Geung see ga zuk (1986)

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Siskoid
With Mr. Vampire II, the franchise steps into the modern day, as a family of hopping vampires are unearthed by the world's worst archaeologists/treasure hunters and unleashed on Hong Kong. And it's a thoroughly ridiculous affair, part martial arts, part E.T. (the child vampire hides itself with living kids), part horror comedy, part outright parody. All those parts don't play well together, and the film fails structurally. It's impossible to like the archaeologists, but they're our only protagonists for the first half-hour. 10 minutes of the kid playing with others (oh, is THIS the movie now?). Our name star/hero Yuen Biao finally shows up at the 40-minute mark. There's some prowess to the action sequences, of course, but they're ultimately very silly, especially the slowed-down "sedative" fight. In terms of comedy, a lot of the obvious word play is lost in translation. And there's a lot of shouting, a pet peeve of mine when it comes to broader comedies. It's got some redeeming qualities, like the memorable premise, but it should have realized that its absurd anachronistic monsters were enough to get us into comedy territory, and not pushed it this far into silliness. 6 months 3 weeks ago