Halloween
is right around the corner and I figured we could talk about one of
my favourite hybrid zombie/vampire.
We
seem to be in the age of the vampire and zombie right now. There is
Robert Pattinson from "Twilight", Stephen Moyer off "True
Blood" and the latest newcomer is Paul Wesley on "Vampire
Diaries" (personally I don't understand why women find these
guys attractive).
Mind
you, not all vampire related films have always been successful;
remember Eddie Murphy from "Vampire in Brooklyn"? Don't
worry, many people don't remember either. But the vampire movies I
enjoyed watching when I was much younger were the ones with the
Chinese vampire a.k.a the Jiang Shi. Though I sometimes had to hide
behind a pillow, I found the Jiang Shi quite entertaining because I
had never seen anything quite like it before.
A little background information, the Jiang Shi were popularised in Hong Kong films in the 80's up to the early 90's. The Jiang Shi weren't strictly vampires like their Western counterparts; they were more like reanimated zombies with a thirst for human blood.
Like
a typical blood sucker, the Jiang Shi were nocturnal creatures; they
were however blind and the unique feature of a Jiang Shi is that they
hopped rather than walk and had their arms permanently outstretched
as if just about to hug someone. But this was due to the fact that
they had rigor mortis (I don't think many people would want to hug a
Jiang Shi anyway).
They
weren't the most trendily dresses vampires around; their wardrobe
consisted of robes like the ones that were worn by the Imperial Court
officials; very vintage so don't expect to see anything by Ralph
Lauren. Strangely, the clothes are in much better shape than the
Jiang Shi themselves
Jiang Shi weren't the most attractive vampires either, what with their rigor mortis and decaying flesh. You can't exactly picture Anna Paquin or Kristen Stewart making out with one. Hmmm, is hat even politically correct any more? I don't think I can live in a world where a Jiang Shi can't have a relationship with a western woman.
Dammit
Obama! You promised us change! I may have gone off topic a little bit
and maybe I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill but that's just
the way I feel. To be fair the Jiang Shi themselves doesn't really
care since it's not really alive; it would rather take a bite out of
a girl (or guy) instead of snogging her (or him).
Jiang
Shi's aren't as tough as they are scary though. It's pretty easy to
evade one, all you have to do is hold your breath and find the
nearest exit. This is easier said than done though, if you're a heavy
smoker than you probably won't last that long. I don't really know if
you could kill a Jiang Shi; what I remember from the movies is that
you had to stick a yellow piece of paper with a spell written on it
onto their foreheads to disable one of them.
 |
Decomissioned |
Think
of it as a very deadly game of pin the tail on the donkey. I remember
one comical scene in one movie where soldiers armed with yellow
baseball bats with the spell written on it had to swat it at a Jiang
Shi's forehead. Unfortunately things didn't go according to plan and
they ended up being a human slurpee.
Hopefully the film producers in Hong Kong will bring the Jiang Shi out of retirement soon because pale blonde vampires is like soooo yesterday.
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A slightly inferior Western version of a Jiang Shi |
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