,440 --> 00:47:42,359
Speaker 1: open on the action to someone not familiar with the

859
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:45,000
Speaker 1: conventions of Jong Shei movies, as I was not really

860
00:47:45,040 --> 00:47:47,640
Speaker 1: once I started watching this. It's a very w t

861
00:47:47,840 --> 00:47:50,520
Speaker 1: F kind of opening because we have this guy going

862
00:47:50,560 --> 00:47:52,759
Speaker 1: around who we find out is one of the assistance

863
00:47:52,840 --> 00:47:55,440
Speaker 1: of the Taoist priest. But he's going around with a

864
00:47:55,440 --> 00:47:58,040
Speaker 1: bunch of incense in this room that is just covered

865
00:47:58,080 --> 00:48:02,320
Speaker 1: in magical amulets and and trinkets and pieces of paper

866
00:48:02,360 --> 00:48:04,440
Speaker 1: with writing on them, things that seem like they have

867
00:48:04,520 --> 00:48:08,239
Speaker 1: magical significance in one way or another. And he is

868
00:48:08,400 --> 00:48:11,640
Speaker 1: tending to coffins in this room. At first, I wasn't

869
00:48:11,640 --> 00:48:14,640
Speaker 1: sure what these objects were, but they're these It's just

870
00:48:14,680 --> 00:48:18,080
Speaker 1: these rows of horizontal wooden cylinders. You do find out

871
00:48:18,160 --> 00:48:20,880
Speaker 1: that their coffins. Yeah, and I was not really I

872
00:48:20,880 --> 00:48:22,840
Speaker 1: don't know that I've really seen I don't know if

873
00:48:22,840 --> 00:48:26,400
Speaker 1: I've seen these before, but these are depictions of basically

874
00:48:26,480 --> 00:48:29,719
Speaker 1: the traditional Chinese style of of casket, which looks rather

875
00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:33,719
Speaker 1: different from the Western style. It's my understanding. You still

876
00:48:33,719 --> 00:48:36,759
Speaker 1: see both used in China, So if you look up

877
00:48:37,440 --> 00:48:40,480
Speaker 1: like you do a Google image search for Chinese coffins

878
00:48:40,840 --> 00:48:44,680
Speaker 1: Chinese caskets. You'll likely see some pictures that include both styles,

879
00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:48,919
Speaker 1: where you'll see Western variations, and then also these these

880
00:48:48,960 --> 00:48:53,120
Speaker 1: more or ornate looking traditional coffins that are sometimes described

881
00:48:53,160 --> 00:48:56,240
Speaker 1: as having humps. Yeah, the humps, or I was actually

882
00:48:56,239 --> 00:48:58,719
Speaker 1: thinking about it like pedals, Like if you look at

883
00:48:58,800 --> 00:49:01,040
Speaker 1: the end on they look kind of like a flower

884
00:49:01,120 --> 00:49:04,600
Speaker 1: with four petals. Yeah. Yeah, they're quite beautiful. Though of

885
00:49:04,640 --> 00:49:06,200
Speaker 1: course I can't help but look at a picture of it.

886
00:49:06,239 --> 00:49:07,480
Speaker 1: I'm just like, oh, yeah, well that one has a

887
00:49:07,520 --> 00:49:10,920
Speaker 1: Western vampire in it, and this one has uh Jiangshi

888
00:49:11,040 --> 00:49:13,920
Speaker 1: in it. Um so am I thinking of That may

889
00:49:13,920 --> 00:49:15,640
Speaker 1: also be compounded by the by the fact that I

890
00:49:15,719 --> 00:49:20,680
Speaker 1: know that there two or more films in which a

891
00:49:20,719 --> 00:49:24,880
Speaker 1: Western vampire and an Eastern vampire meet in Chinese cinema.

892
00:49:25,200 --> 00:49:28,439
Speaker 1: That's worth looking up. Yeah, but I also like that Mr.

893
00:49:28,480 --> 00:49:31,799
Speaker 1: Vampire does not make you wait to see vampires. It's

894
00:49:31,840 --> 00:49:33,440
Speaker 1: not like you've got to get into the you know,

895
00:49:33,560 --> 00:49:36,359
Speaker 1: have to have all the magic unleashed. It's their right

896
00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:39,600
Speaker 1: from the opening. So while the assistant is going around

897
00:49:39,640 --> 00:49:41,759
Speaker 1: doing all this stuff, we see Dan messing around with them.

898
00:49:41,880 --> 00:49:45,839
Speaker 1: Since uh he he also uncovers he like peels back

899
00:49:45,840 --> 00:49:49,239
Speaker 1: a curtain to reveal a boot camp style lineup of

900
00:49:49,400 --> 00:49:53,359
Speaker 1: swaying unconscious fiends of some kind. Again, if you don't

901
00:49:53,400 --> 00:49:55,680
Speaker 1: know the conventions of the genre, you're like, you know,

902
00:49:55,960 --> 00:49:59,279
Speaker 1: W T F, what is this? And there again they're

903
00:49:59,360 --> 00:50:02,480
Speaker 1: dressed in this Ching Dynasty era clothing with these hats on,

904
00:50:02,960 --> 00:50:06,440
Speaker 1: and there are yellow strips of paper covered in red

905
00:50:06,520 --> 00:50:09,720
Speaker 1: writing pinned to their hats so that they hang down

906
00:50:09,800 --> 00:50:13,799
Speaker 1: over their faces. Yeah. And these are essentially spells that

907
00:50:13,880 --> 00:50:16,879
Speaker 1: are binding them and keeping them from running them up. Yeah. Look,

908
00:50:16,920 --> 00:50:19,000
Speaker 1: this movie is to suggest, and I guess this is

909
00:50:19,200 --> 00:50:23,120
Speaker 1: somewhat historically accurate, that a lot of Taoist magic rituals

910
00:50:23,160 --> 00:50:25,600
Speaker 1: involved like writing a spell on a piece of paper

911
00:50:25,640 --> 00:50:28,319
Speaker 1: and then doing something with that paper, like eating it

912
00:50:28,440 --> 00:50:31,120
Speaker 1: or putting it on something. Yeah. I mean, ultimately, I

913
00:50:31,160 --> 00:50:34,240
Speaker 1: guess it comes down to the magical use of language. Yeah.

914
00:50:34,320 --> 00:50:37,960
Speaker 1: And also I noted that the spells tend to be

915
00:50:38,080 --> 00:50:40,080
Speaker 1: in I think every case I can think of in

916
00:50:40,080 --> 00:50:43,000
Speaker 1: the movie, written in some kind of red color, red ink,

917
00:50:43,160 --> 00:50:45,880
Speaker 1: or in some cases in blood, And that made me

918
00:50:45,920 --> 00:50:47,840
Speaker 1: think that I do believe it's the case that in

919
00:50:48,239 --> 00:50:51,520
Speaker 1: broadly in Chinese culture, red is considered a lucky or

920
00:50:51,560 --> 00:50:55,279
Speaker 1: holy color, right, yes. And in addition to that, there

921
00:50:55,280 --> 00:50:58,239
Speaker 1: are obviously all these amulets and everything everywhere, And and

922
00:50:58,320 --> 00:51:00,400
Speaker 1: Dan is going around with a bunch of sticks of

923
00:51:00,520 --> 00:51:04,080
Speaker 1: burning incense and he's he's saying to the corpses in

924
00:51:04,120 --> 00:51:07,239
Speaker 1: the in the coffins, He's like, here's your dinner. Time

925
00:51:07,280 --> 00:51:09,920
Speaker 1: for dinner, and time for supper, and stuffing the incense

926
00:51:09,960 --> 00:51:13,440
Speaker 1: into the coffins. Oh, and he also makes clear that

