Why does Mr. Vampire hop?

Why do Chinese Vampires hop?

Back in the mid 80s it was a golden age of trashy videos. The same year that Jackie Chan's My Lucky Stars and Police Story hit the theatres of Hong Kong Mr. Vampire set off a Hopping Vampire craze.

Wearing Qing Dynasty robes, arms outstretched, and hopping, the vampires of Mr. Vampire have became the iconic standard for every Chinese Vampire movie that followed. There's some of Halloween's Michael Myers and John Ford's Thing From Another World in the relentless attacks of Mr. Vampire. This is an unstoppable undead kung fu killing creature that just keeps attacking. But lucky for us we've got Lam Ching Ying.

Lam Ching Ying plays a Taoist priest who is training two students, who don't know much about Jiang Shi (a.k.a. hopping vampires). So we learn all the "rules" about how to prevent and fight hopping vampires right along with them. And boy howdy there's a boatload of rules.



Hey look! The whole movie is on YouTube!

Now I've got to run out and buy some sticky rice.