Mr Vampire 4 (1988)

That's not a sword. Now that's a sword!

Lam Ching Ying wasn’t available for this sequel so Mr. Vampire 4 had to find two priests to take his place! Wu Ma joined the hopping fun alongside Anthony Chan’s Four-eyed Taoist. There were jiangshi and one Big Bad vampire for the boys to deal with.

Buddhist priest Yi Yu returns home with Ching Ching, a female disciple. Chia Le is a disciple of the Four-eyed Taoist but respects Yi Yu. Chia Le and Ching Ching get off on the wrong foot when Chia Le mistakes her for a boy. Their misunderstanding can’t hold a candle to the childish displays by their elders who torment each other and even have a food fight. The two older men have to set aside their petty rivalry and work together when a vampire is being transported to the capital and breaks out of his traveling coffin during a lightning storm.

Lam Ching Ying’s wise unibrowed character would have had no place in this film. It’s a wonder the vampire was ever subdued with these two frenemies on the job. Wu Ma and Anthony Chan made the most of their roles as they fought each other and then the undead. Ching Ching was a more adept female character than in previous sequels making her a welcome addition. Chin Kar Lok took over his older brother’s (Chin Siu Ho) role as the bumbling Taoist disciple. His kung fu and stunt abilities were fun to watch as he was quite acrobatic. Pauline Wong returned in a guest role as a fox demon who tried to seduce the Four-eyed Taoist. Cheung Wing Cheung played a hopping vampire in Mr. Vampire 2 and played the Big Bad vampire here.

Except for a conga line of hopping vampires who also played limbo, the first 47 minutes was devoted to slapstick comedy with the two competing priests. As someone who has a low tolerance for it, those minutes were slower than a jiangshi hopping through knee deep mud. Once the Big Bad took the stage, the action picked up as well as my interest. There was still plenty of comedy, this was not a scary movie. At one point Four Eyes kept coming out with bigger and bigger swords compared to Yi Yu’s. One thing that did not age well was Yuen Wah’s gay eunuch as the role was played strictly for laughs.

Mr. Vampire 4 was comparable in quality to most of the other sequels in this franchise. The fights were well-choreographed and there were plenty of vampires both of the hopping and non-hopping varieties. Most of all, Wu Ma is always welcome on my screen even if I have to watch him in a food fight. (Graded on a ratings curve)

18 October 2024
Trigger warning: Snakes and one decapitation

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