927
00:51:13,480 --> 00:51:16,239
Speaker 1: there's a candle burning in front of all the young

928
00:51:16,320 --> 00:51:19,400
Speaker 1: chie lined up with the spells over their faces, and

929
00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:21,560
Speaker 1: he can't let the candle go out because if the

930
00:51:21,560 --> 00:51:24,040
Speaker 1: candle goes out, they will get loose. And he makes

931
00:51:24,080 --> 00:51:26,200
Speaker 1: clear he's like, I can't handle all of you, so

932
00:51:26,320 --> 00:51:28,120
Speaker 1: I've got to keep you. I don't know what in

933
00:51:28,360 --> 00:51:30,799
Speaker 1: a trance or whatever it is. Yeah, So it's an

934
00:51:30,800 --> 00:51:33,640
Speaker 1: interesting place to to start, especially again if you have

935
00:51:33,800 --> 00:51:37,080
Speaker 1: known nothing about the genre, where you have not just

936
00:51:37,120 --> 00:51:41,000
Speaker 1: a supernatural element, but this kind of magical containment, ongoing

937
00:51:41,000 --> 00:51:45,600
Speaker 1: magical containment and management of supernatural entities. Right. They regard

938
00:51:45,800 --> 00:51:50,360
Speaker 1: these particular vampires that are lined up here not really

939
00:51:50,360 --> 00:51:53,680
Speaker 1: with utter terror, but more is like something that you know,

940
00:51:53,800 --> 00:51:56,239
Speaker 1: you more like something that you would work with on

941
00:51:56,280 --> 00:51:59,000
Speaker 1: a regular basis, so you're not mortified by it, but

942
00:51:59,080 --> 00:52:01,400
Speaker 1: also you really as it could be dangerous if you

943
00:52:01,520 --> 00:52:04,920
Speaker 1: screw up when you're dealing with it. It's like like

944
00:52:04,960 --> 00:52:08,480
Speaker 1: handling dangerous chemicals or something, right, And so he's going

945
00:52:08,520 --> 00:52:11,360
Speaker 1: around cramming the incense and the coffins, and then there's

946
00:52:11,400 --> 00:52:13,440
Speaker 1: there's a really funny part where one of the coffins,

947
00:52:13,440 --> 00:52:15,279
Speaker 1: like a skull, pops out of it and bites him

948
00:52:15,320 --> 00:52:17,879
Speaker 1: on the hand. Um, so I enjoyed the skull bite.

949
00:52:18,080 --> 00:52:21,080
Speaker 1: But then there's a good vampire fake out. So, uh,

950
00:52:21,120 --> 00:52:24,600
Speaker 1: the Dan gets attacked by what you think is one

951
00:52:24,640 --> 00:52:27,680
Speaker 1: of the vampires. It hops at him and menaces him

952
00:52:27,680 --> 00:52:31,000
Speaker 1: with fangs. But then, oh no, it's like a cat scare.

953
00:52:31,080 --> 00:52:33,040
Speaker 1: It turns out that it's not really him. It's his

954
00:52:33,120 --> 00:52:36,040
Speaker 1: handsome body in a in a makeup I guess like

955
00:52:36,120 --> 00:52:39,000
Speaker 1: pranking him, and he comes dangerously close to the film

956
00:52:39,000 --> 00:52:41,400
Speaker 1: mistake of making your fake monster look a little bit

957
00:52:41,440 --> 00:52:44,600
Speaker 1: too good. Um, well, he really does look exactly like

958
00:52:44,680 --> 00:52:47,960
Speaker 1: the real ones. So I I was a little confused

959
00:52:48,000 --> 00:52:51,040
Speaker 1: when that happened. But it's not too long much longer

960
00:52:51,040 --> 00:52:53,719
Speaker 1: that you have to wait until you see some more vampires,

961
00:52:53,719 --> 00:52:55,960
Speaker 1: and some of them isn't more of the jeanshi that

962
00:52:56,160 --> 00:53:01,160
Speaker 1: look better, that look more undead. But this this prank,

963
00:53:01,360 --> 00:53:03,440
Speaker 1: you know, prank's, prank's and horror movie is just a

964
00:53:03,440 --> 00:53:05,759
Speaker 1: bad idea because it of course leads to I don't

965
00:53:05,760 --> 00:53:09,000
Speaker 1: remember exactly how they do this, but through some clutziness,

966
00:53:09,440 --> 00:53:11,839
Speaker 1: they end up unleashing all of the jiang chi like

967
00:53:11,920 --> 00:53:14,439
Speaker 1: they knocked the I think they knocked the candle over,

968
00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:16,480
Speaker 1: and then the strips of writing come off of their

969
00:53:16,480 --> 00:53:19,960
Speaker 1: foreheads and then they start hopping around attacking them. So

970
00:53:20,000 --> 00:53:22,840
Speaker 1: of course the bumbling students need help from their master.

971
00:53:23,080 --> 00:53:25,560
Speaker 1: And these two students that the master they work for

972
00:53:25,719 --> 00:53:28,880
Speaker 1: is played by Chinging Lamb. This is the This is

973
00:53:28,960 --> 00:53:31,520
Speaker 1: Master Gao, the hero of the film, and from the

974
00:53:31,600 --> 00:53:34,919
Speaker 1: moment you see him, you know he means business. This

975
00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:37,279
Speaker 1: is the moment when I noticed the unibrow when he

976
00:53:37,320 --> 00:53:39,200
Speaker 1: first comes in, and I was thinking, like, that's not

977
00:53:39,280 --> 00:53:42,480
Speaker 1: a funny unibrow, that's a unibrow. I respect. Yeah, he's

978
00:53:42,520 --> 00:53:44,319
Speaker 1: serious and he he knows what he's doing, Like when

979
00:53:44,320 --> 00:53:48,160
Speaker 1: he starts fixing the problem, he gets fixed. He's fast,

980
00:53:48,200 --> 00:53:51,440
Speaker 1: he's deliberate. He's got the moves. Yeah, speaking of moves,

981
00:53:51,440 --> 00:53:54,560
Speaker 1: So it turns in this movie has an interesting combination

982
00:53:54,840 --> 00:53:57,960
Speaker 1: of magic and martial arts. So a lot of what

983
00:53:58,080 --> 00:54:01,200
Speaker 1: Mr Gau does to fight the the vampires is like

984
00:54:01,239 --> 00:54:04,520
Speaker 1: doing spells and rituals and stuff like that, but other things.

985
00:54:04,880 --> 00:54:07,160
Speaker 1: But but on the other hand, it's also just like fighting.

986
00:54:07,200 --> 00:54:10,760
Speaker 1: It's you know, kicks and punches and standard comedy martial arts.

987
00:54:11,120 --> 00:54:13,560
Speaker 1: Maybe not quite as virtuosic as you'd see in like

988
00:54:13,640 --> 00:54:16,279
Speaker 1: one of the comedy action movies of Jackie Chan, but

989
00:54:16,320 --> 00:54:20,400
Speaker 1: a similar kind of vibe that you know, funny fighting. Yeah. Yeah,

990
00:54:20,440 --> 00:54:22,480
Speaker 1: it did remind me of some of the Jackie Chan

991
00:54:22,560 --> 00:54:25,880
Speaker 1: films I've seen, where they'll be really great and inventive

992
00:54:26,000 --> 00:54:29,160
Speaker 1: use of some sort of a set piece like a chair. Yeah,

993
00:54:29,200 --> 00:54:31,600
Speaker 1: there's there's at least a little of that in this.

