July 27 movie: Tsui Hark's Vampire Hunters. This was a lot of fun, but how could any movie with the words "Tsui Hark" and "Vampire" in the title not be fun? Tsui Hark didn't actually direct the film (I guess he produced it or something) and it isn't going to enter my permanent library of HK classics. It was pretty confusing at times, but never quite freaky enough to reach the delirious heights of Zu Warriors style surrealism. But still, a fun way to spend a couple of hours.
They win bonus points for having vampires that look like extras from a George Romero movie, not metrosexual Eurotrash. I wonder if that's the traditional form of the bloodsucking undead in Chinese folklore? Also, Chinese vampires don't bite people to steal their blood: they use their acid breath to suck it out through the capillaries and orifices in some amazingly low-budget effects. They also see people by their body heat, and are confused by water. The vampire hunters at one point dump barrels of water on themselves so the vampire can't see them, and they hide the damsel in distress in a shallow pool under a wet coat.
Some exposition at the beginning of the film explained that Chinese vampires start out as zombies, but turn into vampires if they taste human blood. Chinese zombies, however, do not look like extras from a George Romero movie. They just look like dead people. Best of all, Chinese zombies don't shuffle with their arms outstretched before them. They keep their arms at their sides and hop up and down! I'm super bummed that I never encountered this when I was studying Chinese. I even read a whole book of supernatural stories called "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio." But no hopping zombies that I can recall. Georg had read about it, though, in a book about HK cinema. And both of us found the sight of a room full of zombies hopping towards our heroes absolutely hilarious.
Perhaps the best unintentional comedy was provided by the sorceror who could control zombies. Actually by his title. The subtitles described him as a "zombie wrangler," as in "I know a zombie wrangler in the village! He'll help us!" But the end credits called him a "geomancer." Which is completely wrong. I mean, maybe he was also a geomancer, but his skill in the movie was as a necromancer. Okay, I'm being totally pedantic. But at least "zombie wrangler" was accurate!
I've heard of Chinese hopping vampires before, but never Chinese hopping zombies. Maybe this film was translating the words differently from other sources?
Considering the general quality of the subtitles (not to mention the movie being drawn from a totally different folklore tradition) it's likely that the terms for various undead creatures were translated poorly, or at least differently.
I did like the bit about the vampires being confused by water. That seemed like a nice bit of logic -- being doused in water cools the skin, so it would throw off a creature that sensed body heat -- even if not backed up by science. But we are talking about a vampire movie here.