#lam ching-ying

[chernobog13]

Mr. Vampire (1985)

Okay, the little vampire in the 5th gif isn't from Mr. Vampire, but instead from one of the many sequels. The interaction between him and Lam Ching-ying's Master Kau (aka One-Eyebrow Priest) is just too cute. Plus, the little guy doesn't speak; he squeaks.

Mr. Vampire didn't invent the jianshi (Chinese hopping vampires) film genre, but it sure as heck popularized it. The series, and its many imitators (most of which starred Lam as well), was hugely successful. Lam was even acting in a television series based on Mr. Vampire when, tragically, he passed away from liver cancer.

Golden Harvest, the Chinese studio behind the Mr. Vampire series, attempted to remake the film for the American market under the title Demon Hunters, but ceased filming not long after production started.

Since then Michelle Yeoh's production company has teased that it wants to make its own American market remake. However, it's been over 20 years since they made that announcement, and now that Madame Yeoh is an Oscar ™ winner she's probably too busy to do it. However, a remake with her in Lam's role as the Taoist exorcist would be fantastic! Especially if she could leverage a reunion of her old Hong Kong buddies - Jackie Chan, Sammy Hung, Yuen Wan, Donnie Yen, et. al. - to appear in it as well.

A guy can dream, can't he?

In the meantime, if you've never seen Mr. Vampire or any of its sequels, you need to remedy that RIGHT NOW! They are loads of fun, and I think you'll really enjoy them.

[boardsdonthitback]

Lam Chin-Ying, Frankie Chan - The Prodigal Son (1981)

[baddawg94]

1981’s “The Prodigal Son” aka “Pull No Punches” 🇭🇰

Biao Yuen

Frankie Chan

Lam Ching Ying

Directed by Sammo Hung

[flashfuckingflesh]

EVIL Has the Right to Remain Dead! "Magic Cop" reviewed! (88 Films / Blu-ray)

No Two-Bit Magician In ‘Magic Cop” on Blu-ray!   Hong Kong cops are confounded by a chaotic drug bust when learning that their female suspect, who had managed to overpower an entire unit of male officers and even take a bullet ambling deadpan into the streets, had died 7 days prior.  An outlying officer, and practicing Taoist, Uncle Feng is called to Hong Kong to not only quickly solve the…

[asksythe]

MXTX Interview with Risa Wataya for Subaru Magazine P.7

Which creative works influence you: 

Risa: Please tell us which creative works influence you. 

Moxiang: Professor Jin Yong's wuxia novels (*)! Professor Jin Yong is my number one teacher in the craft of writing. His skill in crafting wuxia stories, his artistic palate, the sheer intellectual depth and philosophical complexity of his stories and characters. Professor Jin Yong's wuxia novels have a profound and immeasurable influence on all modern Asian creative professionals. 

(*: the legendary late professor Jin Yong. He's not as well-known in English-speaking spheres due to the complexity of his works being very difficult to translate to languages outside of the Sino-Tibetan language family. But in Asia, he's a literature titan. He's comparable to Tolkien in that he laid the foundation and codified the tropes of wuxia as a modern genre (alongside Gu Long and Liang Yusheng) and brought about the first and subsequent wuxia waves, and that there's also university courses and entire research field on Jin-Yong-ology. However, he's a much more prolific writer, having produced 15 wuxia series, among which 14 are of comparable length or longer than the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit combined. 

It would be no lie to say there's not a single creative professional in Asia that is not influenced by Jin Yong in some way, shape, or form. 

One of Jin Yong's trademarks is the overwhelming, often obsessive, sometimes destructive love that his characters exhibit. There's not one work of his that is not threaded through with larger-than-life romance, not just among the protagonists, but also among the villain characters. The trend of modern Chinese literature, especially wuxia and xianxia, to portray larger-than-life romance can be traced directly to Jin Yong's influence. 

Interestingly, he's also credited as having accidentally created the proto icon of danmei as a genre. 

