WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: Mr. Vampire 0:00:04.280 --> 0:00:08.800 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob 0:00:09.119 --> 0:00:12.040 and this is Joe and we're bringing you an episode 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:15.120 from the vault today. Uh. This is one that we 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:19.480 did on the movie Mr Vampire, a great martial arts 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:24.360 hopping vampire movie of of Hong Kong cinema from what 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:27.000 is this? I guess this came out in nine five? 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:29.479 Is that right? That's correct. Yeah. It has kicks, it 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:33.240 has furniture, it has rice was so much great rice action. 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:35.599 This is a really fun flick. Yeah. It always has 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.680 a great uh Taoist priest who who who knows all 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:42.080 the spells to keep the dead from reviving? Uh, yeah, 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:44.159 it's It's a lot of fun. So this one originally 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:48.479 published on July nine, and we hope you enjoyed this 0:00:48.520 --> 0:00:54.800 Weird House Cinema rewind. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your 0:00:54.840 --> 0:01:04.720 Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:07.839 House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:11.600 And today we are hopping into the world of Daoist sorcery, 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:16.000 Hong Kong monsters, glutinous rice, martial arts, and and much 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:19.759 more with our very first Jong She movie. I've been 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:22.240 wanting to do one of these movies for a while 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:25.600 because I had never actually seen a Young She film 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:28.520 and uh and and I was aware of them for 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:30.720 a while having I guess I've seen like pictures of 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:33.119 them on the internet. Uh so, so this has been 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:35.280 in my mind for years, and finally we got to 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:39.360 see one. Today We're gonna be talking about Mr Vampire. Yeah. 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:41.200 I'm excited as well because I think I was in 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:43.840 the same boat as you. I I knew about Jan She. 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:48.400 I knew they they existed in in Chinese folklore as 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:51.520 as being this kind of vampire, kind of zombie zombie 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:54.760 creature with with unique characteristics all their own. But I'd 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:59.440 never watched a Jiangshi movie. Uh Though, interestingly enough, right 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:02.560 this was before you brought up the idea of of 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:05.760 of of doing one. I had picked up the new 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:09.680 Dungeons and Dragons book Van Ripton's Guide to Raven Loft, 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:13.080 and it includes a domain in it inspired by Chinese 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:17.680 mythology and folklore, so it includes stats for Jiangshi monsters. 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:20.440 It's a in in Dungeons and Dragons. It's a ninth 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:23.600 level undead entity with the power to drain the energy 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:26.280 of its victims and a shape shift, so young she 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:33.160 is both a class of Chinese mythological monster and a 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:38.520 specific genre of especially nineteen eighties Hong Kong martial arts 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:41.880 comedy films. That's correct, Yeah, it's and this is one 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:44.480 of the big films. We started looking around like, well, 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:48.400 which which youngshi movies should we do? And the signs 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:52.720 increasingly pointed to Mr Vampire from five because it's it 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:56.960 was a huge hit. It was responsible for really popularizing 0:02:57.000 --> 0:03:00.400 it in not only within Chinese cinema and creating a 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:03.519 whole sub genre, but also spreading out and it was 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:06.959 very popular in Japan and ultimately you know across to 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:10.320 to Uh to the West as well. So and also 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:12.240 this is the one we could rent from our local 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:15.720 video store video drum. Yeah, these movies are not widely 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:18.320 digitally available, at least that I could find, but at 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:21.119 least not right now. I feel like they have been recently. 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:23.240 But um, I have to say, Amazon Prime used to 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:26.600 be my go to place for a lot of weird movies, 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:30.440 but I feel like their selection is not as expansive 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:33.160 as it was just a couple of years ago. So Mr. 0:03:33.240 --> 0:03:35.680 Vampire is really a title that sort of grabs me 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:38.080 by the fangs or by the fingernails, as it may be. 