Wonderfully weird and weirdly wonderful horror movies come from all around the globe, but pound for pound, bug-filled pustule for bug-filled pustule, one part of the world stands tallest when it comes to unfettered imagination and nonexistent moral boundaries. Basically, if an ancient wizard with a long mustache and a gnarly facial mole erupted out of the ground and cursed me so that I could only consume horror films from a single region of the world for the rest of my life, well, that region would be Asia.
Hopping Mad is a new column dedicated to exploring the beautiful, thrilling, incorrigible, and wildly entertaining world of Asian horror films from the ‘80s, ‘90s, and 2000s. Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand will probably make up the bulk of the films we cover, but they’re just a few of the 50 individual countries in Asia open to an appearance. Each is home to histories, folklore, and storytelling that don’t always reach western shores, and in keeping with the Certified Forgotten mission statement, I’m hoping to change that by highlighting some of these underseen and unforgettable Asian horror gems.
So, with all of that in mind, the expectation is probably that I’ll kick off this column with an incredibly offensive Category III banger overflowing with carnage, improper behaviors, and bodily fluids. The two Matts are definitely expecting it, their fingers twitching and ready to delete the foul words they just know are coming, so we may as well just dive right in…
… to some gateway horror from Taiwan!
It’s 1985, and the Sammo Hung-produced Mr. Vampire is a massive Hong Kong hit blending high-kicking action, slapstick laughs, and jiangshi lore (more on that in a moment). The local film industry is already plotting sequels, spin-offs, and straight up ripoffs, but across the South China Sea, an upstart Taiwanese production company is brainstorming its own hopping vampire incarnation.
The result is a film that stands apart from most other Mr. Vampire clones due to one very distinct difference – Hello Dracula is a kids’ movie. Well, an ‘80s kids’ movie, and all that decade entails, but still.
Master Sha (Huang Chung-Yu) is gambling addict and guardian to four young boys who make up his traveling acrobatic troupe. They roam from town to town in their horse drawn carriage, stopping periodically to entertain the locals and collect some coins before packing up and hitting the road again. They stop for the night outside a small town and settle into bed, but they’re interrupted when a sorcerer leading a trail of jiangshi passes by on his way back home.
So what exactly is a jiangshi? Well, the short answer is that they’re vampires, but the longer answer is that they’re Chinese vampires. You need more? Okay. They don’t suck your blood, but they do drain your life energy and/or devour your flesh, depending on their particular folkloric strain. They also, and this is an important detail when picturing them, hop. No walking, no running, just hopping. It sounds absolutely ludicrous, but I shit you not – it is fascinating to see and fairly terrifying in slow motion.
Anyway, onscreen jiangshi are often seen being led by sorcerers or priests, and it comes with an interesting historical origin. Some think the idea of the jiangshi gained popularity centuries ago with the practice of corpse herding (or corpse driving) – the custom of returning the dead to their home province for burial, usually standing up and tied to a pole on a cart that would travel by night so as to not disturb the locals. It’s an absolutely incredible image even before you add the supernatural element to it all.
In Hello Dracula, as in other jiangshi films, the “dead” hop along behind the sorcerer, each of them with a paper talisman attached to their head to keep them under the holy man’s control. Their sight is limited, so they move by the sound of his frequently rung bell, and absolutely nothing can go wrong with this plan. The four rambunctious boys accept that challenge, though, and they learn a harsh lesson after yanking off one of the talismans and unintentionally turning the undead vamp loose.
Remember when I said this is an ‘80s kids movie? Yeah, I should point out that the boys in Hello Dracula fall into some stereotypical appearances ranging from the mild (a boy with big teeth named Big Teeth), to the unfortunate (a chubby boy named Watermelon), to the straight up racist (the smallest, darkest boy whose name is Blackie). None of it is meant to be offensive, of course, just as the brief glimpse of these kids showering naked isn’t meant to be pervy – it was just the ‘80s, man.
Hello Dracula is more The Monster Squad than The Goonies in that regard as the kids are fun-loving punks prone to all manner of trouble and offense. The filmmakers, including director Chiu Chung-Hing and writer Yao Ching Kang, share those traits as we also get some laughs in the form of domestic violence. We don’t see it – this is a kids’ movie after all – but we do get comedy spun from a bruised wife and her playfully ashamed husband.
