Era of Vampires, The (2002) Review

“The Era of Vampires” DVD Cover

AKA: Vampire Hunters
Director: Wellson Chin
Cast: Michael Chow Man Kin, Danny Chan Kwok Kwan, Ken Cheung Chi Yiu, Lam Suet, Anya, Horace Lee Wai Sing, Yu Rong Guang, Lee Lik Chi, Wong Yat Fei, Ji Chun Hua, Lee Kin Yan, Chen Kuan Tai, Shut Mei Yee
Running Time: 107 min. 

By Paul Bramhall 

In 2002 it had been 10 years since the last entry in the popular Mr. Vampire franchise, with the suitably titled Mr. Vampire 1992, an underwhelming effort that arguably should have been the final nail in the coffin for the hopping vampire genre that the original kicked off in 1985 (it wasn’t, with a few dregs still filtering through over the next couple of years). Considering producer and scriptwriter Tsui Hark’s success from that same era – reviving the kung fu genre with the Once Upon a Time in China series, and reimagining the wuxia flick into kinetic wire work fuelled extravaganzas – it likely made sense to see if he had the same Midas touch when it came to hopping vampires. So it was in 2002 the undead returned in The Era of the Vampires.

What audiences they returned for makes The Era of the Vampires an interesting curiosity. It would take 20 years for it to be released in Hong Kong, finally arriving on Blu-ray and DVD in 2022, with the most accessible way of viewing it until this point being in a shortened version called Vampire Hunters distributed in the U.S. by Columbia Tri-Star. Reducing the 107-minute runtime down to 89, chances are they were hoping to bank in on the popularity that John Carpenter’s 1998 feature Vampires saw on home video (also released by Columbia Tri-Star), and it’s not outside the realms of possibility that Hark himself was influenced by Carpenter’s latter-day entry in his filmography.

We don’t have Tsui Hark in the director’s seat though, and considering he was coming off the back of helming the messy The Legend of Zu (and was likely filming Black Mask 2: City of Masks at the same time), that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Instead the directorial reins are handed over to Wellson Chin, a director probably best known as the man behind the 4 entries in the Inspector Wears Skirts franchise. After the last instalment in 1992, Chin almost exclusively worked in the ghost genre for the rest of the 90’s, so from that perspective he probably seemed like a good fit to helm a hopping vampire revival. Notably The Era of the Vampires would be Chin’s penultimate movie as a director, only returning in 2013 for The Extreme Fox (another ghost movie), then seemingly going into retirement.

The plot focuses on a group of 4 vampire hunters in 17^th century China, played by Ken Chang (Extreme Challenge, Sha Po Lang), Michael Chow (City War, Vampire Family), Lam Suet (The Midnight After, The Constable) and Danny Chan (Keep Calm and Be a Superstar, Kung Fu League). The foursome are led by Mainland martial arts stalwart Ji Chun-Hua (Tai Chi Boxer, New Shaolin Temple), and when a powerful general rises from the grave as a kind of super vampire, the group must use all of their skills to bring him down.

After tracking the vampire to an isolated residence that’s believed to be haunted, overseen by a creepy Yu Rong-Guang (Iron Monkey, Fox Hunter), the 4 hunters disguise themselves as servants so that they can stay close and hopefully lure the vampire out. Matters aren’t helped when its revealed Rong-Guang is a specialist in preserving the dead with wax, and like a distant relative of Norman Bates, has taken to preserving the bodies of any family members that pass away so that it seems like they’re still around. Proceedings are complicated further when Rong-Guang marries his son off to Anya (2002, Naked Weapon), who it turns out is actually the sister of a dastardly villain played by Horace Lee (The New Option, Ultimate Fight), who intends to steal the hidden stash of gold somewhere on the property.

While the story may seem like it has a lot happening, onscreen the various goings on are really only there to provide the ingredients for what feels like a movie more steeped in the HK style of the 80’s and early 90’s than a production that came out in the same year as Infernal Affairs. Essentially all we need to know is that there are a whole heap of wax preserved corpses on the property that can become vampires, there’s a villain with really powerful kung-fu who wants to find a stack of gold, and of course in true HK style, one of the hunters finds himself falling for Anya. 

While The Era of Vampires may not do a lot to bring things like characterisation and plot motivations into the new millennium, what it does do right is lean more into the horror elements of the genre, utilising the advances in technology over the last decade to create an entertainingly powerful vampire. Camera tricks and even some effective CGI make the vampire a suitably imposing presence, and the way it has its own gravitational pull – used to suck blood through its victims facial crevices – adds an element of genuine horror that’s rarely been seen in the genre before (and wouldn’t be treated as straight faced again until 2013’s Rigor Mortis). Chin throws in some effective jump scares, and most surprisingly doesn’t shy away from ramping up the gore, with bodies often reduced to steaming piles of shredded flesh. There’s a genuine danger felt here that’s a world away from its 80’s and 90’s hopping vampire brethren.

The hopping vampire lore is also expanded on considerably, explaining that if someone passes away while still harbouring negative energy, that energy will continue to build up even when dead which is what eventually leads to the corpses coming back to life. There’s also the revelation that being covered in cold water prevents the vampires from detecting your presence, which onscreen is played out in a kind of Predator-esque sequence, just swap Arnold Schwarzenegger, mud, and an alien for Ji Chun-Hua, water, and a vampire.

The finale in particular is a hoot, as Chun-Hua and his 4 disciples team up to take down the vampire for good. Playing out like a mix of new wave wuxia meets the Evil Dead, the practical effects used for damage inflicted on the vampire are suitably icky, as limbs are severed, torsos sliced in half, and heads decapitated. I was half expecting Ash to turn up with a chainsaw. It’s difficult to believe Tsui Hark didn’t have some hand in this sequence, as the creativity on display seems typical of the auteurs style, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of similar practical effects work found in the likes of 1992’s Wicked City, another movie which Hark produced and wrote but didn’t direct.

Amongst all of the vampire shenanigans, there is also some legitimate martial arts on display, with much of the action incorporating wushu stylings. On action choreographer duty is Tony Tam Chun-To, who came with experience of working on the likes of Bloody Brotherhood and Legend of the Wolf. He adjusts his style well here to create a handful of fight scenes that allow the likes of the underseen Horace Lee and Ken Chang to go up against Yu Rong-Guang in separate one on ones. Crisply shot, and utilising swords in a way that we probably have 2000’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to thank for, the scenes may be fleeting but they deliver the intended exclamation marks when they arrive. For old-school fans Chen Kuan-Tai (Four Riders, Heroes Two) shows up as a vampire wrangler sporting a killer moustache, and he also gets a chance to go up against Lee (before letting the vampires under his control do the heavy lifting).

It’d be wrong not to mention the bizarrely tagged on ending, which sees Michael Chow, Lam Suet, and Danny Chan move into the property together and become opium junkies out of nowhere. It’s as abrupt and left of field as it sounds, and I’m still trying to figure out exactly what it’s meaning is in the context of everything that’s come before. Whatever the case though, while The Era of Vampires may not have done for HK cinema in the 2000’s what its title wanted to (and indeed was apparently so out of touch with local audience tastes of the time that it didn’t even get released), here’s hoping 20 years later it can find a more appreciative audience. 

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 7/10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc9gAzoW31U