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Click here to return to the main site. Blu-ray Review
Doctor Chiang Ta-Tsung (Bowie Lam) is a surgeon on a ‘working’ holiday in Britain. When his car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, he seeks help at a curiously hidden castle. He opens the door onto a pub where everyone is very accommodating – particularly the beautiful young women. He takes a shine to a hostess called Alice (Ellen Chan) and they have a sexual liaison. However, a mysterious cowled man watches from nearby and signals Alice. Doctor Chiang makes his escape, having no inkling he had entered a den of vampires. He returns home to his long-time girlfriend May Chan (Shiela Chan) but soon shows symptoms of vampirism, including an aversion to sunlight and a craving for blood. His two closest work colleagues help to keep the revelation quiet by ‘procuring’ blood from the hospital so that he doesn’t feel the need to bite anyone. There is a chance Chiang can be turned back, but the arrival of Alice and the master vampire more than complicate matters... Eureka Entertainment releases the Hong Kong comedy horror movie Doctor Vampire, from 1990, for the first on Blu-ray in the UK. This 2k remastered issue is a Limited-Edition of 2000 copies and includes an O-card slipcase and a collector’s book, with new artwork by Graham Humphreys, and new writing on Hong Kong Vampire films from Mr Vampire to Doctor Vampire by East Asian horror expert Katarzyna Ancuta. Special Features include: a new audio commentary with East Asian film experts Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival) and John Charles; a new audio commentary with Hong Kong cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema; A British Vampire in Hong Kong – a new on-camera interview with Stacey Abbott, author of Celluloid Vampires: Life After Death in the Modern World; and Vampire Slaying 101: Remixing Monster Traditions in Doctor Vampire – a new video essay by gothic scholar Mary Going. Jamie Luk’s Doctor Vampire is a horror comedy very much in the vein of the Mr Vampire films, and Encounters of the Spooky Kind; and so, can be comfortably slotted into the Jianshi or ‘Hopping Vampires’ sub-genre. The format is very similar in that it is fast, frantic, and chaotic, although – unlike the aforementioned other films – it features very little martial arts, just a subtle form of choreography. It can also safely be described as a run-around farce. In fact, think Carry On Screaming and you won’t be too far from the truth. So, this film doesn’t break any new ground, but it does have its redeeming features. Whilst perhaps belonging in the 1960s or 1970s in terms of style and humour, it doesn’t mean it can’t be enjoyed in contemporary times. The throw-away slapstick situations, whilst perhaps best enjoyed with friends after a few drinks, are tempered with genuinely funny moments such as when Chiang is performing surgery and copiously salivating into his surgical mask and into the gaping wound of the patient. The publicity blurb invokes Fright Night; this one falls far short of that classic with its subtle balance of horror and humour, but it’s well worth a look all the same. 6 Ty Power Buy this item online
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