2/5 Vampire hunting
  by E. A Solinas (MD USA)
Tsui Hark has created some of Chinese cinema's best, such as "Chinese Ghost Story," "Zu Warriors" and "Once Upon A Time in China."

So why exactly did he attach his name to this murky, incoherent action flick? "Tsui Hark's Vampire Hunters" is an attempt to recapture the kung-fu/vampire magic on the 1980s, but it manages to have neither plot nor character development. But it does have some wicked vampires and creepy atmosphere... its saving grace.

China is apparently riddled with the undead -- zombies that turn into vampires, and feed on the living. Wind, Thunder, Rain, Lighting and their master roam around getting rid of them, but during one nasty attack their master vanishes.

Three months later, they come to the Jiang house, where the beautiful Sasa has just been wed to young Master Jiang -- all six of whose past brides died on their wedding night. The next morning, HE'S the one dead of a snakebite. And so the Vampire Hunters are hired to find the snake, even as one of them falls in love with Sasa.

But Master Jiang has some secrets -- he preserves all his relatives in wax, and keeps a massive store of gold somewhere in the mansion (which is why Sasa's bandit brother married her into the family). And when a zombie wrangler arrives, the waxed corpses will return to unlife -- and the arrival of the king vampire will set off the final showdown between vampires and Vampire Hunters.

Admittedly with a name like "Vampire Hunters," you're expecting a cheesy movie, probably without much plot. And this movie delivers on that score, attempting to recapture the martial-arts/vampire-hunting charm of old "Mr. Vampire" style flicks, but forgetting to include the humor and slapsticky kung-fu.

The plot is messy and kind of haphazard, moving along slowly and throwing in some wire-fu battles and gruesome bloody death whenever it gets dull. The dialogue isn't much better, with little gems like one Hunter telling a girl he just met: "Good! Thunder has Sasa, and I have you." Real charmer, that one. What's more, the artificial romances feel like they needed something to pad out the thin plot until the King Vampire could show up, and we could have a literally explosive finale.

It does, however, have a few saving graces -- the horror ambience. It's dark, misty, filled with graves and spooky Halloweeny trees, and Wellson Chin lingers on the really horrible stuff like waxed corpses. And the vampires are pretty horrible -- they have rotted papier-mache faces with maggots, fly, tunnel underground, can't see you if you're wet, and suck the blood out of your eyeballs and mouth. Yikes.

The characters are decidedly lacking -- all four guys are basically interchangeable, and develop superstrength or other qualities without any prior warning, Neither of the villains serve much of a purpose plotwise (one dies LONG before the finale). Ji Chun Hua as the master is deeply cool, but he's in the movie for about five minutes.

"Tsui Hark's Vampire Hunters" attempts to be spooky, but ends up being mostly silly. Watch it for the creepy vampires and the ambience, not for the rotted dialogue or thin plot.

2/5 I think
  by Hank Carlson
I think that previous movies had the gyonsi glide more than an out and out hop. And those were comedies, this is supposed to be taken more seriously.

Also the hopping zombie and the hopping vampire are really different. The hopping vampire is what you get when the hopping zombie gets out of control. At least I guess that's the way it works. They also dress differently and have different abilities and weaknesses.

The hop scoffers seemed to like the movie, so I'm not sure what the problem is.

Me, I thought it was a little silly.



2/5 Hop Schmop
  by Andy
Hop Schmop. It's a dumb movie. I can't believe reviewers defending the classic tradition of the hopping zombie. I mean are these people typing that with a straight face?

You've got these zombies going around hopping and what we are supposed to NOT LAUGH? Okay childrens, sit very still as we watch the legendary hopping zombie of Calavaras Couty. I am so cracking up right now just thinking about it.

If you want a true classic Asian horror movie, you want the impossible to find "Kung Fu Exorcist" with Kathy Leen. KFE predates Close Encounters of the Spooky Kind by at least 4 years.

4/5 Many uninformed reviews here!!!
  by The Doctor (The TARDIS)
This movie belongs to a genre of Hong Kong cinema that goes back at least to Sammo Hung's Encounters of a Spooky Kind. Many reviewers in this forum do not seem to know that there is an entire genre of kung fu/horror/comedy in Hong Kong cinema, and that in this genre a staple of such films is that "vampires" are essentially zombies that hop. I am not name calling, but merely pointing out that many people here seem unaware of such things. China has much of its own folklore surrounding vampires, which is a folklore that has nothing whatsoever to do with the European/Bram Stoker/Polidori (based off of Lord Byron) variety. Thus, by making his vampires "hop," Hark was not trying to be corny, but was paying homage to an older genre of Hong Kong cinema, and especially to the classic film starring Lam Ching-ying, entitled Mr. Vampire. Check into it.

4/5 not that bad!!!
  by Lu Feng
first off let us get one thing straight. this is by no means the first ever movie with HOPPING zombies. it is no wonder that these reviewers have trashed this movie so much. they don't know anything about the history of the chinese kung-fu horror flick! for any of you who know about the fad of chinese kung-fu horror flicks that reached their height of popularity in the early to mid 80's you will also know that this is definetly NOT the first ever movie with hopping zombies. Encounters of the Spooky Kind, Mr. Vampire, 5 Venoms vs. Wu-tang (which seemingly has nothing to do with the 5 deadly venoms or wu-tang) to name just a few that were put out about 20 YEARS earlier! anyway enough about that this movie doesn't deserve the thrashing it is getting. it is a decent action flick with good special effects (which i might mention special F/X is usually what Tsui Hark's movies focus on) i found the first 30 minutes or so kind of slow but then it gets more interesting. defintely worth a couple of bucks!!!