994
00:54:31,680 --> 00:54:33,879
Speaker 1: And I have to admit I'm not I'm not well

995
00:54:34,000 --> 00:54:36,320
Speaker 1: versed enough in Hong Kong action to know you have

996
00:54:37,000 --> 00:54:39,600
Speaker 1: if what I'm watching in Mr Vampire he is truly

997
00:54:39,760 --> 00:54:42,800
Speaker 1: great comedy martial arts, or if it's just like really

998
00:54:42,840 --> 00:54:45,960
Speaker 1: good or even just decent, but it certainly feels awesome

999
00:54:46,719 --> 00:54:48,799
Speaker 1: when I'm watching it on screen like these are these

1000
00:54:48,800 --> 00:54:52,439
Speaker 1: are well thought out action sequences that really zing. Yeah,

1001
00:54:52,560 --> 00:54:54,920
Speaker 1: same here, I agree. And so there are a lot

1002
00:54:54,960 --> 00:54:56,799
Speaker 1: of funny things to it, Like one of them is

1003
00:54:56,840 --> 00:55:00,280
Speaker 1: that actually when Master Gal comes in, there's an another

1004
00:55:00,320 --> 00:55:03,239
Speaker 1: Taoist priest with him, this guy wearing glasses who is

1005
00:55:03,280 --> 00:55:05,200
Speaker 1: at the beginning and the end of the film, and

1006
00:55:05,320 --> 00:55:08,319
Speaker 1: this guy uh together they like I think, what they

1007
00:55:08,400 --> 00:55:11,640
Speaker 1: do is they bite their fingers and make them bleed,

1008
00:55:12,360 --> 00:55:15,720
Speaker 1: and then they use the blood on their fingertips to

1009
00:55:15,719 --> 00:55:20,160
Speaker 1: touch the foreheads of the vampires to essentially pause them,

1010
00:55:20,200 --> 00:55:22,400
Speaker 1: like freeze them in place. And I think, again, this

1011
00:55:22,480 --> 00:55:24,960
Speaker 1: is because of either it's something about the blood or

1012
00:55:25,000 --> 00:55:26,600
Speaker 1: it could have to do with putting the red color

1013
00:55:26,840 --> 00:55:30,120
Speaker 1: on their foreheads. But but it's funny because they will

1014
00:55:30,160 --> 00:55:32,759
Speaker 1: they will have to like pause them and unpause them. So,

1015
00:55:32,840 --> 00:55:35,120
Speaker 1: for example, the other priest at one point, one of

1016
00:55:35,160 --> 00:55:37,680
Speaker 1: the vampires is choking him, and he puts the mark

1017
00:55:37,760 --> 00:55:40,080
Speaker 1: on the vampire's forehead and it freezes the vampire. But

1018
00:55:40,080 --> 00:55:42,240
Speaker 1: now it's frozen choking him and he has to wipe

1019
00:55:42,239 --> 00:55:44,319
Speaker 1: it off and unfreeze him so that he'll get his

1020
00:55:44,360 --> 00:55:47,200
Speaker 1: hands off of him. And then he can freeze him again. Yeah,

1021
00:55:47,280 --> 00:55:51,319
Speaker 1: there's a there's there's a level of attention shown to

1022
00:55:51,400 --> 00:55:53,600
Speaker 1: the to the the action in a film like this.

1023
00:55:53,640 --> 00:55:55,800
Speaker 1: It did not even just to say action, but like

1024
00:55:55,840 --> 00:55:58,680
Speaker 1: the physical movements, like every physical movement in one of

1025
00:55:58,680 --> 00:56:01,920
Speaker 1: these scenes is is so elegantly choreographed. It's it's it's

1026
00:56:01,960 --> 00:56:05,000
Speaker 1: wonderful to watch, right. But eventually they fix all the

1027
00:56:05,000 --> 00:56:08,160
Speaker 1: malfunctioning vampires. They fix them with martial arts and magic,

1028
00:56:08,560 --> 00:56:10,920
Speaker 1: and then they send them off with this other priests,

1029
00:56:10,960 --> 00:56:13,480
Speaker 1: the guy wearing glasses. Uh. And I was wondering at

1030
00:56:13,480 --> 00:56:16,240
Speaker 1: the beginning, what did this guy like buy a bunch

1031
00:56:16,280 --> 00:56:19,640
Speaker 1: of jung shi from from Master Gal? But I don't

1032
00:56:19,680 --> 00:56:22,680
Speaker 1: think so. I think, actually he's another priest, and I

1033
00:56:22,719 --> 00:56:25,880
Speaker 1: think what's happening is he is taking them off somewhere

1034
00:56:25,920 --> 00:56:28,520
Speaker 1: to be to be given a proper burial so that

1035
00:56:28,560 --> 00:56:31,160
Speaker 1: they are no longer vampires. Yeah, that was That was

1036
00:56:31,200 --> 00:56:33,160
Speaker 1: what I got from it too, which which again it

1037
00:56:33,239 --> 00:56:35,440
Speaker 1: ties in with what we discussed earlier about the origin

1038
00:56:35,480 --> 00:56:38,359
Speaker 1: of this monster in general, that it it emerges from

1039
00:56:38,360 --> 00:56:42,560
Speaker 1: anxiety and concern over the improper burial, where the lack

1040
00:56:42,600 --> 00:56:45,840
Speaker 1: of burial for individuals and so it makes sense that

1041
00:56:46,080 --> 00:56:49,680
Speaker 1: our Dallas priests here are are They're part of the solution.

1042
00:56:49,719 --> 00:56:53,240
Speaker 1: They're trying to get these folks buried, putting the uh

1043
00:56:53,280 --> 00:56:56,319
Speaker 1: the unruly dead to rest. Yeah. And then and when

1044
00:56:56,320 --> 00:56:59,239
Speaker 1: he leads them away like they're hopping, they've got the

1045
00:56:59,239 --> 00:57:01,040
Speaker 1: they've got the spell us back on their faces. So

1046
00:57:01,080 --> 00:57:03,360
Speaker 1: they're not hopping of their own accord. They're sort of

1047
00:57:03,360 --> 00:57:07,160
Speaker 1: hopping as directed. They're being obedient now. But other than that,

1048
00:57:07,239 --> 00:57:09,840
Speaker 1: just to give an idea of the main plot situation.

1049
00:57:09,960 --> 00:57:13,680
Speaker 1: So after this, Master Gao is hired by a wealthy

1050
00:57:13,760 --> 00:57:18,720
Speaker 1: businessman named Mr Yam to help with a strategic reburial

1051
00:57:18,760 --> 00:57:22,440
Speaker 1: of Mr Yam's dead father. And the story is that

1052
00:57:22,480 --> 00:57:26,880
Speaker 1: a perhaps ski vie or perhaps revenge oriented fortune teller

1053
00:57:27,480 --> 00:57:31,440
Speaker 1: has prophesied that if Yam, that if Mr Yam digs

1054
00:57:31,520 --> 00:57:34,600
Speaker 1: up his father's corpse and buries it in a different place,

1055
00:57:35,080 --> 00:57:38,120
Speaker 1: this will lead to great fortune. And I think this

1056
00:57:38,240 --> 00:57:40,840
Speaker 1: great fortune is to be interpreted as money because he

1057
00:57:40,880 --> 00:57:43,560
Speaker 1: mentions that his business is not doing so well lately.

1058
00:57:44,080 --> 00:57:46,480
Speaker 1: And then it's also worth noting that Mr Yam has

1059
00:57:46,480 --> 00:57:49,600
Speaker 1: a beautiful daughter named Ting This is Moonlely. And then

1060
00:57:49,640 --> 00:57:52,320
Speaker 1: a nephew named. Why who is this guy? We mentioned?

1061
00:57:52,320 --> 00:57:57,120
Speaker 1: This odious and just magnificently incompetent police commander who is

1062
00:57:57,160 --> 00:58:02,880
Speaker 1: also romantically obsessed with his cousin ting. Yeah, he's fabulous.

