Movie Review: Vampire Warriors/殭屍新戰士

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***Vampire Warriors/殭屍新戰士* is the new film from Dennis SY Law, property developer and director of vanity-project films. He is already richer than God’s uncle, so he need not take into account things like box office receipts.**

This is in stark contrast to people like Wong Jing, for whom commercialism is uppermost in his list of considerations.

Dennis and Wong Jing have one thing in common: Both of them make movie s that the Gang of Film (電影人幫) always watch at the Dynasty.

So Dennis SY Law, or DSY Law, has a new English name: DynaStY Law.

The first Dynasty Law is: If you watch it, it will suck.

In truth, I was looking forward to this film, even against my better judgment. I love vampire movies. And even though this was going to be a Dennis Law film, it’s a Dennis Law vampirefilm.

With Yuen Wah.

I was hoping that I would be able to call the director Dennis “Sh*t yeah!” Law, at least for 90 minutes.

But as my mother always used to say, “Sh*t in one hand and wish in the other, see which one fills up first.”

Since this is a vampire movie, I can’t really take the easy way out and say that it sucks. That’s just silly.

Or maybe not.

Because this movie blows goats.

The plot, scant as it is, actually begins moving some time around the one hour mark.

It is also the same time that you finally learn some of the characters’ names.

Before that, we are subjected to all manner of existentialist vampire inanity, courtesy of dialogue, and indeed scenes, that go on forever yet do or say nothing at all.

Dennis has never been one for economy of narrative. He’s the same guy whose films have dialogue such as “I’m walking home now” followed by an excruciatingly long shot of the character walking the whole way home.

He fares no better here, though some in the The Gang of Film (電影人幫) thought that he may have been held back a bit. It’s hard to tell. It’s hard to make any sense of the film whatsoever.

I can’t really call Vampire Warriors/殭屍新戰士 a mess, because a mess implies a bunch of stuff all thrown together.

Vampire Warriors/殭屍新戰士is more like an oil slick. A thin, almost formless presence that hangs around without really being there.

And smells bad.

It doesn’t help that one of the principals of the film is Chrissie Chau, a woman whose ‘acting’ quality (and value) is inversely proportional to the amount of clothing she’s wearing.

Do unto others as they would do unto you.

A while back, she was a guest/celebrity judge at the Legend 3 ring girl competition. After the event, I grabbed her name card from the judges table, because it said

Chrissie Chau

Actress

I think its one of the best sight gags I’ve ever seen.

I mean, if we’re going to drag race down Perjury Road all the way to Outrageous Fabrication St., why not

Sean Tierney

Young, slim and hot

or

*Sean Tierney*

Easygoing and mellow

Come on. Actress?

Chrissie Chau acts about as well as I model, okay?

But hey, I’m not trying to be a model.

And thank Christ for that, eh?

That said, Chrissie ain’t trying too hard to be an actress either.

Well, I guess they had to call her  something, and ‘Self-propelled gazongas’ was just too long to fit on the card.

In fairness, the bulk of direction she probably receives is something like “Lean over when you speak.”

I vant to suck your bust…

And while I am not mammarily driven , per se, I will admit that they are impressive breasts. At one point in the film, Chrissie is hanging upside down, and it looks a hell of a lot like she’s 69ing with a naked midget under her shirt.

Did  I lie?

Dennisty Law has exploited Ms. Chau before; in Womb Ghosts he put her in two different positions filmed in what can only be called POV style, and those positions were missionaryand kneeling oral.

He outdoes himself here, going that extra Dynasty/”Sh*t yeah!” mile.

There’s no sense trying to deny that I have seen my fair share of Japanese pornography.

But hey, I try to support the films of people I know, right?

While I freely concede that I’ve seen it, I will vehemently deny that it has the intendedeffect on me. My usual responses are an admixture of laughter, fear, and/or disgust.

That third response is especially pertinent here.

Chrissie Chau bites a can of tomato juice-

I am not making this up.

-and, rather than swallowing it, spits it out. But she does so in exactlythe same manner that Japanese AV actresses expectorate male effluence.

Oh Dennis, you’re such a funny guy. You make me want to puke.

***Vampire Warriors/殭屍新戰士* is garbage. It is filmmaking so inept that it boggles the mind.**

Is it just a coincidence that cranes (the construction type, not the bird) appear almost everywhere in the film? Well, when you realize that you need cranes for wire work, the answer is obvious.

