“Hong Kong cinema at its most gleefully inventive and gloriously unrestrained.”
-Criterion
When a town elder’s burial goes awry, his resurrected corpse transforms into a bloodthirsty, hopping vampire targeting everyone responsible for digging his grave. A unibrowed Taoist priest and his two troublesome disciples must utilize a combination of magic and kung fu to stop the bouncing bloodsucker from further terrorizing their town!
Directed by Ricky Lau and produced by Sammo Hung (CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE SPOOKY KIND), Mr. Vampire’s box office success helped launch an entire subgenre of “Jiangshi” hopping vampire horror-comedies as well as a franchise that would span four sequels with stuntman, actor, and action director Lam Ching-ying as the recurring star.