1063
00:58:03,200 --> 00:58:06,480
Speaker 1: So Master Gao serves as a kind of ritual magic

1064
00:58:06,640 --> 00:58:11,560
Speaker 1: consultant for the reburial process of Yam's father, and unfortunately,

1065
00:58:11,680 --> 00:58:16,400
Speaker 1: once the body is disinterred, Gal notices the telltale signs

1066
00:58:16,440 --> 00:58:19,840
Speaker 1: of vampiresm that his body is fat and fresh when

1067
00:58:19,840 --> 00:58:22,800
Speaker 1: it should have been decomposed. So it ends up being

1068
00:58:22,800 --> 00:58:26,680
Speaker 1: transported to GAO's magical workshop and sealed shut and its

1069
00:58:26,720 --> 00:58:29,520
Speaker 1: coffin for protection, and I guess for him to ultimately

1070
00:58:29,560 --> 00:58:31,240
Speaker 1: figure out what to do with it, maybe find a

1071
00:58:31,280 --> 00:58:33,600
Speaker 1: place to bury it. But of course, you know, in

1072
00:58:33,600 --> 00:58:36,240
Speaker 1: a movie like this, no coffin can stay sealed. So

1073
00:58:36,320 --> 00:58:39,840
Speaker 1: the vampire is unleashed, setting off a chain of vampiric

1074
00:58:39,920 --> 00:58:44,040
Speaker 1: infections and transformations. Mr. Yam gets at first his father

1075
00:58:44,120 --> 00:58:46,760
Speaker 1: comes to him and vamps him. Then he goes on

1076
00:58:46,800 --> 00:58:50,120
Speaker 1: a rampage, and uh and and so forth, and there's

1077
00:58:50,200 --> 00:58:52,800
Speaker 1: this chain of you know how vampire movie goes after

1078
00:58:52,840 --> 00:58:55,880
Speaker 1: this that the structure is very similar to the vampire movies.

1079
00:58:55,960 --> 00:59:00,280
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, like there's gonna be cascading effects eating,

1080
00:59:00,520 --> 00:59:04,400
Speaker 1: you know, emanating out from this master vampire. But eventually

1081
00:59:04,400 --> 00:59:07,920
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to deal with that master vampire exactly. Meanwhile,

1082
00:59:07,960 --> 00:59:11,760
Speaker 1: I mentioned there's also this simultaneous plot where the handsome

1083
00:59:11,800 --> 00:59:15,400
Speaker 1: young hero, one of the two assistants, is targeted by

1084
00:59:15,440 --> 00:59:18,920
Speaker 1: a malicious ghost who I think attaches to him after

1085
00:59:19,000 --> 00:59:23,080
Speaker 1: he looks at her tombstone. I believe, so, yes, yeah,

1086
00:59:23,120 --> 00:59:26,160
Speaker 1: I've never heard of a ghost targeting somebody in that

1087
00:59:26,240 --> 00:59:29,480
Speaker 1: way before, but but that seems to be what happens.

1088
00:59:29,480 --> 00:59:31,720
Speaker 1: He like looks at her tombstone and he hears a voice,

1089
00:59:32,040 --> 00:59:34,840
Speaker 1: and after that she's just creeping on him. There's this

1090
00:59:34,880 --> 00:59:37,600
Speaker 1: great scene where he's writing by the cemetery I think,

1091
00:59:37,720 --> 00:59:40,560
Speaker 1: or he's riding through the woods on a Is he

1092
00:59:40,640 --> 00:59:43,080
Speaker 1: on a horse, No, he's not. He's not a bicycle,

1093
00:59:43,440 --> 00:59:48,080
Speaker 1: and she she like ghost flies across the forest. It's

1094
00:59:48,080 --> 00:59:51,880
Speaker 1: a one one of several wonderful wire based martial arts

1095
00:59:51,880 --> 00:59:55,080
Speaker 1: effects where she flies through the forest and she she

1096
00:59:55,320 --> 00:59:58,240
Speaker 1: lands gingerly right on the back of his bicycle, like

1097
00:59:58,280 --> 01:00:00,440
Speaker 1: all right, I'm with you now, let's go. But then

1098
01:00:00,480 --> 01:00:03,360
Speaker 1: he does he rides underneath a low hanging tree branch

1099
01:00:04,320 --> 01:00:06,760
Speaker 1: and he ducks and then the branch hits her and

1100
01:00:06,840 --> 01:00:10,800
Speaker 1: knocks her off the bicycle um which which of course

1101
01:00:10,840 --> 01:00:13,720
Speaker 1: reminded me of John Carpenter's Big Trouble and a Little China,

1102
01:00:13,840 --> 01:00:17,160
Speaker 1: where we have the low pon the the ghost of

1103
01:00:17,240 --> 01:00:21,000
Speaker 1: the spirit entity who passes through a vehicle. But then

1104
01:00:21,000 --> 01:00:22,560
Speaker 1: as also, you know, we can see that he can

1105
01:00:22,560 --> 01:00:24,120
Speaker 1: pass through things, but he can also be hit by

1106
01:00:24,160 --> 01:00:27,400
Speaker 1: a truck, very similar in this film, where this ghost

1107
01:00:27,440 --> 01:00:30,080
Speaker 1: has all these ghostly powers, but she can also just

1108
01:00:30,200 --> 01:00:32,680
Speaker 1: run smack into a tree limb. So I wanted to

1109
01:00:32,720 --> 01:00:35,080
Speaker 1: think for a minute about some of the conventions of

1110
01:00:35,080 --> 01:00:38,320
Speaker 1: of these vampire movies, because so in Western vampire movies,

1111
01:00:38,360 --> 01:00:40,680
Speaker 1: you've got the tropes that always appear. You've got the

1112
01:00:40,760 --> 01:00:43,640
Speaker 1: things that can be used to defeat the vampire, like

1113
01:00:43,920 --> 01:00:48,720
Speaker 1: you know, steaks, crosses, garlic, uh, vampire doesn't show up

1114
01:00:48,720 --> 01:00:51,320
Speaker 1: in a mirror, all those kinds of things. And this

1115
01:00:51,520 --> 01:00:55,320
Speaker 1: universe seems to have similar types of tropes, like there

1116
01:00:55,320 --> 01:00:58,880
Speaker 1: are things that are used for ritual magical effect against

1117
01:00:59,000 --> 01:01:02,400
Speaker 1: vampires or things that seemed to be true of the vampires.

1118
01:01:02,680 --> 01:01:04,400
Speaker 1: And I wanted to try to think about what some

1119
01:01:04,480 --> 01:01:06,680
Speaker 1: of them were. One that I found very interesting was

1120
01:01:06,760 --> 01:01:11,640
Speaker 1: the power of glutinous rice. Uh. This movie uses Master

1121
01:01:11,760 --> 01:01:15,960
Speaker 1: Gal repeatedly uses sticky rice to ward off vampires or

1122
01:01:16,040 --> 01:01:18,680
Speaker 1: to counteract the effects of a person turning into a

1123
01:01:18,760 --> 01:01:22,200
Speaker 1: vampire when Dan gets fammed. Yeah, I love this part

1124
01:01:22,240 --> 01:01:24,000
Speaker 1: of the film one hand. It makes perfect sense. It

1125
01:01:24,000 --> 01:01:25,760
Speaker 1: reminds me a lot of what we talked about with

1126
01:01:25,800 --> 01:01:28,920
Speaker 1: the use of beans in some cultures as a weighty

1127
01:01:29,160 --> 01:01:32,480
Speaker 1: Zooki beans or or other beans in other cultures used

1128
01:01:32,640 --> 01:01:35,160
Speaker 1: as in a way to fight back against the supernatural

1129
01:01:35,240 --> 01:01:38,200
Speaker 1: or having some link to the supernatural. So yeah, I

1130
01:01:38,440 --> 01:01:40,640
Speaker 1: love the idea that that the sticky rice could be

1131
01:01:40,680 --> 01:01:43,120
Speaker 1: utilized in such a fashion. But this film goes even

1132
01:01:43,160 --> 01:01:46,520
Speaker 1: further by by asking the question, well, what happens when

1133
01:01:46,560 --> 01:01:51,360
Speaker 1: an outbreak of of vampires in your town or city causes,

1134
01:01:51,480 --> 01:01:55,400
Speaker 1: um uh, a huge demand for sticky rice. How does

1135
01:01:55,440 --> 01:01:59,200
Speaker 1: the local rice shop owners respond? And in this film

1136
01:01:59,320 --> 01:02:02,440
Speaker 1: they respond a goodly by cutting of sticky rice with

1137
01:02:02,520 --> 01:02:05,200
Speaker 1: other varieties of rice. That was one of my favorite

1138
01:02:05,240 --> 01:02:08,720
Speaker 1: parts of the movie. Yeah, so there's a commodities demand problem. Uh.

