Jiangshi movies in Hong Kong

Do you know that Hong Kong was once flourished with “Jiangshi movies”?

OK, a little back story first.

Jiangshi (殭屍, [Geong1 Si1] in Cantonese, literally “stiff corpse”), usually referred as “Chinese Vampire” for easy reference, is a creature originated from Chinese folklore. They were reanimated corpses that wear officials’ garments from Qing Dynasty, with both arm stretched out and move around by hopping (because of rigor mortis). They had sharp fangs and claws, but were unintelligent and mindless preying machines which would suck the life essence from their victims.

And these horrible (or hilarious?) hopping creatures contributed a lot to the Hong Kong film industry during 1970 – 1990. They inspired the movie-makers in Hong Kong to create a bunch of Jiangshi movies. For example, “Encounter of the Spooky Kind” (鬼打鬼), starred and directed by Sammo Hung, is the progenitor of Hong Kong’s Jiangshi-related horror action comedies; And the famous “Mr. Vampire” (殭屍先生) series have a powerful Taoist priest using his spiritual power and Kung Fu skill to fight against the Jiangshi armies with his friend and apprentices.

While the stories may sound cliché nowadays, they were some groundbreaking concepts by that time. Combining the western horror (vampires) and the Hong Kong martial arts elements, these films are huge success. The movies are not only popular in Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China, but also in Southeast Asia regions like Japan and Vietnam. Oh, and I heard that even the westerners like this genre so much because the Jianshi folklore is both “similar to and different from” their own one.

Hong Kong film industry may have died down, but I hope that, one day, it will come back to life (or reanimated?) and hop around like these Jiangshis did.

Death is only the beginning, no?

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