The Era of Vampires (2002)

Director:

Wellson Chin

Writer:

Hark Tsui (writer)

Genre:

Horror | Action

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Marriage | Gas Explosion | Snakebite Poison | Kung Fu | Chinese Mythology

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Ken Chang	...	Hei
Michael Chow Man-Kin	...	Fat
Suet Lam	...	Kung
Kwok-Kwan Chan	...	Choi
Anya	...	Sasa
Rongguang Yu	...	Master Jiang (as Yu Rong Guang)
Horace Lee Wai Shing	...	Dragon Tang
Chun Hua Ji	...	Master Mao Shan
Kuan Tai Chen	...	Zombie Wrangler (as Chan Koon Tai)
Lik-Chi Lee	...	Butler
Wang Zhen Lin	...	Young Maser Jiang
Zou Na	...	Ling
Yut Fei Wong	...	Undertaker
Mei-Yee Sze	...	Clothing salesman
Kin-Yan Lee	...	Geomancer

Also Known As:

Tsui Hark's Vampire Hunters (Hong Kong: English title) (DVD title)

MPAA:

Rated R for violence and gore. (also English dubbed version)

Runtime:

USA:90 min

Country:

Hong Kong | Japan | Netherlands

Language:

Cantonese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Malaysia:18SG | Sweden:15 | Iceland:16 | Finland:K-15 | Australia:M | UK:15 | USA:R

Company:

Film Workshop

Movie Connections:

Remake of The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974)

the undead and the deadly

There are only two kinds of people in this wild and wacky extravaganza of a horror film, a kind of BLADE meets CTHD meets HOUSE OF WAX meets NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. There's the undead who terrorize the living, and the deadly exponents of martial arts who counter them.

It is the mid-19th century in China, and there are four of them known only as Wind, Thunder, Rain and Lightning. Following their master they are sent to combat a monstrous zombie king, the resurrected dead body of a powerful general. When their master possibly turns up dead they track the zombie king to a nearby manor, and what follows is a plot involving gold, thieves, dead brides and the Chinese answer to Vincent Price. If Vincent Price could do kung fu, that is.

Wellson Chin may have directed the film, but as with any Tsui Hark movie, if he's on it, then it means he's the de facto director. Maybe he's overworked himself too much, and it shows in his recent crop of films which are high on special effects that have yet to meet international standards. This is likewise, though his usual flourishes of the imagination show through, as in a scene where a necromancer scales a wall using only two small dirks, the overall tone of the film seems to be a showcase of excess, right down to the "predator"-style shots taken from the vampire POVs. A toss-up of hits and misses is what this film is, and it's all the more encumbered by Tsui's (ironically) trademark fast pacing that causes him to subvert the all-important "visual-aural-verbal" rule of screenwriting. His visuals swamp everything so much that his plot points have to be relayed to the audience verbally. This wild man of Asian cinema should probably take a break, brush up on his storytelling skills, and then return with that ball-breakingly cool flick to cap his career that we have all waited for.