Mr. Vampire III

Ricky Lau's 1987 film is the third entry in Hong Kong's hopping vampire series and is not a direct continuation of the earlier ones; the cast is the same, the story stands alone. The Taoist priest played by Lam Ching-Ying joins forces with another priest, who travels with two pet ghosts, against an evil witch and her henchmen bent on destroying humanity. The formula that held across the series works here too: horror, martial arts and slapstick exist in the same scene simultaneously rather than in turn. Hong Kong's jiangshi cinema feeds on Chinese folk funeral customs and Taoist ritual, and its humour comes from the gap between the gravity of those rituals and the ineptitude of the characters. Lam Ching-Ying's physical discipline is the series' real asset. The third film does not reach the freshness of the first but keeps the template solid. Who it's for: viewers who like Hong Kong genre cinema, hopping vampire films and 1980s martial arts comedy. Who it's not for: anyone wanting a consistent horror tone, or starting here and bothered that the cultural conventions go unexplained.