I'm sorry. I'm so excited I want to cry. Professor Jin Yong is also my first teacher in the craft of writing. It turns out we all step in the footsteps of the giant, huh, Moxiang?) 

I also watch a lot of 90s Hongkong movies. Do you know "Shaolin Soccer'?  

Risa: I do know! 

Moxiang: Stephen Chow's comedy movies, Tsui Hark's wuxia, and fantasy horror movies. Lam Ching-ying's walking corpse movies. I love all of these. 

Risa: That's closer to jiangshi (*) than modern zombies.

(*: a type of Chinese walking corpse. The name literally translates to stiff corpse. Jiangshi is typically translated into Chinese hopping vampire in English due to their similarity to Western vampires. They are the dead that comes back to life. They suck yang energy from living people. They fear the smell of garlic. Etc... Jiangshi has real-life basis in an extinct profession in China: the corpse walker, i.e., people who made a living out of 'walking' corpses back to their home provinces in times of war and chaos. Corpse walkers are mentioned in Liao Yiwu's historical book 'The Corpse Walker') 

Moxiang: That's right. That's right. A hopping jiangshi. I watch a lot of such movies. Some movies are from before I was born, such as 'A Chinese Ghost Story' and 'Sword Man' (*). I have watched them more than ten times! If I meet someone who has never watched those movies before, I will enthusiastically drag them along while saying, "Let's watch them together!" My novel bears obvious and immense influence from these movies... For example, the funny scenes in my story are very close to the atmosphere of comedy scenes from Hongkong cinema. Or the walking corpses in my story. My inspiration came from these undead corpses. In the novel, I mentioned using glutinous rice as a cure for corpse powder. This knowledge came from the movie "Professor Jiangshi" (named 'Mr. Vampire' in English in the Wikipedia).

(*: Both of these movies are Tsui Hark's movies and are counted among the top 100 best movies of Asian cinema. They are known for their fantasy elements, eroticism, and homoeroticism. These movies came from a time where Asian cinema was pushing boundaries left, right, and center. Swordsman and its spin-off were adapted from Professor Jin Yong's The Smiling Proud Wander. The very same work in which he accidentally created the proto-icon of danmei. I wrote an essay about this as part of danmei history last year. I will make a separate post after this.)

Risa: To be honest, when I reached the part where glutinous rice was used to cure corpse powder in 'Mo Dao Zu Shi,' I was moved.

Moxiang: Ah? A Japanese author saw the glutinous rice scene in my novel and linked it to jiangshi movies... That is so surprising! 

Risa: When I was young, I watched a lot of jiangshi movies. I love them! 

Moxiang: I feel increasingly close to Ms. Risa now. As for other foreign literature, Emily Bronte's 'Wuthering Heights' greatly influences me. When I read it during elementary school, I was shaking from excitement. Perhaps because of the influence of Wuthering Heights, that whenever I see complex, intertwining love-hate situations, I feel such joy and nostalgia in my heart. 

There's also my favorite childhood mangaka Rumiko Takahashi! This kind of light-hearted, rowdy atmosphere where characters argue and rib each other is so cute! I especially like 'Ranma 1/2'. I think it's the best comedy manga. Other than that, 'Inuyasha' can only be described by the word romantic. Romantic! To this day, Kikyo is still a goddess in my heart. 

Risa: Although 'Ranma 1/2' is a work that features China in it, what do Chinese people think about it? 

Moxiang: The first thought that comes to my head is 'charming!' After that is probably fond familiarity. This work (Ranma 1/2) features many Chinese elements. I feel that the distance between our hearts is lessened.   

To be Continued (The next part will be the last) 

Translator: Sythe / NPD Khanh    

[mementoboni]

Kaoru and Hong Kong Movies

X ( Long post!! )

It's been a while, but I found that Kaoru mentioned a lot of classic Hong Kong movies in this tweet.

