As a Taoist (Chung Faat) transports a dead body for burial, a competitor attempts to thwart his progress by turning it into a vampire. Matters are complicated when a grave robber seeks the Taoist’s aid in getting rid of a female corpse (Pauline Wong) that follows him everywhere.

This initially promising Mr. Vampire spin-off degenerates into tiresome situational comedy and sadly never recovers. New Mr. Vampire is not officially associated with the classic Mr. Vampire franchise produced by Sammo Hung even though it shares a similar name and much of the same cast, excepting the great Lam Ching Ying. This becomes all the more evident half way through when the plot takes a sudden u-turn into indistinct territory that displays the film’s obviously low budget in unflattering terms.

The film begins well with Chin Siu Ho playing a grave robber named Wang Choi who wakes a corpse while attempting to shake it of any valuables. He runs to the resident Taoist priests who are traditionally adept at handling such matters. Master Chin and his former partner Priest Wu jointly deal with the threat, despite a bitter rivalry. The next day, Chin and his assistant get a lucrative job to transport the body of a deceased gangster to his home for burial. Jealous of his success, Wu spends the rest of the film trying to wake the corpse through a series of rituals such as exposing it moonlight and feeding it blood. En route to their destination, Chin is joined by Wang Choi who has woken another corpse. This time it’s a female played by Pauline Wong and she’s been “magically” bonded to Wang so that she mimics his every move. This creates a few humorous and awkward moments for poor Wang who simply wants to be free of her presence.

At this point, the film loses its footing. The early, 20th century traditional costumes and rural setting is replaced by a 1930′s Shanghai-like hotel where our heroes and their two corpses spend the night while still on the way to their destination, which they never get to in the film. A muddled plot which involves Pauline and her relationship to a drunken Marshall who originally drove her to kill herself becomes the focus until Priest Wu shows up again to revive the gangster corpse. This leads to a final, drawn out chase through the hotel as the vampire attempts to sink his teeth into our heroes and a gaggle of soldiers under the Marshall’s command.

This is ultimately a disappointing film that pales in comparison to Mr. Vampire (1985) and it’s sequels. The emphasis is on light comedy, but there isn’t anything to laugh about when everything in the film had already been done better in other films. The action is fairly well choreographed, but it gets deluded by the meandering story that is poorly written. The performances are weak for the most part with no one stepping up as a credible lead, although Chung Fat manages to be a marginally passable replacement for Lam Ching Ying as a vampire hunter. A whole side element involving his smelly hair cream that eventually attracts the attention of the vampire is fun, but with little kung fu or even magical displays Chung Fat is a rather weak Taoist. Chin Siu Ho may have ground his martial chops in latter Venoms films such as Ten Tigers from Kwantung (1979) and New Wave classics like Fist of Legend (1994), but he hardly registers on the charisma scale. And with minimal martial arts content, his role can be easily disregarded.

The interior sets of the hotel which dominate the second half of the film feature horribly bland pastel coloring. Add to that a confusing mix of classic kung fu and semi-modern costumes and you have an awful example of art direction. The vampire make-up is also cheaply done and Pauline Wong gets a dated ’80′s hair makeover half way through that is thoroughly unflattering. This is just a bad looking film and only gets worse as it progresses.

Had New Mr. Vampire steered clear of the hotel scenes and modern costumes, it probably would have been better. Additionally, it is clear that the filmmakers were making things up as they worked and the story suffers greatly as a result. For quality vampire action, I’d look elsewhere. I’d even be inclined to say that this film bites, but would be an all too obvious platitude.

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