10-26-2025, 10:08 AM
Mr. Vampire IV (1988)
Still Ricky Lou in the directors chair and Sammo producing but no Lam Ching-ying and he was sorely missed. Wu Ma plays a Buddhist monk; Anthony Chan plays the 4-eyed Taoist. Most of the early part of this is about their rivalry as neighbors. There's a food fight, which I'll score to Ma who after getting a plate of peanut garnishes for their congee breakfast together tossed in his face so two peanuts are stuck up his nostrils, he blows them back into Chan's mouth. Both have young followers - Chan has a goofball dude and Ma has a cutie named Ching Ching, which I found very amusing. There's the typical pratfalls as the dude tries to steal kisses, but that idea is abandoned.
There's some solid stunts, mostly falls and acrobatics.
The vampire doesn't come in until like the last half hour. Accompanying the vampire is Yuen Wah, playing a gay assistant and hamming it up in the most sexist fashion. It's a stretch for his usual roles, but it's pretty offensive, so there's that.
This concludes my Criterion Hong Kong horror collection Mr. Vampire binge. Definitely not D00M recommended. This is arguably the worst of the tetralogy, mostly due to the absence of Lam. It's truly only about the first one. If you ever plan to check this out, just do the first one.
Coincidentally, my KF brother Keith has been binging Mr. Vampire too, in deference to Halloween. The cfs know him. They were absent at the party last night, but it was noisy and crowded and would've been very difficult to manage cf, so it's just as well. Keith & I had a good chuckle over MVIII.
Tonight = Crazy Safari
Still Ricky Lou in the directors chair and Sammo producing but no Lam Ching-ying and he was sorely missed. Wu Ma plays a Buddhist monk; Anthony Chan plays the 4-eyed Taoist. Most of the early part of this is about their rivalry as neighbors. There's a food fight, which I'll score to Ma who after getting a plate of peanut garnishes for their congee breakfast together tossed in his face so two peanuts are stuck up his nostrils, he blows them back into Chan's mouth. Both have young followers - Chan has a goofball dude and Ma has a cutie named Ching Ching, which I found very amusing. There's the typical pratfalls as the dude tries to steal kisses, but that idea is abandoned.
There's some solid stunts, mostly falls and acrobatics.
The vampire doesn't come in until like the last half hour. Accompanying the vampire is Yuen Wah, playing a gay assistant and hamming it up in the most sexist fashion. It's a stretch for his usual roles, but it's pretty offensive, so there's that.
This concludes my Criterion Hong Kong horror collection Mr. Vampire binge. Definitely not D00M recommended. This is arguably the worst of the tetralogy, mostly due to the absence of Lam. It's truly only about the first one. If you ever plan to check this out, just do the first one.
Coincidentally, my KF brother Keith has been binging Mr. Vampire too, in deference to Halloween. The cfs know him. They were absent at the party last night, but it was noisy and crowded and would've been very difficult to manage cf, so it's just as well. Keith & I had a good chuckle over MVIII.
Tonight = Crazy Safari
Shadow boxing the apocalypse