Gau geung ching dou foo

This hopping-Chinese-vampire-comedy felt very shallow. It tries to be hip and modern but feels as hip as Babyjohns granny in her hibbedy-hob-garments - it's a joke. Babyjohn himself made me want to grab the TV and shake it, although cruelty against minors is not my thing at all. The romance was completely artificial and the story itself tries to be too many things at once while failing to deliver any of the real goods like horror, comedy or action. "Vampire Cleanup Department" feels more like a failed TV-Show and tries to update the Jiang-Shi-Lore with elements from Blade and Buffy without providing any original life energy for us to suck up.

+ classic ("Mr. Vampire") veterans on board! It's great to see Richard Ng and Chin Siu-Ho again and there's even a cameo from Eric Tsang. That's nice! - Lead actors are not at all interesting - script is all over the place - Makup effects are not very frightening - Digital fx are very bad. The vampire kills are very much doing the same as "Blade" did, but that movie is 20 years old soon and looks a million times better. - romance: Maybe this works for Youtube junkies. I don't know. I hope not otherwise mankind might be doomed. What happens at the end?Does it make sense at all? - Babyjohn? Is he a kid, is he an adult? Watch this movie and see for yourselves!

verdict: hop along, hop along, there's nothing to see here.

After a sinister late-night encounter, a geeky young guy discovers that he is immune to vampire toxins. He is, therefore, summoned by the Vampire Cleanup Department who are a small group of specialists dedicated to combatting and dispelling vampires.

This Hong Kong feature is a genre mash-up of comedy, horror and action (with even a little bit of romance thrown in for good measure). The comedy wasn't especially funny, the horror was peripheral and the action was fairly unremarkable, resulting in a middling movie. The most interesting character was the female vampire that our geeky hero develops a love affair with. She is played like a fish-out-of-water innocent and displays some of the very unusual vampire traits associated with China, i.e. The hopping vampire! This type of detail specific to China is good fun to see and the character of the girl vampire was pretty good value. But the film as a whole was a bit ho hum otherwise with nothing much else standing out very much. It is quite a cute film though and is hard to dislike but I personally only found it sporadically entertaining.

First thing first:I always rate judging by what the movie actually aims to sell.I rate "The Godfather" and "12 Angry men" as excellent movies, but I also rate "Top Secret" and "Airplane" very highly in their own genre, and the same applies for "Sharknado". So I don't pretend to be a movie critic stuck with cinefil movies or a B-movie junkie. To the actual review: I honestly regret spending the time to watch this movie! I don't know what actually made it feel so bad. The bad acting? The even worse story? The humiliating representation of vampires who just jump around for the first time in history? The fact that it turns out to be yet another love story??? OK...maybe for people with Eastern culture it makes more sense...but for people with a more Western philosophy...I think it will be a waste of time...

Don't expect a lot of gore. Think of a Karate Kid with vampires to confront. Then add the most adorable "child of the night" (Min Chen Lin) to ever grace the genre. Her character alone justifies giving this bit of fluff a look. Silly? Yes. But in a good way, if you're in the mood for the novelty it offers.

Vampire Cleanup Department (2017)

The term 'vampire' is incorrect in this Chinese genre (dating from literature of the 19th Century). The living corpses are more like zombies (the animated dead). They hop around (hahaha!) and attack humans.

In the 1980s, this genre was briefly popular in Hong Kong movies, Since this genre predated the craze for zombies in the West, the term vampire was applied in the English translation. And sure enough, some zombies went for the neck.

In the context of a feudal rural context, the old movies were atmospheric and spooky. This movie is set in modern Hong Kong, and the old-style zombies look silly where there are motorcars and SWAT.

The special effects are minimal. So, the actors have to ham it up. With the small budget, the film makers have to target micro audiences.

Richard Ng represents nostalgia. The film starts with a bloody flourish in slasher style.

Then, we are introduced to the small team of 'ghostbusters' known as Vampire Cleanup Department (VCD). The VCD hang out in a Batcave-style secret HQ.

Then, there is the romance angle. The VCD has a young recruit who falls for a teen zombie. Interestingly, the teen zombie looks like a doll (Japanese fetish for life-like girl dolls).

The bottom line is that this is a commercial production with little originality. Possibly entertaining if you are looking for a little entertainment. But, its not the next-big-thing as the producers might hope.