1139
01:02:08,760 --> 01:02:11,040
Speaker 1: You need all the sticky rice to fight vampires, and

1140
01:02:11,040 --> 01:02:13,920
Speaker 1: it turns out regular rice is no good, does not

1141
01:02:14,080 --> 01:02:16,040
Speaker 1: help you at all. It's got to be sticky rice.

1142
01:02:16,720 --> 01:02:19,040
Speaker 1: And so yeah, there's a scene where a character is

1143
01:02:19,080 --> 01:02:21,080
Speaker 1: sent to the rice shop to get a whole bunch

1144
01:02:21,080 --> 01:02:23,760
Speaker 1: of sticky rice to to fight off the vampire, and

1145
01:02:23,840 --> 01:02:27,480
Speaker 1: an unethical rice shop owner tells his dimwitted son, why

1146
01:02:27,520 --> 01:02:30,720
Speaker 1: don't you mix thirty caddies of of regular rice with

1147
01:02:30,760 --> 01:02:33,200
Speaker 1: the twenty of sticky rice. They'll never know the difference,

1148
01:02:33,600 --> 01:02:36,800
Speaker 1: and so, and I think the dimwitted sun gets it wrong,

1149
01:02:36,880 --> 01:02:40,000
Speaker 1: but still does dilute it. Yeah, and of course that

1150
01:02:40,080 --> 01:02:43,080
Speaker 1: just causes the whole outbreak to get even worse. So yeah,

1151
01:02:43,200 --> 01:02:45,560
Speaker 1: I definitely love to use the sticky rice. We already

1152
01:02:45,880 --> 01:02:49,600
Speaker 1: mentioned the spells, but Master Gal uses a number of

1153
01:02:49,640 --> 01:02:53,760
Speaker 1: different like holy relics and artifacts to battle. I think

1154
01:02:53,800 --> 01:02:56,880
Speaker 1: my favorite one that he uses against the vampires is

1155
01:02:57,280 --> 01:03:00,720
Speaker 1: the Glowing Dagger. The dagger the is made out of

1156
01:03:00,800 --> 01:03:04,520
Speaker 1: Chinese coins and infused by the power of the moon. Right,

1157
01:03:04,560 --> 01:03:07,480
Speaker 1: there's a part focuses the power of the moon on

1158
01:03:07,520 --> 01:03:10,480
Speaker 1: it and it makes it glow. Yeah. I don't know

1159
01:03:10,520 --> 01:03:11,920
Speaker 1: what to deal with that is, but I thought that

1160
01:03:12,000 --> 01:03:14,080
Speaker 1: was cool. Yeah, so I mean we I guess you know,

1161
01:03:14,080 --> 01:03:16,760
Speaker 1: we do see some of the similar ideas like holy elements,

1162
01:03:17,120 --> 01:03:23,600
Speaker 1: elements involving reflections and light um, celestial energy, you know,

1163
01:03:23,640 --> 01:03:26,320
Speaker 1: solar energy and the more western varieties, but the idea

1164
01:03:26,360 --> 01:03:29,200
Speaker 1: that lunar energy could be utilized as well. I like that. Yeah,

1165
01:03:29,240 --> 01:03:30,960
Speaker 1: But there here's one thing. I don't know if you

1166
01:03:31,040 --> 01:03:34,360
Speaker 1: picked up on this seeming contradiction, maybe I just don't understand.

1167
01:03:34,400 --> 01:03:37,880
Speaker 1: But um, so, one thing is it's implied that the

1168
01:03:37,960 --> 01:03:42,440
Speaker 1: vampires are blind and that they can only detect you

1169
01:03:42,480 --> 01:03:45,760
Speaker 1: by hearing you, right, And that was the reason that

1170
01:03:45,800 --> 01:03:48,920
Speaker 1: you could hold your breath to hide from the vampire,

1171
01:03:49,280 --> 01:03:52,040
Speaker 1: because if you're not breathing, the vampire can't find you.

1172
01:03:52,560 --> 01:03:55,560
Speaker 1: Or is it that they smell your breath? Because remember

1173
01:03:55,600 --> 01:03:59,000
Speaker 1: this the scene where Dan buys himself a few moments

1174
01:03:59,000 --> 01:04:01,120
Speaker 1: of time to escape, which he you know, doesn't use.

1175
01:04:01,120 --> 01:04:02,960
Speaker 1: He just like gloats I think for a second, but

1176
01:04:03,040 --> 01:04:05,640
Speaker 1: he sticks some things in the young cheese knows in

1177
01:04:05,720 --> 01:04:09,560
Speaker 1: its nostrils can't detect him. Maybe it is the smell.

1178
01:04:09,920 --> 01:04:12,920
Speaker 1: So for it's either hearing or smell or some combination

1179
01:04:12,960 --> 01:04:16,120
Speaker 1: thereof the vampire can't find you if you're not breathing,

1180
01:04:16,160 --> 01:04:18,800
Speaker 1: so characters repeatedly hold their breath for a moment. As

1181
01:04:18,840 --> 01:04:22,200
Speaker 1: the original title says, while the vampires like looking right

1182
01:04:22,240 --> 01:04:24,520
Speaker 1: in their face, whatever the effect, it's supposed to not

1183
01:04:24,560 --> 01:04:27,000
Speaker 1: be able to see them. But also I've read that

1184
01:04:27,040 --> 01:04:29,720
Speaker 1: it's supposed to be a convention of these stories that

1185
01:04:30,160 --> 01:04:33,440
Speaker 1: the vampires are afraid of their own reflections in a mirror,

1186
01:04:33,960 --> 01:04:36,480
Speaker 1: and I wondered how that works if they can't actually

1187
01:04:36,560 --> 01:04:38,640
Speaker 1: see So I'm not sure about that. Maybe it's just

1188
01:04:38,680 --> 01:04:40,960
Speaker 1: something that's not consistent in the lore, or maybe I

1189
01:04:41,000 --> 01:04:44,280
Speaker 1: don't quite understand well. Also, the master vampire, and this

1190
01:04:44,320 --> 01:04:47,080
Speaker 1: seems to be less limited when he comes back after

1191
01:04:47,120 --> 01:04:50,360
Speaker 1: his first initial defeat Um, because when he comes back,

1192
01:04:50,360 --> 01:04:52,240
Speaker 1: he looks a bit different. He seems to be looking

1193
01:04:52,240 --> 01:04:54,120
Speaker 1: around with eyes more, and he doesn't seem to be

1194
01:04:54,640 --> 01:04:59,120
Speaker 1: as Um is based in scent, so which raises additional

1195
01:04:59,200 --> 01:05:02,640
Speaker 1: questions about exact really how how these these these beings work.

