Mr. Vampire Saga IV

Tatty Taoists

Mr. Vampire Saga IV
aka Geung see suk suk
aka Uncle Vampire
Directed by Ricky Lau
Hong Kong 1988
Golden Harvest/Eureka
Blu Ray Zone B

Wow, this is terrible. Now I actually quite liked the third film in the Mr. Vampire series, Mr. Vampire III (reviewed here), even though it had no vampires in it, hopping or otherwise. Mr. Vampire Saga IV, the third of the four films in the Hopping Mad - The Mr. Vampire Sequels Blu Ray set from Eureka Masters Of Cinema, sees a return to the hopping vampires as the main supernatural menace in this movie but, alas, it’s just not a good film.

The story is about two Taoist monks and their respective apprentices (one male apprentice and one female, throwing in the inevitable comedy love interest vibes) who are neighbours and who hate each other. After a series of makeshift ‘duels’ between the two masters, such as a food fight and a couple of scenes where they possess each other’s bodies, the titular vampires get loose and the four of them, plus a kid who they are trying to save from eternal damnation after being bitten, have to defend the two homes against a bunch of vampires, including one genuinely aggressive and powerful one, despite all that hopping (I suspect it was this guy that Kim Newman must have based the hopping vampire in his first Anno Dracula novel on).

Like the last movie in the series, the film is quite fast paced and, more or less, just goes from one comedy action set piece to another without much let up and, while that somehow worked in the previous film’s favour, I have to say that it really didn’t help that this film wasn’t, in any way, funny to me. I rarely find slapstick funny unless it’s done really well (such as The Marx Brothers or early period Woody Allen) but, even so, I didn’t have one occasion in this one where I found myself even cracking a smile, to be honest.

That being said, some of the stunts and the timings of the comedy duels and the acrobatics of the four main characters are certainly to be admired. You won’t be doing very well in one of these movies if you are in any way unfit and the actors and actresses (including a more effective scene with a lady playing an aggressive fox spirit) are all more than up to the task. It looks like they’re doing many, probably all, of their own stunts in this one too, including athletic jumps, back flips and other, probably quite dangerous stuff. So, like I said, you do have to admire some of this stuff even if, as in my case, it isn’t quite your cup of tea.

Like the previous installments, the music is unsubtle and broadly comic which, I suspect, doesn’t really help things. I’m guessing a more subtle, less ‘on the nose’ score might well have made this fourth installment more palatable to me but, as it is, it just didn’t do it any favours, that’s for sure.

So apologies but, it’s another very short review for one of these films as, yeah, Mr. Vampire Saga IV just didn’t do much of anything for me. That being said, I am quite looking forward to the next in the box set because the main actor from the previous three movies, who is very good, is in it. However, I am slightly suspicious that Vampire Vs Vampire is not one of the Mr. Vampire sequels at all so, goodness knows what it’s doing in this set. I’ll take a look soon and let you know, I guess.