Hong-Do Mirror (1985)
Three goofy, unsuccessful thieves wander around robbing graves, eating dogs, getting attacked by hands that burst from the ground, and acting unconscionably stupid. They come to an old inn and find out that a vampire has been preying on virginal young girls in the area. Two of the thieves and the innkeeper are killed, so the remaining thief tries to protect the innkeeper's beautiful daughter and avenge his friends.
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Charming and brutal
A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action
It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny
There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.
DRAGON AGAINST VAMPIRE is a typically inane martial arts/horror combo from Godfrey Ho, here writing under the pseudonym Benny Ho. The director is credited as one Lionel Leung, who only has this single credit to his name, which sounds suspiciously like another Ho pseudonym. Nothing would surprise me at this point. The film is yet another South Korean/Hong Kong co-production that may be the result of two films stitched together, as it's completely nonsensical.The story begins with three grave robbers larking about in a cemetery and getting spooked by lively corpses. One of them, a fat guy, finds a cute dog and eats it in a distasteful scene. Eventually they meet a martial arts master who looks a bit like Yuen Biao if you squint a lot, and they also encounter a vampire which is sadly Westernised rather than the hopping variety that I personally love seeing in Chinese cinema. What follows is a jumble of scenes that seem to be randomly thrown together. There are cheesy effects, a lot of night time stuff, bad humour, and a little action, mainly at the climax. It's very, very bad, and thoroughly confusing.
Almost nothing is more hokey and dumb than this, but don't feel discouraged about seeing it, cause it's funnier than any comedy you'll ever find. It's just that bad. It begins with three idiots that slightly resemble the three stooges, but they are also grave robbers, and they're being chased by this evil vampire guy because one of them stole a golden swastika from some coffin( whose coffin this is, we never find out). From then on, you'll find every cliché in the book, with mind-controlling vampires, a possession scene thats totally ripped off of the Exorcist, and a crapload of dream sequences that seem to pop up over and over again, making you wonder if anything thats really happening in the movie is actually really happening, or is just another ridiculous dream. But don't forget what I said before. This movie is FUNNY! Go ahead and watch it.
It took me a while to grasp this movie. There is a plot, more or less, but there are so many random things that... well... Who is the guy in the coffin? or the other coffin? He isn't the vampire, because he comes from a door. Why are they on the run? Why does the swastika fend of the undead? I honestly cannot fathom why there is a turtle and a log in the river to save Tony. This film must have lost a few scenes in the editing room, because it doesn't make sense Spoiler: Somewhere in the movie, we are introduced to another vampire. Well, Surprise! that vampire is the other vampire wearing a mask. But you can clearly see that the other vampire is a real person, and has silly putty on his nose. Also, the characters find a severed head. Upon first glimpse, A friend and I thought the corpse had been thrown through a mattress, but no, it is supposed to be a severed head. Don't blame us, you can see the poor b******d's body. See this movie. I bought it for a dollar, and it was the best dollar I have ever spent. You will laugh, you will cry, because this movie sucks a-hole and is my god, at the same time.
The video box cover presents this flick as a hybrid of the martial arts and horror genres. Upon renting it, I figured that if it did not succeed as a horror flick (which was not likely anyway), that it would at least have some good martial arts sequences -- or vice versa. Well, it fails on all counts.Basically a series of lame, crude comedy sketches. Bad dubbing. A ripoff.