These are the movies I used to watch when I was a kid, and I never thought I'd ever hear them from Kaoru one day, so I want to give a brief introduction to these movies. 😀

01. スパルタンX (Spartan X)

繁體中文：快餐車 / English: Wheels on Meals

Wheels on Meals is a 1984 Hong Kong martial arts action comedy film written and directed by Sammo Hung (洪金寶), with action choreographed by Jackie Chan (成龍). The film stars Jackie Chan (成龍), Sammo Hung (洪金寶), Yuen Biao (元彪), Lola Forner, Benny Urquidez and José Sancho.

In 1984, it was adapted into the video game Spartan X (released as Kung-Fu Master internationally).

The final fight between Jackie Chan and Benny Urquidez

🎥 Best Fight Scene 👇

02. 五福星 (ごふくせい)

繁體中文：奇謀妙計五福星 / English: Winners and Sinners (or 5 Lucky Stars)

Winners and Sinners is a 1983 Hong Kong action comedy film written and directed by Sammo Hung (洪金寶), who also starred in the film. The film co-stars Jackie Chan (成龍) and Yuen Biao (元彪), the latter serving as one of the film's action directors.

The film is followed by My Lucky Stars (福星高照) and Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars (夏日福星), insofar as the "Five Lucky Stars" concept (福星系列) and many of the same actors return in those latter films. However, the character names and indeed their roles differ - Stanley Fung's character is the nominal "leader" of the quintet in Winners and Sinners (奇謀妙計五福星), whereas Hung's character takes the mantle in the latter films.

🎥 Best Fight Scene 👇

03. 霊幻道士 (れいげん どうし)

繁體中文：殭屍先生 (or 暫時停止呼吸) / English: Mr. Vampire

As this is one of my favorite movies, I will introduce more 😃

Mr. Vampire is a 1985 Hong Kong comedy horror film directed by Ricky Lau (劉觀偉) and produced by Sammo Hung (洪金寶).

The vampire of the film is based on the jiangshi (殭屍/ㄐ一ㄤˉ ㄕˉ), the hopping corpses of Chinese folklore (similar to both zombies and vampires).

"殭" means "to die immortal" (死而不朽) or "stiff" (about the same as "僵"), and "屍" means "dead body".

The film was released under the Chinese title 暫時停止呼吸 (literally: Hold Your Breath for a Moment) in Taiwan. This is because most (not all) of the 殭屍 can't see with their eyes, they can only tell where people are by their breathing, so if you hold your breath you won't get caught by 殭屍.

🎥 ※ This video is dubbed in Mandarin (with Eng subs) 👇

The film is set in the late Qing Dynasty to the early Republic of China (清朝末年~民國初期), that is, the late 19th century to the early 20th century, and most of the 殭屍 are wearing the costumes of Qing Dynasty officials.

(That's why, when I first read about the Qing Dynasty (清朝) in the history textbook, I wondered why people were all dressed as 殭屍 🤣)

🎥 ※ This video is dubbed in Mandarin (with Eng subs) 👇

The box office of Mr. Vampire success led to the creation of a Mr. Vampire franchise, with the release of four sequels directed by Ricky Lau (劉觀偉) from 1986 to 1992, and subsequent similarly themed films with different directors released between 1987 and 1992, with Lam Ching-ying (林正英) as the lead for the majority of them.

The film was the breakthrough success of the jiangshi genre, a trend popular in Hong Kong during the 1980s, and established many of the genre's recognisable tropes.

🎥 ※ This video is dubbed in Mandarin (with Eng subs) 👇

I highly recommend this movie!!

Also, I love the the movie song - Ghost Bride (鬼新娘).

🎥 ※ This song is in Cantonese (廣東話/粵語). 👇

04. Mr.Boo

繁體中文：半斤八両 / English: The Private Eyes

The Private Eyes is a 1976 Hong Kong comedy film written, directed by and starring Michael Hui (許冠文) and co-starring his brothers Samuel Hui (許冠傑) and Ricky Hui (許冠英) as well as Shih Kien (石堅) and Richard Ng (吳耀漢) in his second film role. Sammo Hung (洪金寶) served as the film's action director and Jackie Chan (成龍) was also a stuntman.

