Vampire Controller (2001)

On a 1708 evening, young lad Wong Ching (Poyer) slips into a Guangdong brothel to visit his sweetheart, Jenny. But there's no cheerful union that night - a killer sneaks into the dark compound and flings lethal beads into the lovers' mouths. The two are poisoned but certain folks in Guangdong officialdom want more that just their death. They want a secret letter; possibly concealed on, or in, Wong's person. And they've put black magician Ha La Chak onto the case to get it back.

Black magic invariably needs some of the nicer wizardry to challenge it and keep the world a better place. And, as luck would have it, the dead duo are passed to the care of two rival corpse escorts*, specialist in white magic and ready to take them to their funerals. Wong's body is handed to Mao Mao (Lai) and his mate John (Law), while Jenny is passed to Ma Siu-ling (Yuen) and Tien Gee (Chow). The genders need to be transported separately: libidos outlive death, and corpses are known to wander.

As the bodies hit the road, Ha sets a wave of sorcery against the four corpse escorts and helpful Japanese agent Kindaiichi (Meng) shows up along the way to confuse things. Wong and Jenny don't let rigor mortis stop their sex life after they get frisky in the fields, Jenny quickly gives birth to a green ghost baby with a grudge. It's all rather silly, really.

Vampire Controller is a vague rekindling of both the vampire and sorcery Hong Kong movie themes. As a new entry to either genre, however, the film falls flat. Vampire action is weighed down with a dull relationship drama, cumbersome chatter and a musical number. The witchcraft aspect recreates sorcery genre routines with the worm-laden vomit, sprayed frog's blood and skulls decorating the black magic table all present. But like the vampire action, these elements are scattershot and lost within a meandering script.

With a plot heading towards a less-than-memorable conclusion, there's little in Vampire Controller to care for. Too many characters are incorporated in the story, either with spoken references or on-screen appearances, making the film difficult to follow on a single screening. The comedy scenes and their juvenile humour prompted little laughter at the cinema while the action segments appeared too poorly lit to follow on the big screen. Viewers reaching film's end may find scant reward for their perseverance - once the main plot element is revealed, the film just stops. The cast is hard to judge, with lead actors often busy with their unremarkable chatter (which is poorly dubbed) or playing dead. To their credit, cast members appear enthusiastic and help lift several sequences to the enjoyable onscreen lunacy that should be expected of the genres.

Above: The Imperial Cinema's hand-painted billboard for Vampire Controller.

*Note: For readers not familiar with '80s flicks like the classic Mr Vampire (1985), these white magic-equipped corpse escorts use bells and spells to "drive" their jumping and trundling corpses, referred to as vampires, along their final earthbound journeys.

Credits:

Directed by Tony Leung Hung-wah
Starring Wayne Lai Yiu-cheung, Gallen Law, Kingdom Yuen King-tan (King Yuen), Kathy Chow Hoi-mei, Jude Poyer and Joey Meng