1196
01:05:02,760 --> 01:05:06,560
Speaker 1: But but they it seems to come back more powerful.

1197
01:05:06,920 --> 01:05:10,400
Speaker 1: So generally in Daoist rituals is the moon considered a

1198
01:05:10,480 --> 01:05:13,120
Speaker 1: holy thing that can ward off evil. Because I remember

1199
01:05:13,160 --> 01:05:16,960
Speaker 1: there's also a part where Um when the ghost first

1200
01:05:17,000 --> 01:05:20,480
Speaker 1: appears to try to uh, to seduce the handsome young

1201
01:05:20,520 --> 01:05:24,560
Speaker 1: hero in the forest. Uh. There's a song that is

1202
01:05:24,600 --> 01:05:27,200
Speaker 1: being sung on the soundtrack and the translation on the

1203
01:05:27,320 --> 01:05:30,080
Speaker 1: subtitles of the song there was a line that said,

1204
01:05:30,160 --> 01:05:33,240
Speaker 1: who would want a ghostly bride to worship the moon

1205
01:05:33,360 --> 01:05:37,000
Speaker 1: with her? I didn't know quite what to make of that,

1206
01:05:37,080 --> 01:05:39,320
Speaker 1: but well, I mean, the moon has a has been

1207
01:05:40,280 --> 01:05:42,920
Speaker 1: important roles in Chinese mythology, you know, and is the

1208
01:05:43,000 --> 01:05:45,840
Speaker 1: you know, the place of the elixir of the immortals.

1209
01:05:45,840 --> 01:05:49,080
Speaker 1: That is a you know, a place where the goddess resides.

1210
01:05:49,200 --> 01:05:52,280
Speaker 1: It is a place where the where the rabbit lives.

1211
01:05:52,320 --> 01:05:54,760
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of a lot of cool

1212
01:05:55,360 --> 01:05:58,280
Speaker 1: magical ideas about the moon. Is is not only like

1213
01:05:58,320 --> 01:06:02,480
Speaker 1: an entity but a place in in Chinese mythology, Whereas

1214
01:06:02,720 --> 01:06:04,880
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that the response that there's as much

1215
01:06:05,120 --> 01:06:07,120
Speaker 1: about that with the sun, you know, when you think

1216
01:06:07,160 --> 01:06:10,040
Speaker 1: about prominent solar Chinese myths, I mean, obviously the one

1217
01:06:10,040 --> 01:06:12,320
Speaker 1: that comes to mind is the shooting of the surplus

1218
01:06:12,360 --> 01:06:15,320
Speaker 1: suns out of the sky by the Great Archer. But

1219
01:06:15,400 --> 01:06:17,040
Speaker 1: in that it's like that that it's more like the

1220
01:06:17,080 --> 01:06:19,680
Speaker 1: sun is an entity or multiple entities that must be

1221
01:06:19,720 --> 01:06:22,000
Speaker 1: dealt with. I'm sure I'm missing something that there's a

1222
01:06:22,080 --> 01:06:24,720
Speaker 1: lot of Chinese mythology is a broad tent, and uh

1223
01:06:24,920 --> 01:06:27,240
Speaker 1: likely there's some exceptions to this that I just don't

1224
01:06:27,280 --> 01:06:29,400
Speaker 1: have in my head at the moment. I guess we

1225
01:06:29,440 --> 01:06:31,480
Speaker 1: gotta wrap up in a minute here. But one more

1226
01:06:31,520 --> 01:06:33,400
Speaker 1: thing I wanted to do before we did was the

1227
01:06:33,520 --> 01:06:38,040
Speaker 1: excellent jail scene. I love Yes. So one point in

1228
01:06:38,080 --> 01:06:42,720
Speaker 1: the movie, Master Gao is framed for the murder of

1229
01:06:42,720 --> 01:06:45,440
Speaker 1: a character. I think it's for the murder of of

1230
01:06:45,560 --> 01:06:48,920
Speaker 1: Mr Yam, the wealthy businessman who hired him, And it

1231
01:06:48,960 --> 01:06:51,800
Speaker 1: goes like this. He shows up when the body is found,

1232
01:06:52,280 --> 01:06:56,160
Speaker 1: and why the incompetent policeman is saying, well, he has

1233
01:06:56,240 --> 01:06:58,720
Speaker 1: holes in his neck, so those must have been caused

1234
01:06:58,760 --> 01:07:02,240
Speaker 1: by a gun. And then everybody's like, way, that doesn't

1235
01:07:02,240 --> 01:07:05,280
Speaker 1: really make sense, and he's like, oh, yeah, that's right, um,

1236
01:07:05,400 --> 01:07:08,200
Speaker 1: because the neck is really torn up. And then he's like,

1237
01:07:08,240 --> 01:07:10,440
Speaker 1: well it maybe it was caused by someone who is

1238
01:07:10,480 --> 01:07:13,560
Speaker 1: a martial arts expert, who was an expert in the

1239
01:07:13,680 --> 01:07:16,600
Speaker 1: ninefold darts. I don't know what that means, but I

1240
01:07:16,640 --> 01:07:18,400
Speaker 1: tried to look that up and I couldn't find anything

1241
01:07:18,440 --> 01:07:20,880
Speaker 1: about it, so maybe I was not using the right

1242
01:07:20,920 --> 01:07:24,919
Speaker 1: search terms. But then finally Master Gau reveals it looks

1243
01:07:24,960 --> 01:07:28,919
Speaker 1: like these holes were actually made by long fingernails, right,

1244
01:07:28,960 --> 01:07:31,880
Speaker 1: so the the vampire like sticks long fingernails in the

1245
01:07:31,960 --> 01:07:36,120
Speaker 1: victim's neck, and then why the policeman's like, hey, Master Gau,

1246
01:07:36,320 --> 01:07:42,000
Speaker 1: you have long fingernails. You're under arrest, and then he

1247
01:07:42,040 --> 01:07:45,000
Speaker 1: takes him back to the jail to torture him for information.

1248
01:07:45,760 --> 01:07:48,880
Speaker 1: But while he's in his jail cell overnight and repeatedly

1249
01:07:48,880 --> 01:07:52,560
Speaker 1: getting his head stuck between the bars, the handsome two

1250
01:07:52,600 --> 01:07:55,160
Speaker 1: of his assistants shows up to rescue him. But then

1251
01:07:55,200 --> 01:07:57,560
Speaker 1: the vampire also comes to life, and then why is

1252
01:07:57,640 --> 01:07:59,960
Speaker 1: running around causing problems as well? There's a great fight.

1253
01:08:00,040 --> 01:08:01,680
Speaker 1: Seeing that that, that whole part was one of the

1254
01:08:01,720 --> 01:08:05,400
Speaker 1: best parts of the movie, I agree. But before we go,

1255
01:08:05,440 --> 01:08:09,080
Speaker 1: should we should we discuss the gorilla scene? What was

1256
01:08:09,120 --> 01:08:11,800
Speaker 1: that supposed to be a gorilla? Okay? So I think

1257
01:08:11,840 --> 01:08:15,640
Speaker 1: it was? Okay, Okay, we're setting the scene here. At

1258
01:08:15,680 --> 01:08:19,479
Speaker 1: one point, the police, I guess, being led by by

1259
01:08:19,560 --> 01:08:22,640
Speaker 1: why the world's worst policemen are out in the countryside.

