700 years ago, father, mother and son vampire were condemned to their
coffins together with the King of Evil, where they were supposed
to remain for at
least 1000 years to be allowed into heaven thereafter. But a Taoist
priest, seeking shelter for himself and his six hopping corpses,
accidently removes the charm binding them to their coffins, and once free,
the King of Evil will stop at nothing to ... be evil, actually. The
Taoist priest's daughter Phi Phi meanwhile befriends the little vampire,
Chian Chian, and finds the Blood Pearl, which the King of Evil would need
to ... be even more evil, I suppose. Anyways, now Chian Chian and Phi Phi
together with her gramps and his parents, two mystical swordfighting
ladies and a boy who's along for the ride for whatever reason, are on the
run from the King of Evil and his goons, who use all trickery to get the
Blood Pearl, including turning Chian Chian as well as his father against
their friends - but to no avail, in the end, and after the Taoist priest
and Chian Chian's parents are killed in battle, Phi Phi and friends are
able to destroy the King of Evil for good - after which they decide to not
return Chian Chian to his coffin because he's just too cute. You
know, maybe I would judge this film differently if I was a kid, the target
audience for the movie obviously, but since I have left even my teens
behind me long ago, I have to write this review as a grown-up, and as such
I can't but notice this film has amazingly little to offer in the plot
department, and what it has is rather silly and cheesy to begin with. To
be fair, the film tries to make up for its lack in narrative with almost
nonstop action, and the fight scenes are even pretty competently handled -
and yet the onslaught of action makes the whole thing rather mind-numbing
after not even too long, and since actual fight scenes are the only real
attraction of the film, they lack any kind of inventiveness to carry the
film over its 90 minutes. The comedy scenes that pop up every once in a
while don't make the film better, either. All that said, the movie as a whole could have been a lot worse,
but that's not saying it's any good either.
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