Hong-Do Mirror (1985)
Three goofy, unsuccessful thieves wander around robbing graves, eating dogs, getting attacked by hands that burst from the ground, and acting unconscionably stupid. They come to an old inn and find out that a vampire has been preying on virginal young girls in the area. Two of the thieves and the innkeeper are killed, so the remaining thief tries to protect the innkeeper's beautiful daughter and avenge his friends.
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Really Surprised!
Highly Overrated But Still Good
Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.
After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.
DRAGON AGAINST VAMPIRE is a typically inane martial arts/horror combo from Godfrey Ho, here writing under the pseudonym Benny Ho. The director is credited as one Lionel Leung, who only has this single credit to his name, which sounds suspiciously like another Ho pseudonym. Nothing would surprise me at this point. The film is yet another South Korean/Hong Kong co-production that may be the result of two films stitched together, as it's completely nonsensical.The story begins with three grave robbers larking about in a cemetery and getting spooked by lively corpses. One of them, a fat guy, finds a cute dog and eats it in a distasteful scene. Eventually they meet a martial arts master who looks a bit like Yuen Biao if you squint a lot, and they also encounter a vampire which is sadly Westernised rather than the hopping variety that I personally love seeing in Chinese cinema. What follows is a jumble of scenes that seem to be randomly thrown together. There are cheesy effects, a lot of night time stuff, bad humour, and a little action, mainly at the climax. It's very, very bad, and thoroughly confusing.
Almost nothing is more hokey and dumb than this, but don't feel discouraged about seeing it, cause it's funnier than any comedy you'll ever find. It's just that bad. It begins with three idiots that slightly resemble the three stooges, but they are also grave robbers, and they're being chased by this evil vampire guy because one of them stole a golden swastika from some coffin( whose coffin this is, we never find out). From then on, you'll find every cliché in the book, with mind-controlling vampires, a possession scene thats totally ripped off of the Exorcist, and a crapload of dream sequences that seem to pop up over and over again, making you wonder if anything thats really happening in the movie is actually really happening, or is just another ridiculous dream. But don't forget what I said before. This movie is FUNNY! Go ahead and watch it.
The video box cover presents this flick as a hybrid of the martial arts and horror genres. Upon renting it, I figured that if it did not succeed as a horror flick (which was not likely anyway), that it would at least have some good martial arts sequences -- or vice versa. Well, it fails on all counts.Basically a series of lame, crude comedy sketches. Bad dubbing. A ripoff.
Three goofy, unsuccessful thieves wander around robbing graves, eating dogs, getting attacked by hands that burst from the ground, and acting unconscionably stupid. They come to an old inn and find out that a vampire has been preying on virginal young girls in the area. Two of the thieves and the innkeeper are killed, so the remaining thief tries to protect the innkeeper's beautiful daughter and avenge his friends. The vampire can control the daughter's mind, and he makes her drink chicken blood. The thief goes to an old hermit who teaches him Shaolin sorcery and gives him an amulet that looks like a backwards swastika but works like a crucifix. Not much fighting, but plenty of comedy, and a little mild gore. Enjoyable enough Chinese kung fu/comedy/horror, but seeing the name "Elton Chong" in the credits is always a sign that this isn't going to be the best kung fu movie you've ever seen...