VAMPIRE HUNTERS
A DreamWorks Pictures & 20th Century Fox release

review by Joseph B. Mauceri

SYNOPSIS: Okay, this is how the releasing company describes the film:

In 19th Century China, an evil monk awakens a nest of ghoulish vampires hell-bent on devouring human life. Now, a quartet of heroes trained in the Taoist Mao Shan School of magic and their master must use their unique powers to destroy the Vampire King and its lethal coven before it is too late. Masters of the martial arts, each of the four students specializes in controlling the element of his namesake: Rain, Lightning, Thunder and Wind!

REVIEW: Time Magazine called acclaimed Hong Kong filmmaker Tsui Hark "the Hong Kong Spielberg," and the New York Daily News claims he is "the Picasso of the martial-arts movie." When they made these bold statements, they were talking about the films Hark directed, "Black Mask 2" and "Time and Tide." For VAMPIRE HUNTERS, Hark, who wrote and produced the film, steps back from behind the camera to let veteran Hong Kong filmmaker Wellson Chin direct. While the Spielberg reference may apply here if you consider its similarity to "Poltergeist," which he produced and Tobe Hooper directed, Tsui Hark's VAMPIRE HUNTERS doesn't live up to those expectations and has little to do with a work by Picasso.

Hark comes up with an entertaining screenplay. The plot, as described by the releasing company above, fails to mention the interesting elements Hark weaves into his vampire legend. The setup has negative energy creating zombies, and zombies transform into vampires when certain criteria is met. So here's this mysterious mansion and its wealthy owner who fears for his gold. He wants his son to marry so the family name will be carried on. The father also carries on the family's knack for encasing the dead in wax to preserve them, and there are hordes of them hidden in the mansion. Hark adds to the mix a gangster who is after the gold and a wizard who can control zombies. Oh, and all this unbelievable martial arts stuff.

It's all fun stuff, and that's a problem. There's so much of this cool stuff and it's too much fun. I was never truly scared. For example, I liked the sequence they came up with where the vampire drains his victims. It was neat, but it didn't frighten me. I watched the vampire and zombies kill warriors, but I never feared for the heroes and their master. There are moments that captured the spirit of classic Hammer Horror films but the action was so over-the-top, and amusing, that I found myself thinking "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein." Also, with characters calling each other by their names Rain, Lightning, Thunder and Wind, the film has this weird farce feel that had me thinking about John Carpenter's "Big Trouble in Little China."  

With foreign films come subtitles. I know some people who will not watch a film unless it is dubbed in English. Recently, I've actually found that I've enjoyed foreign films with subtitles more than the dubbed versions. I hated the dubbed version of "Brotherhood of the Wolf." But I digress. For VAMPIRE HUNTERS they at least use yellow lettering instead of white so you can read everything. Still, it's kind of hard to follow when you have read the dialogue during action and special effect sequences.

VAMPIRE HUNTERS is entertaining and fun. It's such a mixed genre film that it will only find a small audience among people who enjoy horror movies, martial arts pictures, and those that don't mind subtitled foreign films. What some folks like to call a "cult film." Is it worth the same ticket price as a big summer blockbuster? Depends on your tastes. VAMPIRE HUNTERS would have been a perfect summer drive-in flick, but it's still a fun Friday night rental with the gang, a large pizza, and a few beers.

OFFICIAL WEB SITE:
http://www.sonypictures.com/cthe/destination

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