In 1979, when Jiahe Corporation (嘉禾公司) promoted Bruce Lee's (李小龍) kung fu film in Japan, it added "The Private Eyes" and changed its propaganda department to "Mr Boo!" as a call to action, it became a huge hit, earning a billion yen at the box office in Japan, followed by several Huh Brothers (許氏兄弟) comedies featuring "Mr. Boo!" as the title.

It is worth mentioning that Hsu Kuan-chieh's (許冠傑) character was voiced by the famous Japanese actor Kitano Takeshi (北野武). In 1981, Takakura Ken (高倉健) starred in "駅 STATION ", there are also male and female protagonists watching "The Private Eyes" kitchen fighting scenes. Japanese manga master Akatsuka Fujio (赤塚不二夫) has written the preface and Japanese lyrics for this film.

🎥 The kitchen fighting scenes 👇

#吳耀漢

繁體中文：吳耀漢 / English: Richard Ng

Kaoru mentioned 吳耀漢 in the tag because he passed away in April 2023. 吳耀漢 is a famous actor in Hong Kong, and he has appeared in all the movies mentioned above except Mr. Vampire.

※ In fact, 吳耀漢 appeared in 霊幻道士3 (繁體中文：靈幻先生 / English: Mr. Vampire III), a sequel to the Mr. Vampire series, which was released in 1986. I guess this is the movie Kaoru was referring to.

Speaking of 吳耀漢, I would like to recommend another Hong Kong movie: Rigor Mortis

05. Rigor Mortis

繁體中文：殭屍(2013) or 殭屍 七日重生

Rigor Mortis is a 2013 Hong Kong horror film directed by Juno Mak (麥浚龍) and produced by Takashi Shimizu (清水崇，the director of 呪怨 Juon). The film is a tribute to the Mr. Vampire film series. Many of the former cast are featured in this film: Chin Siu-ho (錢小豪), Anthony Chan (陳友), Billy Lau (樓南光) and Richard Ng (吳耀漢). *吳耀漢 is the 殭屍 on the poster. 👆

Unlike the usual Hong Kong comedies, the overall atmosphere in Rigor Mortis is very depressing. The whole movie is full of nostalgia and reluctance for Mr. Vampire, which reminds people of the glory of Hong Kong jiangshi movies back in the day. Personally, I think it is the best jiangshi movie of the last 20 years.

🎥 OFFICIAL TRAILER 👇

🎥 The Hallway Scene in the movie also uses the song Ghost Bride (鬼新娘), and the song is even more creepy as it slows down. 👇

--- --- ---

It's really happy to know that Kaoru has watched these movies.

💜 Thanks for reading 💜

Btw, today (2023/08/30, the 15th day of the 7th lunar month) is The Ghost Festival (中元節).

[wuxiaphoenix]

Short Worldbuilding Bit: Inspiration in Odd Places

In previous posts I’ve mentioned the movies Mr. Vampire and The Ultimate Vampire 1991. The actor who played the Taoist priest in both movies was Lam Ching-ying, who played in many, many other Hong Kong fantasy films I haven’t seen yet. But I hope to track them down, because he portrayed a great Only Sane Man when dealing with monsters!

...Which is part of the inspiration bit. I have a definite liking for characters who take aggravating situations in stride and improvise their way out of it. And if they’ve actually prepared things in advance as well, and are just improvising because they didn’t expect things to get that supernaturally bad that quickly? Even better! Competence, how I adore thee!

But also, and in specific. There’s a neat trick that Lam Ching Ying’s characters use. He’ll do something like touch a candle or lantern flame, and then he has the flame on his fingertips to apply to magic or monsters.

Which is part of the idea I had for Colors - that whatever force/substance you’re using exists already, you’re pulling it from somewhere else.

If you want to check out some 80’s wuxia magic, here’s a few clips!