1260
01:08:22,680 --> 01:08:25,120
Speaker 1: They've left the city and they're like on a on

1261
01:08:25,160 --> 01:08:28,720
Speaker 1: a grassy hill and they find a cave opening, and

1262
01:08:28,760 --> 01:08:31,599
Speaker 1: the police go out into the cave opening, I think

1263
01:08:31,600 --> 01:08:35,880
Speaker 1: with their guns drawn, uh maybe believing that the vampire

1264
01:08:36,120 --> 01:08:38,360
Speaker 1: is in the cave. That that's one thing that's interesting

1265
01:08:38,400 --> 01:08:41,360
Speaker 1: in this movie. The police are fully on board with

1266
01:08:41,400 --> 01:08:44,639
Speaker 1: the supernatural villain and they're they're ready to go fight

1267
01:08:44,720 --> 01:08:48,240
Speaker 1: the vampire with guns. Yes, say what you will about them.

1268
01:08:48,960 --> 01:08:51,240
Speaker 1: Once it's clear that it's supernatural, they're like, all right, yeah,

1269
01:08:51,280 --> 01:08:52,680
Speaker 1: we're on board. We'll do what we need to do.

1270
01:08:52,720 --> 01:08:54,400
Speaker 1: We'll go, we'll help go find this thing before it

1271
01:08:54,439 --> 01:08:56,880
Speaker 1: gets dark and it becomes more powerful. But when they

1272
01:08:56,920 --> 01:09:00,200
Speaker 1: go into the cave chased out by a gorilla up

1273
01:09:00,360 --> 01:09:03,599
Speaker 1: like a guy in a guerrilla suit. Yeah, I mean

1274
01:09:04,920 --> 01:09:08,560
Speaker 1: I haven't really researched it or anything, and see what

1275
01:09:08,560 --> 01:09:11,160
Speaker 1: what critics have said about it over the years by

1276
01:09:11,160 --> 01:09:13,360
Speaker 1: but based on just a couple of brief mentions, I

1277
01:09:13,360 --> 01:09:16,439
Speaker 1: think this was just included as a gag. It's it's

1278
01:09:16,479 --> 01:09:19,000
Speaker 1: just like a sight gag of like, what if then

1279
01:09:19,000 --> 01:09:21,200
Speaker 1: a guerrilla chased them out of the cave, wouldn't that

1280
01:09:21,240 --> 01:09:24,519
Speaker 1: be funny? Um? Though it it does seem at least

1281
01:09:24,560 --> 01:09:27,840
Speaker 1: to my you know, um, you know my eyes. And

1282
01:09:28,080 --> 01:09:30,400
Speaker 1: again I'm not familiar with all, you know, everything that

1283
01:09:30,400 --> 01:09:34,599
Speaker 1: would have been considered like normal within comedy at the time,

1284
01:09:34,680 --> 01:09:38,320
Speaker 1: Like what what makes a normal action comedy in mid

1285
01:09:38,400 --> 01:09:41,640
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties Hong Kong cinema. Uh Like, so maybe this

1286
01:09:41,680 --> 01:09:43,759
Speaker 1: isn't that far out of line to have a sudden

1287
01:09:43,760 --> 01:09:46,559
Speaker 1: guerrilla jag show up, but it felt out of line.

1288
01:09:46,560 --> 01:09:49,160
Speaker 1: It felt like like where did that come from? I

1289
01:09:49,200 --> 01:09:51,120
Speaker 1: almost feel like I'm part of one of those those

1290
01:09:51,120 --> 01:09:54,840
Speaker 1: guerrilla costume experiments where they're they're checking to see if

1291
01:09:54,880 --> 01:09:58,719
Speaker 1: you're paying attention to the scene. Well deployed random guerrilla

1292
01:09:58,840 --> 01:10:02,000
Speaker 1: is a is a good trick. Yeah, so that scene

1293
01:10:02,040 --> 01:10:05,599
Speaker 1: is just really that's that's a really crazy sequence that

1294
01:10:05,600 --> 01:10:08,000
Speaker 1: that doesn't have huge bearing on the plot. I guess

1295
01:10:08,000 --> 01:10:10,000
Speaker 1: that's the other thing. It doesn't really connect to any

1296
01:10:10,000 --> 01:10:12,880
Speaker 1: other sequence, so you can sort of compartmentalize it is

1297
01:10:12,920 --> 01:10:17,120
Speaker 1: just one of the one of the police chief's wacky adventures.

1298
01:10:17,800 --> 01:10:20,519
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen the movie Ape? I think it's

1299
01:10:20,520 --> 01:10:23,320
Speaker 1: just called Ape. It's a bad rip off of King Kong.

1300
01:10:23,439 --> 01:10:25,800
Speaker 1: It's just a giant ape movie. But the main thing

1301
01:10:25,800 --> 01:10:27,519
Speaker 1: I remember about it it's been a long time since

1302
01:10:27,520 --> 01:10:29,040
Speaker 1: I saw it. The main thing I remember is there's

1303
01:10:29,080 --> 01:10:32,320
Speaker 1: a scene where a guy in a guerrilla costume just

1304
01:10:32,400 --> 01:10:34,880
Speaker 1: gives the middle finger to the camera for a solid

1305
01:10:34,920 --> 01:10:38,720
Speaker 1: fifteen seconds. Oh, I've I have seen that sequence. I

1306
01:10:38,760 --> 01:10:40,880
Speaker 1: believe there was. Yeah, there was a there was an

1307
01:10:40,920 --> 01:10:44,960
Speaker 1: old film title that came from Hollywood that Dan Ackroyd

1308
01:10:45,000 --> 01:10:47,840
Speaker 1: and John Candy and a number of folks did, and

1309
01:10:47,840 --> 01:10:51,000
Speaker 1: it had a lot of clips from old films, um

1310
01:10:51,240 --> 01:10:53,360
Speaker 1: and they had a whole section on guerrilla movies that

1311
01:10:53,520 --> 01:10:56,439
Speaker 1: was that was pretty fabulous. And I remember that ape.

1312
01:10:57,320 --> 01:10:59,680
Speaker 1: I definitely remember that ape. Okay, I think maybe we

1313
01:10:59,720 --> 01:11:02,040
Speaker 1: got a call it there from Mr Vampire. Yeah, but

1314
01:11:02,080 --> 01:11:06,920
Speaker 1: hopefully we've we've we we've raised everyone's interest level regarding

1315
01:11:07,040 --> 01:11:10,880
Speaker 1: Mr Vampire. I I it's definitely worth seeking out. I

1316
01:11:11,439 --> 01:11:13,880
Speaker 1: I look, I didn't look around much for this. I

1317
01:11:13,920 --> 01:11:16,439
Speaker 1: think there's some some rips of it out there, but

1318
01:11:16,600 --> 01:11:19,280
Speaker 1: I can't speak to the quality. There have been various

1319
01:11:19,360 --> 01:11:23,080
Speaker 1: DVD and Blu Ray releases over the years. The DVD

1320
01:11:23,280 --> 01:11:25,479
Speaker 1: version is the one that we watched, and we rented

1321
01:11:25,479 --> 01:11:29,320
Speaker 1: it from Atlanta's own Video Drome, the last video rental

1322
01:11:29,320 --> 01:11:32,479
Speaker 1: store here in Atlanta. But I think you can buy

1323
01:11:32,479 --> 01:11:35,200
Speaker 1: copies of it. I think it's commercially available. Uh, and

1324
01:11:35,240 --> 01:11:38,000
Speaker 1: I have seen it on streaming services before, just I

1325
01:11:38,040 --> 01:11:41,760
Speaker 1: don't think currently. But this stuff changes, so who knows

1326
01:11:41,760 --> 01:11:44,439
Speaker 1: it may become Perhaps there's and and it's also possible

1327
01:11:44,439 --> 01:11:47,280
Speaker 1: that there's maybe a Hong Kong cinema centric service that

1328
01:11:47,400 --> 01:11:50,080
Speaker 1: I'm just not privy to that would be the ideal

1329
01:11:50,160 --> 01:11:53,719
Speaker 1: place to go for your Mr. Vampire and Mr Vampire

1330
01:11:53,840 --> 01:11:56,280
Speaker 1: related titles. If you do end up watching it, be

1331
01:11:56,360 --> 01:12:00,679
Speaker 1: warned in advanced about content. Uh. Just where reading about

1332
01:12:00,680 --> 01:12:02,639
Speaker 1: a bit. Uh. There's one thing that came to my mind,

1333
01:12:02,680 --> 01:12:04,400
Speaker 1: which is that there are a couple of scenes in

1334
01:12:04,400 --> 01:12:07,360
Speaker 1: the movie where it appears that real animals are killed

1335
01:12:07,360 --> 01:12:10,000
Speaker 1: on screen, Like there's a chicken and a and a snake.

