Mr Vampire

Taoist master Chu (Lam Ching-Ying) is called upon by Mr Yam to deal with his father's improperly buried corpse. Unable to rest, Mr Yam Senior has returned as a vampire.

Chu takes the coffin back to his temple, but his bumbling assistants Choi Sheng (Chin Siu-Ho) and Man Choi (Ricky Hui) let the vampire escape and he kills Mr Yam, who is thereby condemned to return as a vampire himself, much to the distress of his beautiful daughter Ting (Moon Lee).

Alas, Master Chu is arrested for the murder by a sceptical Inspector Wai (Billy Lau) and locked up with the soon-to-be undead Mr Yam.

Choi Sheng arrives to rescue his Master and manages, for once, to do something right, in the process demonstrating to Wai that there are indeed vampires out there. One hopping corpse down, one to go.

But then Mr Yam Senior bites Man Choi, who starts to transform into one of the undead himself…

Choi Sheng, meanwhile, has become enthralled by the ghostly Shui Yu, whose continuing attentions will spell certain death…

Mr Vampire was not the first kung fu horror comedy. That honour goes to Encounters of the Spooky Kind. But it is generally acknowledged as the best, and is certainly the most influential, spawning numerous sequels and imitators. (Indeed, leading man Lam Ching-Ying's subsequent career was more or less confined and defined by Mr Vampire, as he reprised the role of patrician priest ghostbuster a dozen or more times.)

Like Roman Polanski's brilliant parody of Hammer Gothic, The Dance of the Vampires, Mr Vampire achieves a perfect balance between the comedic and horrific elements. Then it adds well choreographed, staged and executed martial arts and acrobatics into the mix.

The performances are uniformly excellent. The things that really impress are the versatility of the performers and their senses of timing. While everyone clearly has his or her speciality – Lam Ching-Ying and Chin Siu-Ho are there primarily to do the action stuff, Ricky Lau and Billy Lau the comedy – the division of labour isn't rigid and everyone really does a bit of everything, and does it well.

Perhaps the only weak areas are the make-up and special effects, which are less than convincing and a touch on the hokey side at times. The high quality production values in evidence elsewhere – cinematography, costuming and set design are all top-notch – leads one to conclude that the film-makers were not afraid to spend money and any limitations were more technological than financial. In any case, one need only look at US films of comparable vintage – say, The Evil Dead and The Terminator – to see that pre-CGI effects often don't cut it today.

Picture quality on this R2 DVD from Hong Kong Legends is impeccable and the 5:1 Dolby track a pleasure to the ear.

Bey Logan's commentary track, while perhaps a little dry for some tastes, is tremendously informative. As well as displaying an encyclopedic knowledge of Hong Kong films, performers, personnel and locations he also explains the significance of the various rites, rituals and props employed by Taoist master Chu.

And if Logan doesn't tell you what you need to know about the making of the film, the 40 minute interview with leading man Chin Siu-ho certainly should. Moon Lee's interview, meanwhile, is both shorter, at 18 minutes, and broader in scope, discussing her career overall. She does, however, spill the beans about a chicken torturing incident on Mr Vampire that you'd never have suspected her being capable of.

Besides the customary trailers, the package is nicely rounded off by a useful biography of and tribute to leading man Lam Ching Ying, the "Peter Cushing of Hong Kong", with contributions from, among others, Sammo Hung.

A great film, a great DVD presentation and some high-quality extras. What more could you want?