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Review : Tsui Hark's Vampire Hunters
Tsui Hark is a veteran of Hong Kong action cinema. His 2002 film titled Tsui Hark's Vampire Hunters is a pretty fun movie. This is a story about honor, Vampire Zombies and lots of Kung Fu sword play.
Now I know what you are thinking when I say "vampire". These are not faggy European vampires like Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise in that Anne Rice movie.
This movie is full of Chinese super zombie corpse vampires that can absorb the life force and blood out of their prey just by sucking really hard. They do not have to bite just get close and they can fly and be general freaky bad asses.
The mythology go a bit like this. If a spirit is pissed off enough they become a zombie. If they go too long as a zombie they turn into vampire super zombies.
This movie works because it is based on a "non-fail" concept. Warrior Monks vs. Super Zombie Vampires !
In fact it is a story about a group of four vampire hunters against the king of the Chinese vampire zombies who killed their master. They go by the macho names Wind, Thunder, Rain, and Lightning and are pretty bad ass.
The movie is set in a dark Gothic Mid-evil China where it is almost never day.
This film was blessed with a pretty good budget and production value and there are some good digital effects and computer animation enhanced shots. The story might not be a real thinking movie but it does not look cheap.
You know why don't they ever hunt vampires during the day? They always wait until it is about dusk before they go and try to off the vampire.
This disc was also blessed with good DVD quality that is enhanced for wide screen. There is Cantonese, English and French language dialog and subtitles on the disk.
You get everything you could want in Chinese action cinema like this.
It is a bit dark, a bit comedy, a bit romance and Splatterific violence. Not enough Splatterific violence in my book but still fun.
It is not as "Art House" as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon but it delivers what it promises in the Chinese Zombie Kung Fu action department.
Jake at July 8, 2003 
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Comments
i am gonna have to see this. The idea that if you stay a zombie too long you become a super vampire zombie is pushing it to the horror limit. How gory is it? I want super gore if i am gonna see blood drenched super zombies.
Posted by: pete at July 8, 2003 9:56 AM
It had more Kung Fu than gore but it was no Story of Ricky
Posted by: Jake at July 8, 2003 10:17 AM
"Warrior Monks vs. Super Zombie Vampires"! this sounds like big fun for me! kinda like a chinese ghost story theme into vampire slaughter.
Posted by: dr_colossus of dataleak at July 10, 2003 12:50 AM