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:42.040 To begin with, Uh, there's something a little bit cheeky 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:43.880 about it. But also I think this is not a 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:47.880 direct translation of the original title, which I think uh 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:51.680 in the Cantonese original title was it translates to like 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:54.760 hold your breath for a moment or something. Ah, yeah, 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:56.680 and that and the reason for that is because that's 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:58.560 that's one of the plot points. And how do you 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:02.680 avoid the young she discovering where you are and draining 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:04.680 the life out of you. Well, just don't breathe and 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:08.119 then it can't detect your presence. But Mr Vampire, Uh, 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:11.600 that that also that also kind of works. It's it's 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:13.720 not the name of a vampire in it, but it's 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:17.560 referring to our main character, who is a Dallas priest 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:22.760 whose expertise is the management and sometimes slaying of of 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:25.880 of vampires, and therefore he's Mr Vampire in the same 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:28.800 way that someone who comes and fixes your pipes might 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:31.919 be Mr Plumbing or Mr Plumber. I was thinking of 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:34.400 it more along the lines of Mr Coffee, Like he 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:37.760 is a machine that is designed to perfectly execute this function, 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:40.480 and so in this case, our hero in the film, 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:45.640 the Taoist priest played by Uh Chining Lamb, is the 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:50.360 machine that perfectly executes the Jung She cycle. So let's 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:52.280 talk for just a little bit about the young She 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:55.120 because some of you may be super familiar with this already. 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:58.000 Maybe you've read the New Raven Loft book and so 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:00.120 you know, you're like, I know all the stats, Rob, 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:01.839 you don't have to go into the details, but I 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:04.400 will anyway because it's super interesting and I think it 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:07.400 it enhances our understanding of this film. Even though this 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:10.280 film is very much a horror comedy, it's not like 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:12.960 it has I think, you know, really deep things to say, 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:16.120 but it is. It is a treatment of some of 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:20.000 of a monster, a monster that emerged out of Chinese history, 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:23.680 out of Chinese folklore, and out of real anxieties. So 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:28.039 first of all, jang She literally means the stiff or 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:31.640 the rigid dead, and uh and and and the reason 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:33.760 for that will become clear when we start talking about 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:37.360 how they move, especially, So I'd love to just set 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:39.760 the scene for you here if I may. Okay, let's 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:43.599 get it. Imagine yourself out on a road so frustratingly 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:46.159 close to the walls of the city you've been traveling to, 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:49.600 and yet night is falling, the mist is rolling in, 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:52.960 and then up ahead you see several figures in the gloom. 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:56.400 Who are they? Are they fellow travelers, perhaps headed to 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:59.840 where you're going, or coming from the opposite direction, maybe 0:05:59.839 --> 0:06:02.200 there a patrol of guards from the city, And you 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:05.599 even entertain the possibility that they might be bandits. But 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:10.200 then they do something quite unnatural. They hop, They hop, 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:14.640 like creatures whose legs are bound or stiff with rigor mortis, 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:19.080 perhaps even forgetful of proper bipedal locomotion, and forced to 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:23.560 lunge themselves forward through physical space like a writhing worm 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:27.120 stood on end. The creatures hop and they hop again, 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:30.120 ever closer to you, And as they get closer, you 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:33.760 see that they are undead horrors, dressed in robes from 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:38.359 the Chain dynasty, decayed corpses, burning with unnatural life. And 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:41.760 as they hop, they reach out towards you with elongated 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:45.600 finger nails, they gasp with bloody thing tooth jaws, and 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:48.520 if they catch you, they will drain every last ounce 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:53.320 of precious chee from your body. Yeah, I think I 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:56.920 think the thing about the hopping really the hopping is 0:06:57.000 --> 0:07:01.040 key because it's such a vital part of of the folklore, 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:04.760 and yet at the same time it can seem ridiculous 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:07.599 because it is so unnatural, and sometimes it's hard for 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:10.040 us to really like figure out, like where does at 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:12.880 what point does the unnatural become the ridiculous? At what 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:17.040 point does the ridiculous then become the uncanny? Well, yeah, 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:19.720 I mean, I won't deny that it looks funny in 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:23.000 the movie when they're hopping, and it clearly is supposed 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:24.800 to look funny in the movie because this isn't like 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:27.840 a straight horror movie. This is a horror comedy. But 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:31.640 I can see how the hopping could be quite unnerving 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.880 given the right cultural associations, and if it were I 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:36.760 don't know, maybe if it were filmed from the right 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:40.200 angle to because like you can get the funny aspects, 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:42.440 like it's kind of a sack Ray zombie, right, it's 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:45.520 just the feet can't move independently. It's hopping up and 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:48.000 down with the arms outstretched. But on the other hand, 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:52.600 it symbolizes that this body no longer works as it should. 