Carry On Kung Fu Exorcist

Mr Vampire

Dir Ricky Lau, Hong Kong 1985 Eureka, £19.99 (Blu-ray)

In the early 1970s, most of the Chinese language films seen in the West were kung-fu action stories, with an occasional wu xia epic and very few outright fantasies. Between Zu Warriors (1983) and A Chinese Ghost Story (1987) the filmic exploration of supernatural fiction suffered quite a dearth; surprising, really, considering the significant profile of such stories in Chinese literature.

One anthology of supernatural tales — the Liaozhai Zhiyi, otherwise known as Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio — has been regularly plundered and adapted for modern Chinese audiences since it was compiled in the 17th century. While its principal stories enshrine archaic myths and beliefs about spirits, magic and the transmigration of souls, it contains no bloodthirsty vampires as the West imagines them. Instead, its dominant trope is the sad fate of female spirits — sometimes humans wronged in love or life, sometimes evil or lovelorn fox or tree spirits — who waylay men and drain them of their life force. In their case it is chi — the essence of life energy — not blood they are after.