And oh, what awful wire work.

It’s as if  a drag queen who idolized Glenda the Good Witch choreographed the ‘action’ scenes.

It was also painful to watch Yuen Wah, a man who not only worked with but doubled Bruce Lee (whenever Bruce does acrobatics in a film, it’s actually Yuen Wah), stoop to this level.

It’s also sad because he’s the only person doing any acting. So by comparison, he comes across as positively Shakespearean.

It’s also sad to watch budding martial arts star Jiang Lu Xia being wasted on this kind of cinematic tripe.

*Vampire Warriors/殭屍新戰士*

So why don’t I hate this film?

I really should.

It deserves it.

It begs for it.

It whispers dirty entreaties in my ear while attempting to fondle my thigh.

Oh my God, that’s just… gross.

Well, maybe because the film is sobad, I can’t really get angry with it. It would be like playing an autistic kid in basketball and calling him for traveling.

Or laughing at a stripper who tells you that her college major is “Science.”

One of those examples is real.

And I don’t play basketball.

***Vampire Warriors/殭屍新戰士* is a cheap, tawdry, ridiculous train wreck.**

And I nearly laughed my b@lls off watching it.

First, all the inanity was simply fodder for my typical Dynasty live commentary track.

Which, I confess, was downright  chronic. It was so bad that a man in front of the Gang of Film got up to go to the toilet and never came back.

Actually, there’s a 50/50 chance it was the film.

On a more conciliatory note, the film had a number of jokes, intentional or otherwise, that made me genuinely happy.

One was an admittedly inappropriate guess I made about the basis of a particular interaction on the screen. Lo and behold, the dialogue soon proved my adolescent musing was spot-on correct.

Pun intended.

In another scene, drunken inanity (probably on both sides of the camera), the odd bit of English dialogue, and a genuinely crass approach to comedy made me smile.

As did the ‘fashion sense’ employed in the film. These vampires looked like they got locked in the same freezer as Janice Man in Frozen. Their hair and wardrobe was astonishingly bad for people who’ve ostensibly witnessed 500-1000 years of fashion.

Apparently, the undead dig the 80s and just don’t care what you think.

*And you thoughtTwilight had the gayest vampires. Not.*

A vampire dinner conversation managed to make me chuckle; Chrissie asks her brother where her dog went. Her brother’s response is funny, very local, and totally apropos.

Which cannot be said of her consolation prize, a rabbit her brother has replaced the dog with.

We see Ms. Chau hoist a real rabbit into frame. When the shot changes, we see her, from a distance, bite the neck of a similarly colored yet obviously stuffed rabbit.

She sucks the blood of a stuffed animal.

Dennis, you twisted freak. When did you get Christine To onboard to do continuity?

It’s so outrageously stupid, obvious, and just plain dumbthat I somehow respected him for it.

He boldly goes where no one else will, even if it’s five miles past East Clusterf@#$.

I enjoyed the fact that Chrissie Chau called everyone in sight a b*tch (三八) and generally seemed to insult people all the time. And that vampires seem to like to hit each other.

There was more than a little slapstick, lowbrow, and toilet humor in the movie, and I liked it.

The biggest reason I can find not to hate Vampire Warriors/殭屍新戰士 is contextual. Because Dennis is rich, he doesn’t need money.

So he doesn’t care if his films make money. He doesn’t have to tailor his films for anyone.

Especially not China, where vampires are not allowed in movies.

Unless they turn out to be real people in disguise.

Or there’s an anomalous scene at the end of the film of someone closing a book and saying “What an interesting novel.”

I have to give it up to Dennis Law for, at the very least, keeping the China Market C*ck well clear of his own mouth.

Because it’s getting to be like Brokeback Industry around this motherf#$%er.

Which is also pertinent withinthe film itself. There is a constant and knowing sexual tension between Chrissie Chau’s and Jiang Lu Xia’s character that often spills right over into the dialogue and blocking.

Dennis plays it well, because even though I knew it would never happen, I kept hoping/thinking/begging for the two of them to finally kiss.

And given Dennis’ propensity for protracted visual exposition (the “I’m walking home” thing ), I prayed like a dying heathen that one of them was going to say “We should take a shower.”

Vampire Warriors/殭屍新戰士is at best a hackneyed, sleazy exploitation film whose sole value is its capacity to invoke laughter, intentionally or otherwise. Yet taken on that level, it is certainly not the worst way to spend 90 minutes in a cinema.