The freed vamp hops onto Master Sha’s shadow – an act that curses the person to misfortune – and after a brief display of martial arts and stunt work, the rogue jiangshi is recaptured. The action is slight, but bodies go flying, kids included, and the choreography is tight. The curse leads to Master Sha losing a paid job, losing big while gambling, and then losing his freedom after being arrested for child abuse.
The boys attempt to help their master, but they only make things worse for him. They’re saved from their hijinx by a young girl named Tien Tien (Shadow Liu, who would go on to become a J-pop idol) who knows how to handle jiangshi thanks to her grandfather, a Taoist priest named Jin. He takes in jiangshi who haven’t been claimed and therefore have no home to return to, and he has them work as household servants until he can figure out a way to help them to their final rest. Seems like slavery, but Jin’s a good guy with an adorable granddaughter, so who am I to judge.
The boys are all fully smitten with young Tien Tien, especially after she busts out the Ghost Hitting Powder to keep those jiangshi in line, but she’s wholly uninterested in their percolating testosterone. She does enjoy their friendship, though, and she and her grandfather take them in after Master Sha is killed by another jiangshi that the boys unwisely freed. That’s right, the boys are responsible for their master’s death.
It would be a stretch to say any of the boys have anything resembling a character arc, but they still encounter elements that feel at home in a coming-of-age film. They’re just kids, but they’re forced to make some serious decisions as they face life without their parental figure. Even more alarming for them is the realization that, between the abusers and addicts and idiots, none of the adults around them have their own shit together, either.
While too many American movies for younger viewers keep the mythologies and narratives simple, Hello Dracula digs deep into the lore and sorcery of it all. It’s worth noting first that nowhere in this mythology is there actually an appearance by, or even a mention of, Dracula. The film, or the distributors, anyway, basically treat it as a known synonym of sorts for vampire. We’re taught about the importance of holding your breath to keep the vamps from finding you; we learn the difference between raw eggs and Thunderbolt Eggs; and there’s an elaborate ritual performed by an ambitious Tien Tien to send the boys into the spirit realm to speak with their master.
Mortals are invisible in the netherworld, so the boys paint themselves up like mimes in the hopes that the master can recognize them, have them sign visas to grant them entrance, and then march off in slow motion into the world of the dead. Magic, fire, optical effects, and an energetic synth score make for an exciting and mildly unsettling sequence. The boys encounter a jiangshi in there, and an entertaining battle ends with the kids tearing at his dusty flesh with their teeth – flesh they’ll eventually have to vomit back up in the real world.
Heavy themes share the screen with unfiltered immaturity in a goofy horror flick for kids that’s unafraid to let its vampires bite a guy’s ass and another man’s “jewels.” Grief, loss, abuse, hygiene, kid on kid violence, breakdancing in the netherworld, action/horror set pieces with terrific fight choreography and stunts, vampire on kid violence, a running gag involving an undead toddler looking for his daddy, preteen boys lusting after an even younger girl (in G-rated fashion), vampire on vampire violence – Hello Dracula has it all. It also, and this might surprise you for a film you’ve probably only just now heard of, has five sequels. Titles range from Son of the Vampire to King of the Children, and one of them was even shot for 3-D! (Good luck finding it in proper 3-D, though.)
Sadly, the Hello Dracula franchise has been mostly forgotten, relegated to VHS rips without much hope for a remastered release. I’m keeping my fingers crossed, though, as the movies remain a fun, silly, and thrilling series for fans of Chinese vampires and martial arts. Action/horror, but for kids, is a pretty small subgenre, especially when the films are this damn weird. The series gets pretty dark, too, with one of the kids sacrificing his own life – he straps on some dynamite and explodes – at the end of the second film. What can I say, it was the ‘80s, man.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for joining me for the debut of Hopping Mad! Hope you’ve enjoyed the read and maybe even decide to seek out these movies for a fun Saturday afternoon marathon. I also hope to see you again next month when you’ll be rewarded with both a shorter introduction and a movie featuring a talking dickhead.