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Heroes Shed No Tears (Woo, 1986)

I remember being put off by the sadism of the violence when I last saw this, but having become more attuned to the wavelengths of exploitation cinema, I can appreciate that this is trying to get a jolt of you. John Woo hasn’t fully refined his gunplay at this point, but the sheer number of squibs and ‘splosions almost makes it a moot point. Truth be told, without the strong characters of Woo’s classics, the violence does get numbing at times, but I feel a little bit like I’m complaining that there’s too much food at a buffet. It’s a good problem to have.

Interestingly, the 88 Films release includes a featurette that compares the Hong Kong 1986 release to an earlier South Korean release from 1984 and suggests that the SK version had some Woo-isms that were excised for the more exploitative HK version. I would be interested to see that cut if it ever surfaces in a decent looking version to see if the movie plays better with the more pronounced Heroic Bloodshed elements. The HK version also adds in some racier elements, including a massage scene that I don’t remember seeing when I watched this on YouTube years ago. I’m guessing the person who uploaded the video cut it out. I believe the scene was added without Woo’s involvement, so perhaps the uploader was only respecting the director’s vision.

Anyway, if you’re sufficiently HK-pilled, you’ll find yourself laughing unreasonably hard at the idiotic gambling scene, and the most shocking thing for you will be seeing Lam Ching-Ying without a moustache. And as this is a John Woo movie, the title is obviously a lie.

[kurgarru]

Nothing but respect for *my* daozhang.

Lam Ching-Ying as Master Kau, the original and the best, gone but not forgotten.

[kungfuwushuworld]

Lam Ching-ying and Yuen Biao in Sammo Hung kung fu classic  The Prodigal Son (1981)

[chernobog13]

Lam Ching-ying as Master Kau, the One-Eyebrow Priest, aka Mr. Vampire, in a promo still for one of the several Mr. Vampire sequels.

If you are only familiar with jiangshi, the Chinese hopping vampires, from various manga and anime, you owe it to yourself to see these films.  Mr. Vampire (1985) is the film that popularized the genre, and introduced most of the tropes that come with it.

Mr. Vampire is hilarious and fun.  The sequels - Mr. Vampire ll, lll, and lV - are fun as well, but be warned they are only sequels in the “spiritual” sense.  They share the same theme of battling jiangshi, and use much of the same cast (though playing different roles), however, they can almost be considered stand-alone films.

The only true sequel is Mr. Vampire 1992, which reunites the original cast in their original roles, and picks up the story immediately after the end of the first Mr. Vampire.

Lam Ching-ying was an accomplished actor and martial artist, with a long list of credits.  However, after the tremendous success he became type-cast as a unibrowed Taoist.  Unlike other actors, though, Lam embraced this wholeheartedly.  He starred in numerous other jiangshi and horror comedies, and even directed himself in a few, including the very entertaining Vampire vs. Vampire (1989). 

Lam was starring in a Mr. Vampire-inspired television series, Vampire Expert, in the mid-1990s when he, sadly, developed liver cancer and passed away at the age of 49.

[boardsdonthitback]

Yuen Biao, Lam Ching Ying - The Magnificant Butcher (1979)

[omercifulheaves]

Encounters of the Spooky Kind (1980)

[kenro199x]

Mr. Vampire 殭屍先生 (1985)

Eureka! Blu-ray 2020

[liliyaolenyeva666]

🎼 00392 「Piece Of Your Action」。

だいすきな ラム・チェンインが この世界に生を受けてから 68年が経った今日、ララルンをぐぐっとセーチョーさせました。

[cultfaction]

Preview- Hopping Mad: The Mr. Vampire Sequels

After the huge success of Mr. Vampire, Hong Kong audiences were desperate for more vampire-hopping action and the films’ producers were more than happy to oblige. A steady stream of jiangshi content was produced over the following years, and presented here are 4 of these classic titles from stunning new restorations. In Mr Vampire II (aka Vampire Family) an archaeologist and his students…