New Mr. Vampire

I gotta say, being a big fan of the original Mr. Vampire, this film let me down. I’m a pretty big fan of these martial arts horror comedies, having been inducted into them by an old co-worker at Borders, but as such films go, this one is pretty second rate, feeling more like a rehash of its predecessors than anything actually new and exciting.

Part of the problem, I guess, can be seen in the numbering of this series. After Mr. Vampire, there was also Mr. Vampire 2 and 3, neither of which was in any way connected with the original aside from also having martial arts and hopping vampires. Then along came this one, called New Mr. Vampire, bringing back the cast of the original film for a story that’s a good deal less fun (there were also like three more regular Mr. Vampire movies after this, but they matter not for our purposes). After all these films, and all the others in the genre that came before, maybe they just couldn’t think of any new ideas, and just figured they’d go back to the well.

Whatever the reason, this film suffers heavily from a dearth of new ideas. Everything here, while mostly done competently enough, I guess, just feels like something I’ve seen done, and better, in several other movies. You’d be wise to spend your money on the original Mr. Vampire rather than this.

Rating: * ½