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:55.600 In fact, it is no longer really a human body, 0:07:55.640 --> 0:08:00.440 but something else exactly so, so that's the the Yangshi. 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:02.720 But as as most of you know from listening to 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:05.760 stuff to blow your mind, monsters don't just exist in 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:10.040 a vacuum. Monsters always means something. And so I was curious, 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:12.040 like I know a number of you are curious, where 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:13.880 does this come from, what does it mean? What is 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:16.480 the hopping all about? Why does the riga mortis seem 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:19.640 to be so key to this depiction of the undead? 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:21.720 And I read rand Acry. I looked at a few 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:25.360 different sources, and then I found this paper by historian 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:28.920 Juhy Sue. And this is actually their Doctor of Philosophy 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:32.760 dissertation at Washington University from twenty nineteen. But it's titled 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:36.600 The Afterlife of Corpses, A Social History of Unburied dead 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:41.120 Bodies in the Ching Dynasty sixty four through nineteen eleven. Interesting, 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:44.199 So what can you tell us about these creatures? Okay? So, 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:47.520 while Chinese mythology and folklore is filled with various ghosts 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:50.800 and monsters, obviously, uh the jiang Xi seemed to emerge 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:54.160 out of a Ching Dynasty crisis concerning the burial of 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:57.760 the dead. So Sue writes that numerous records from the 0:08:57.800 --> 0:09:01.640 eighteenth and nineteenth century discussed the problem of unburied bodies 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:05.840 left on the ground without proper burial. And the interesting 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:08.360 thing is these were not exclusively say, the victims of 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:12.480 war or famine or disaster, you know, something where even 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:15.560 in the best of situations can overwhelm your ability to 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:18.960 deal with the dead. They were seemingly, for the most part, 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:23.400 individuals who simply had no permanent grave, and this, Sue writes, 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:27.200 was due to changing socio economic structure during this time 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:33.840 period and the resulting imbalance between population and arable land. Interesting. Yeah, so, 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:36.280 I mean the idea here is that a family would 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:38.880 need a secure claim to the land in order to 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:42.280 bury a deceased loved one, and if a grave could 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:45.160 not be obtained, then they were then the body would 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:47.440 would just be left out or would be uh, you know, 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:52.200 abandoned or lost. Um you know, not necessarily like immediately discarded, 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:55.280 but it might be put somewhere and then it would 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:58.720 never find its way to a permanent destination. This actually 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:01.160 plays into the movie. I hadn't thought about this, but 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:04.160 in the plot of Mr. Vampire. Though again this is 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:08.600 a comedy movie. Part of the incitement of the vampire 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:11.880 curse in this film seems to be a dispute about 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:15.160 over the land on which a body is buried. That 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:18.600 there's like a dispute between this wealthy family. Uh this 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:22.679 you know, this wealthy family with this businessman patriarch and 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:26.800 a fortune teller who originally wanted access to some kind 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:30.440 of burial plot and the businessman bought it off the 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:33.840 fort fortune teller seemingly with some kind of coercion for 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:36.439 the for the purchase because it was said to be 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:39.360 a very lucky place to bury a body that would 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:42.240 bring great fortune to the further, you know, the future 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:45.880 generations of the family. But obviously the fortune teller who 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:48.679 was forced to sell the land didn't like this. And 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:51.840 so a dispute about land rights and the burial of 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:54.080 the body seems to be at the root of whatever 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:57.760 black magic causes the vampire to begin with. Yeah, and 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:00.959 that that plays right into this this historical setting out 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:03.920 of which it emerges this idea that that that the 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:07.600 land in which you can properly bury the dead and 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:10.800 do the dead justice, uh, is in short supply, and 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:14.240 not everyone has has the access that they once enjoyed 