1336
01:12:10,080 --> 01:12:14,200
Speaker 1: I think there's a dead snake for something. Yeah. I

1337
01:12:14,240 --> 01:12:16,920
Speaker 1: think I read that they the snake that they used

1338
01:12:17,000 --> 01:12:19,640
Speaker 1: was then made into a soup, which I guess is

1339
01:12:20,560 --> 01:12:24,439
Speaker 1: partially comforting. But yeah, so be aware. But then again,

1340
01:12:24,439 --> 01:12:26,559
Speaker 1: I think it's a good idea if you're if you're

1341
01:12:26,560 --> 01:12:29,560
Speaker 1: looking at some of these older movies, UM would be

1342
01:12:29,880 --> 01:12:33,680
Speaker 1: in general. Yeah, IMDb. IMDb has been pretty good for

1343
01:12:33,720 --> 01:12:38,519
Speaker 1: me recently on selections where they have the parental um

1344
01:12:39,000 --> 01:12:41,840
Speaker 1: guidance section, which I used to just not care about,

1345
01:12:41,960 --> 01:12:44,120
Speaker 1: but especially as a as a parent, now I care

1346
01:12:44,120 --> 01:12:46,120
Speaker 1: about it. But also in terms of selecting things for

1347
01:12:46,439 --> 01:12:49,400
Speaker 1: weird ol cinema, it's a great way, on at least

1348
01:12:49,479 --> 01:12:51,800
Speaker 1: more well known films to just try to just check

1349
01:12:51,840 --> 01:12:55,080
Speaker 1: in and see what has been flagged. And sometimes it's

1350
01:12:55,200 --> 01:12:58,800
Speaker 1: it's hilariously fun where someone will be like, well, it

1351
01:12:58,920 --> 01:13:01,160
Speaker 1: is implied that a human and his naked in this film.

1352
01:13:01,200 --> 01:13:05,200
Speaker 1: It is not shown, but it is heavily implied, so beware. Uh.

1353
01:13:05,200 --> 01:13:08,800
Speaker 1: So I love the uh some of the warnings that

1354
01:13:08,840 --> 01:13:10,720
Speaker 1: are just a bit over the top like that. But

1355
01:13:10,760 --> 01:13:13,200
Speaker 1: then you can also, you know, find out if there

1356
01:13:13,240 --> 01:13:16,519
Speaker 1: are you know, examples of potential animal cruelty or depicted

1357
01:13:16,520 --> 01:13:18,280
Speaker 1: animal cruelty that you just might not want to watch,

1358
01:13:18,560 --> 01:13:21,360
Speaker 1: even if it, uh, you know, even if no animals

1359
01:13:21,360 --> 01:13:23,040
Speaker 1: are harmed. Sometimes you don't want to see the fictional

1360
01:13:23,120 --> 01:13:25,960
Speaker 1: version of something either. So I've had good luck with

1361
01:13:26,000 --> 01:13:30,599
Speaker 1: the IMDb parental Guidance section. A good idea, used as needed,

1362
01:13:30,920 --> 01:13:33,880
Speaker 1: used as needed. All Right, we're gonna go ahead and

1363
01:13:33,920 --> 01:13:36,800
Speaker 1: close the coffin on this one and uh and give

1364
01:13:36,840 --> 01:13:39,600
Speaker 1: it a proper burial. But who knows, maybe in the

1365
01:13:39,640 --> 01:13:43,720
Speaker 1: future we will be back with more Jangshi action. I

1366
01:13:43,760 --> 01:13:45,920
Speaker 1: have to admit there is there's at least one title

1367
01:13:46,080 --> 01:13:48,599
Speaker 1: that has been on my list uh since the beginning

1368
01:13:48,600 --> 01:13:51,280
Speaker 1: of world Weird How Cinema. We may come back to

1369
01:13:51,880 --> 01:13:55,400
Speaker 1: Weird How Cinema, of course, is are a Friday episode

1370
01:13:55,439 --> 01:13:56,920
Speaker 1: that we put out in the Stuff to Blow Your

1371
01:13:56,920 --> 01:13:59,719
Speaker 1: Mind podcast feed. We're normally a science and culture podcast.

1372
01:14:00,000 --> 01:14:03,160
Speaker 1: In our core episodes published on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we

1373
01:14:03,200 --> 01:14:05,600
Speaker 1: do a little bit of listener mail on Monday's. We

1374
01:14:05,680 --> 01:14:08,960
Speaker 1: do the Artifact on Wednesdays, which is a short form episode,

1375
01:14:09,200 --> 01:14:11,840
Speaker 1: but then Friday is Weird Our Cinema. And you can

1376
01:14:11,920 --> 01:14:14,280
Speaker 1: find all of this wherever you get your podcasts. Just

1377
01:14:14,320 --> 01:14:16,400
Speaker 1: look for the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed.

1378
01:14:17,160 --> 01:14:19,000
Speaker 1: If you want to get to it quickly, you can

1379
01:14:19,000 --> 01:14:20,800
Speaker 1: go to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That

1380
01:14:20,800 --> 01:14:24,400
Speaker 1: will sends you over to the I Heart Radio um

1381
01:14:24,800 --> 01:14:28,000
Speaker 1: page for our show, and there's actually a store button

1382
01:14:28,040 --> 01:14:29,920
Speaker 1: on there. You can go there if you want, and

1383
01:14:30,000 --> 01:14:31,760
Speaker 1: you can buy some stuff to Blow your Mind merch

1384
01:14:31,880 --> 01:14:34,800
Speaker 1: and you can actually buy some weird how cinema merch. Now,

1385
01:14:35,200 --> 01:14:37,960
Speaker 1: as of this recording, the only thing available is a

1386
01:14:38,000 --> 01:14:42,080
Speaker 1: button no sorry, a sticker or a magnet. But I'm

1387
01:14:42,080 --> 01:14:43,800
Speaker 1: hoping that we get a shirt in there soon. We

1388
01:14:43,880 --> 01:14:46,200
Speaker 1: just have to get some other sort of file for

1389
01:14:46,280 --> 01:14:49,599
Speaker 1: that to work properly, so um uh at anyway, check

1390
01:14:49,640 --> 01:14:52,400
Speaker 1: that out if you're interested. Huge thanks as always to

1391
01:14:52,400 --> 01:14:55,880
Speaker 1: our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would

1392
01:14:55,880 --> 01:14:57,680
Speaker 1: like to get in touch with us with feedback on

1393
01:14:57,720 --> 01:15:00,400
Speaker 1: this episode or any other to suggest topic for the future,

1394
01:15:00,520 --> 01:15:03,120
Speaker 1: just to say hello, you can email us at contact

1395
01:15:03,240 --> 01:15:12,840
Speaker 1: at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to

1396
01:15:12,880 --> 01:15:15,400
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For

1397
01:15:15,479 --> 01:15:17,680
Speaker 1: more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I heart

1398
01:15:17,760 --> 01:15:20,479
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

1399
01:15:20,479 --> 01:15:21,160
Speaker 1: favorite shows.