#The vampire combat movie#

Valerie Chow, usually cast as the temptress or harlot in other films, plays a dual role as Lin's wife and reincarnate. Lin must fight the remaining vampire disciple, who is working to bring back the evil master vampire from the grave. Note the 'flash' like running and jumping. The special effects work because they fit within the film's tone and pacing.

#The vampire combat movie#

The special effects are taken from many vampire movie sources, like 'Blade.' Although they aren't as sophisticated as their Hollywood counterpart, the effects are very integral to the vampire story. 'The Vampire Combat' is an entertaining vampire flick. Along the way, Jackie Lui shows up as a supernatural detective. Andrew Lin squares off with his mentor, a vampire that has sucked the life from his wife, played by Valerie Chow.

All of the money went into the special effects, which were very crude but quite adequate. Wilson Tong Wai Shing's 'The Vampire Combat' has a budget that's as low as low can go. It just wouldn't be right any other way :-) The DVD is a minimal disc featuring shabby transfer, with absolutely dreadful subtitles. Mei Ah, seemingly recognising the importance of this release, have done us proud. It's never going to win an oscar, it's never going to earn critical praise, but dammit it's a fun film that dares to throw whatever is handy into the mix and see what the result is in the end. With some quite creative wire & speed-up use too. It's got the blue lit scenes filmed through blue filters, the plot that leaps about quite dizzyingly, the bad acting (no offense) and worse special effects (several of which are blatantly stolen from Blade, but badly done).

VAMPIRE COMBAT feels like a truly Hong Kong film. He has a lot of HK movie heritage, and it shows. Wilson Tong appears to have been making Kung Fu movies since the 70's, as an actor mostly. it's about having an idea, a minimal amount of cash and going out and trying to make the best film you can with it. Hell, I'm pretty sure this script never existed at all. This script hasn't been passed through 7 marketing departments for target audience approval, or 15 layers of producers, each of whom feels the need to justify their job by demanding some pointless change that kills whatever spirit the story had when it was written. Now doesn't that sound like fun? The plot has that great feel of 'anything goes' that was what really drew me to HK cinema in the first place. Fate has declared that Jackie Lui, the vaguely psychic head of the 'Supernatural Detective Agency', shall bear the task.

Skip some more years, and as the millenium approaches the planets and stars align once more, Demon Monster can be resurrected if Yin Woman can be found. Some years later, Andrew Lin (who for reasons that are never really explained is ageless), finds the reincarnation of Yin Woman and seals her third eye so that Demon Monster's faithful assistant can't find her. There is a big fight and Demon Monster is vanquished, but not until he's sucked the blood of Yin Woman. 60 years ago, Andrew Lin leads a gang of intrepid vampire fighters to rescue his girlfriend, Yin Woman, from the clutches of Demon Monster. It's almost as if the past decade never happened, except now there's some really bad CG effects in the mix too. VAMPIRE COMBAT - Yes! Screw Wu Yen, this is the film that's going to bring back the early 90's to Hong Kong.