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:18.840 to it. And while the sue rights, while the the 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:23.200 young non region was most impacted by this situation. It 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:27.280 became an empire wide crisis because it wasn't just about 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:30.079 the dead and in dealing with the dead, but it 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:34.360 perceived cultural decline and funeral custom and and even a 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:38.360 decline in devotion to to one's ancestors, which has an 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:42.200 enormous cultural significance. Well, this is another thing I would 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:46.520 say in in Mr. Vampire. Again, it's hard to say 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:48.880 because the movie I would say is ultimately it's it's 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:52.360 a light comedy. You know, it's light horror, martial arts comedy, 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:54.480 so it's not getting too serious about anything. But I 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:58.720 also I kind of detect a strain of critique of 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:02.040 modernity in it, really and it's set during so it 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.240 was made in the nineteen eighties, but it's set during 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:08.400 the Republican period of China, so in the first half 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:10.720 of the twentieth century, And in it there seems to 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:13.880 be a sort of a critique of of a modern, 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:17.680 maybe Western influenced way of living. There's a very comedic 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:22.800 police officer who seems to embody all the negative attributes 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:26.160 all of the police like he is abusive and stupid 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:28.600 and you know, is framing the wrong guy for the 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:32.960 murder is not addressing any problems. And so there's this idea, yeah, 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:36.280 that the the government and the law is not maintaining 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:40.160 any the necessary order, and that this lack of order 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:45.080 also applies to our our honor to the dead. Yeah. 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:48.080 And so the character in the movie who wants to 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:50.600 have his ancestor reburied, which again, this is one of 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:53.440 the inciting incidents in the film. He seems to be 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:56.960 making decisions that could be Again I don't know exactly 0:12:57.000 --> 0:12:59.200 the right cultural way to read this, but I think 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:02.520 it is to be inter pritty as he's making decisions 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:06.400 that are somewhat disrespectful to his own ancestors in hopes 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:09.720 of making money. Yeah. Okay, well, we're maybe sort of 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:12.160 getting ahead of ourselves here because we started getting into 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:14.760 the details. But Rob, what's the basic elevator pitch for 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:17.800 Mr Vampire before we hit the trailer audio? All Right? 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:21.200 When Sheean dynasty vampires rise up and cause havoc in 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:24.559 early twentieth century China. Again, this is the Republic of China. 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:28.200 Only the Dallas priest Master Gao and his two assistants 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:30.960 can stop the evil. You know, you kind of get 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:33.200 the sense that master Gal would have had a better 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:37.079 chance stopping the evil without his two assistants. Well, it's 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:40.720 hard to get good help in the vampire busting business. Yes, 0:13:41.120 --> 0:14:03.640 let's hear some audio. Were gonna again that I'm not okay, 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:26.360 all right? So that is, I believe from the original 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:29.280 Cantonese trailer. So that is if you if there's any 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:32.800 language in any dialogue in that trailer that you heard 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:37.360 that is Cantonese, and um, I I recommend watching the 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:40.040 film in Cantonese if you can. I listened. I watched 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:43.080 about half of it dubbed and then switched over to 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:47.680 Cantonese with subtitles. Yeah, about halfway through, and I really 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:50.840 enjoyed the original language more. I was gonna say the 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:54.640 same thing. I watched it with the Cantonese audio with subtitles, 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:56.120 and I think that's the better way to do it, 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:58.680 because there's a lot of the line delivery in Cantonese 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:01.160 that is quite funny, even even if you don't speak 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:03.480 can't and he can't understand what they're saying. I would 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:06.200 single out the main star of the movie, Chining Lamb 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:10.840 for some of his very funny, stern delivery of particular 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:13.280 lines in certain scenes, like I really like the scene 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:17.080 where his his assistant who is turning into a vampire, 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:18.880 is saying, like, what's going to happen to me? And 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:21.400 he says, your blood will stiffen and then he says, well, 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:23.320 how what will happen when it stiffens? And he says 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:27.200 it will get hard? And it's the way he delivers 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:31.760 his lines in the original language, I think is much funnier. Yeah, yeah, um, 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:33.640 And we'll get back to him. But he is. He 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:35.720 is indeed great in this It's hard to imagine that 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:39.200 the film without him, because his character is at once 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:42.520 stern and serious and heroic and capable, and he had 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:45.680 at the same time does occasionally look like a buffoon 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:48.160 as his befitting of a horror comedy. But it's a 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:50.400 careful line to walk, like how do you make your 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:55.160 hero buffoonish enough but also a capable action horror star. 