Mr Vampire (1985)

"Or - Pardon Me But Your Buddhist Scrolls Appear To Have Fallen Down"

Eureka are releasing Ricky Lau's highly successful Hong Kong horror comedy, which spawned several sequels, in a brand new 2K restoration on Blu-ray.

Master Kau (Lam Ching-ying), master of all things supernatural, is called onto exhume a corpse at the behest of a rich family man who has been told his late father's body needs to be moved after twenty years. Unfortunately it turns out the man died in a state of stress and unable to expel his last breath, which means he is now a hopping vampire.

Along with his two bumbling assistants, Master Kau has to use all his knowledge of Buddhist scripture and sticky rice to defeat the evil spreading through the town, as well as deal with an apparently sexy ghost who has set her malformed eye on one of his sidekicks.

Playing like a Golden Harvest version of Roman Polanski's THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS (and hence the subtitle up there for those who aren't aware), MR VAMPIRE is a surprisingly effective mix of physical comedy and supernatural horror. Much of its success is down to director Ricky Lau, who is as adept at managing the scary bits as he is all the pratting about. The cast is good too, with the leads likeable and helping to carry off a lot of the unsubtle humour. Yes there are trousers being pulled down and pratfalls aplenty but even if that's not necessarily your sort of thing there's no doubting MR VAMPIRE works extremely well in balancing its humour and horror elements.

Eureka's disc comes with three soundtrack options: Cantonese (with English subtitles), a European English dub and an American English dub. There's also a commentary track from Asian film expert Frank Djeng. There are also archival interviews with stars Chin Siu-hou, Moon Lee and director Lau, as well as textless end credits, a trailer, a collectors' booklet and a limited edition O card slipcase for this release of 2000.

Ricky Lau's MR VAMPIRE is out on Blu-ray from Eureka on Monday 20th July 2020

Rigor Mortis aka Geung Si (2013)

A crazy, scare-packed, visually stylish tribute to the MR VAMPIRE 1980s series of Chinese horror films (amongst others), director Juno Mak’s GEUNG SI / RIGOR MORTIS comes to UK DVD courtesy of Metrodome. 

It’s not that easy to describe the plot (I've put up plenty of pictures in the hope that helps) but I’ll have a go. A former movie star falls on hard times and moves into the kind of grim grey tower block even Candyman would think twice about living in. 

He’s haunted by visions of sitting at the dinner table with his wife and child while they stare at him with white pupil-less eyes. Driven to despair, he tries to hang himself but is saved by a man who turns out to run a local restaurant, when he’s not carrying on the family tradition of being a vampire hunter. 

Meanwhile another of the rooms in the block is haunted by the ghosts of raped and murdered twins, while yet another apartment is home to an old woman who is desperate to bring the corpse of her dead husband (who is still there) back to life. Needless to say all these different plot strands overlap, collide and weave in and out of one another in a movie that’s not terribly easy to follow but actually does make sense by the time you get to the end.

It’s also immensely stylish, with a tone that’s best described as halfway between David Lynch and Ken Russell but obviously very much in the style of good old fashioned Chinese horror fare (although perhaps with rather less comedy). Sadly I’m not sufficiently familiar with the MR VAMPIRE series to be able to appreciate the film’s many nods to it. Many of the cast members from those movies turn up here, and I have no doubt RIGOR MORTIS is best going to be appreciated by those with a working knowledge of Chinese horror cinema and, indeed Chinese culture.

Metrodome’s DVD transfer looks fine. There are two audio options and you ought to go with the 5.1 surround if you want to appreciate all the drips, screams and scratches that pepper the soundtrack. Otherwise there aren't any extras. 

Juno Mak's RIGOR MORTIS is being released in cinemas on 24th April 2015 and on Region 2 DVD on 27th April by Metrodome