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:57.800 I want to come back to that theme. All right, Well, 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:00.240 let's let's start talking about some of the folks involved 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:02.480 in this film, because it does have a lot of 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:05.520 interesting people in it. Uh. First of all, let's talk 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:08.360 about the director, who also was one of the screenwriters, 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:12.600 Ricky law Low was born in nineteen nine and Mr. 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:15.400 Vampire is is his big hit. I mean it was 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:17.640 a huge hit. So he went on to do and 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:21.480 is still doing plenty of films in this vein h 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:25.560 including The Romance of the Vampires in nineteen and more 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:30.800 recently Dallas Prieste, a film starring Sue Ho Chin, one 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:34.360 of the stars from Mr. Vampire. This this is a trend. 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:37.120 We'll see a lot. Who is Sue Ho Chen in 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:40.720 Mr Vampire. He's the handsome assistant. Uh and we'll get 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:43.400 to him in a second. Yeah, okay, yeah, he's good 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:47.360 now with the producer on this film is also a 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:50.440 huge name in Hong Kong cinema, though I'm to understand 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:53.960 he was largely hands off with Mr. Vampire. But we 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:57.120 have to point out that Samuel Hung was the producer. Um, 0:16:57.280 --> 0:16:59.040 and I think everybody's heard of Sama Hung. He's one 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:01.320 of the he's one of the big his names in 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:04.080 Hong Kong cinema, certainly outside of Hong Kong, well, when 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:06.240 you get into like just international cinema. He's one of 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:08.280 those people who you just look at a picture of 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:10.800 him and you're like, that guy's the boss. He's the boss. 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:15.560 Of something. Yeah, yeah, legendary rotund Hong Kong actor, martial artist, 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:19.520 producer and director. And um yeah, he's he's been in 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:21.280 it's been so many things. In fact, he was in 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:25.159 one of the other key films of this genre, this 0:17:25.359 --> 0:17:27.879 the horror comedy, the Hong Kong Horror Comedy, and that 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:31.240 was an Encounters of the Spooky Kind that occurred, uh 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:33.240 several years later. It was it was sort of the 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:36.520 first big horror comedy as I understand it. Oh yeah, 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:39.080 so I also wanted to see Encounters of the Spooky Kind. 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:41.080 I haven't seen that one either. But is it also 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:44.560 about Jung Shi or is it about something else? I 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:48.080 am not entirely sure, but one of the same writers 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:50.439 was involved in it. Um, so I know that it 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:53.040 has it at least has spooky stuff in it. It 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:55.800 has Encounters of the Spooky Kind in it. But I said, 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:57.840 I sadly haven't seen it yet. It's really the next 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:00.080 one I should see because it's it's a huge and 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:02.880 very influential. Now. I was reading in a book called 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:06.680 Spooky Encounter It's a Guilo's Guide to Hong Kong Horror 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:10.760 by Daniel O'Brien, and in that O'Brien says that that 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:15.119 Hung wasn't was. Samohung was inspired by stories that his 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:18.080 mother told him when he was a child, as well 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:21.520 as a particular story from Poushsong Ling's Tales from a 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:25.399 Chinese Studio, which I was excited to read because I'm 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:29.160 really fond of Tales from a Chinese Studio. I have 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:31.800 the I think it's the Penguin Books edition, which doesn't 0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:35.200 include all of Poushong Ling's stories and retellings of these 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:38.439 various weird tales from China, but it has a number 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:40.800 of them. Now, you sent me a link to a 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:43.399 e book version of this that did have the story 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:45.360 in it, and so I read this story, the one. 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:47.520 The story is called the resurrect Or. No, not the 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:51.520 Resurrector Corps, the Resuscitated Corps. Yes, I believe you're right, 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:54.199 and it's uh. I was. I was improuded. So the 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:57.040 thing about Pooh song links stories is that they they 0:18:57.160 --> 0:19:01.560 vary wildly in tone. There are some where basically just 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:04.119 he's He's like, hey, um, this scholar from such and 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:06.560 such city told me about this thing that once happened 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:10.119 and it was weird, and that's the end. Uh. My 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:13.119 son and I enjoy reading them together. And occasionally they 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:15.240 just stopped abruptly like that. It's like a man solid 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:18.640 fairy in the woods the end um a man saw 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:22.440 some fleas do a cool uh trick or circus performance 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:26.199 on a backpack the end. Other times they're longer. Sometimes 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:30.240 they're just really grotesque and brutal, like a troll choose 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:32.760 on somebody's skull and then they never find out what 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:34.720 it was about. There's a lot of never finding out 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:39.480 what happened. Something strange happens, and no explanation has ever made, 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:42.480 nothing has ever you know, really done about it. Other 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:45.199 times they're humorous. Sometimes they're a little bit on the 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:49.440 raunchy side, uh in rare instances. But yeah, this one 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:52.040 is I think an example of of a story that 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:57.480 is both terrifying in parts but also ultimately ridiculous and humorous. Yeah. 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:00.000 So the basic story here is that there are four 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:03.600 travelers who arrive at is it an inn or a 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:05.520 house that they're they're on the road, and they get 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:07.280 to someplace where they really need to stay for the 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:09.359 night because the night has come on, and that they 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:12.160 can't stay outside and there's no it must be an 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:15.200 inn because basically there's no room at the end, and 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:17.840 they say, okay, well can you give us somewhere to stay, 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:19.840 you know, even if we don't have our own rooms, 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:24.040 And so the homeowner, the innkeeper, is like, well, okay, 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:26.800 you can stay in this room with my dead daughter 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:30.480 in law's corpse that hasn't been buried yet, right, very 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:33.560 very good, very cool. And this is of course getting 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:35.399 into the idea, you know, like she hasn't been buried 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:37.720 yet perhaps because they have, they have not found a 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:40.560 place to bury her, right, and again getting into these 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:44.080 big concerns about you know, maybe bad magic comes on 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:46.960 when somebody doesn't receive the right kind of ritual burial 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:50.520 in a timely manner. So the four travelers go to 0:20:50.560 --> 0:20:52.920 sleep in the room, and then in the middle of 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:55.600 the night, one of them wakes up and realizes that 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:58.440 the body of the dead daughter in law is getting 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:01.320 up off of the table where it's resting, and the 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:03.840 dead daughter in law goes around to each of the 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:08.200 sleeping travelers and breathes in their faces, and the breathing 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:11.360 on them there seems to be something very sinister about this, 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:16.080 But eventually the one traveler who's awake while this is happening, 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:19.040 gets up and runs out, and the dead daughter in 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:21.119 law is very mad about him running away, and she 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:25.199 chases him, chases him all the way to a monastery 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:27.200 where he bangs on the door and begs to be 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:28.960 let in, and the priest is like, I don't know 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:31.639 who you are, you can't come in, And so he's 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:35.640 running around outside. He hides behind a tree and then 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:39.560 the the zombie lady attacks him, but gets her arms 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:43.120 wrapped around the tree. Did I understand that right? Yeah? 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:46.400 Like basically, like he she reaches to the left and 0:21:46.440 --> 0:21:49.000 he ducks to the other side, and then she reaches 0:21:49.040 --> 0:21:50.520 on that side and he ducks the other side, and 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:52.800 they're just going back and forth. It's like it's it's 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:55.919 very much a Hong Kong martial arts comedy skit. And 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:59.760 they do this until they're absolutely exhausted, the both of them, 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:02.600 even the corpse. Uh. And then I guess the corpse 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:05.040 gets the bright idea, I'll just reach out and grab 0:22:05.119 --> 0:22:07.879 him on both sides of the tree at the same time. 0:22:08.320 --> 0:22:12.040 But then what happens is her long scary ghost fingernails 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:14.919 get stuck in the tree, and so she's just stuck 0:22:14.960 --> 0:22:17.680 to the trees, and the next morning the authorities come 0:22:18.200 --> 0:22:21.399 and this resurrected corpse is stuck to the tree with 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:25.639