English and Chinese horror movies

'Blood and Bone China' VS 'Mr Vampire'

'Blood and Bone China' was a Victorian Vampire web series. We can understand more about the images of vampire in western horror film from the series.

'Mr Vampire' was a Chinese Jiangshi movie. It was a story about how a priest and his students stopped the Jiangshi from killing people. The images and characteristics of Jiangshi were fully shown in the movie.

By comparing the two movies, we can see the difference of English and Chinese vampires.


Characteristics and background

'Blood and Bone China' was set in Stoke-On-Trent in 1897. As the place was famous with the potteries, the background of the film was actually based on that. The vampires in the movie had their own stories and characteristics. They were being humanized and the vampires' background, such as the reasons why they turned into be a vampire from a normal human being was mentioned. Beside, they had lots of interactions with human beings, and were also the main characters in the film.

However, in 'Mr vampire', Jiangshi are vampires without souls. They only hopped around and killed people. All Jiangshi shared the same appearances and there were not much background or history of them were being mentioned. The main character of the movie was those people who tried to control and killed the Jiangshi. (e.g.the preist)



How to become a vampire? 


In the movie 'Blood and Bone China', it does not explain how the first vampire appeared or how a human turn into a vampire, but it mentioned that a vampire can turn a human to vampire after sucking some of the human blood. This was how Leonora created vampires for her father to kill more people. On the other hand, their personalities could be restored and turned back to humans when the 'master vampire', who was Leonora in the film, set them free.(See Chapter 12-'Of Gods and Monsters')

In the movie 'Mr.Vampire',  JiangShi are created when a person's soul fails to leave the body, usually due to an improper death, such as an act of suicide. Therefore, it was impossible for a vampire to turn a human into vampire in Chinese movies, human will only be attacked by vampires and die.

Costume and appearance


The similarity is that all vampires in both films had sharp teeth, and they killed human by sucking their blood.

Differences


Vampires in  'Blood and Bone China' have their own dressing style, every vampires have different costume to represent themselves. It is mainly due to vampires are being humanized. They dressed and acted like normal person when they wanted to get close to a human. Since the vampires look like human beings, it was often that human could not recognize the vampires and thought they were just normal people. Usually, vampires got sharp teeth, when they wanted to kill a person, they will suck human blood from their neck with their sharp teeth, then leaving human there to die. 

At the beginning of the movie, before Richard was killed, he did not realized Lady Victoria was a vampire. He was not aware of her until she showed her sharp teeth.(See Chapter 1-'Oblivion and Paradise')


   

All Jiangshi in 'Mr vampire' have the same costume and outlook style. They look similar. It is because they are all creatures without souls, they are not humanized like in the series  'Blood and Bone China'. Therefore, it is easier to recognize a Chinese vampire.



Way to kill a vampire

In the film 'Blood and Bone China', there are vampire hunters who are responsible to kill the vampires. Also, vampires can be killed with a specially made sword (see Chapter 5-'There's No Such Thing as Vampires'), guns (see Chapter 9-'Goodbye Happiness') or cross (see Chapter 11-'The Silver Lining')

The ways to counter a Jiangshi was mentioned in our last post, check it out and you will find the tools used are completely different with English ones. However, it is interesting to find that they both believe that religion power can counter vampires. For example, in 'Blood and Bone China', cross (which symbolized Christianity) was used to scared the vampires; while in 'Mr.Vampires', 'fu' (which symbolized Taoism) was used to counter the JiangShi.

Find the films interesting? Watch them online now! :D
Blood and Bone China
Mr Vampire


References:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiKcDZxe3wXjJEbWC6M5rHJMWUoypsCNETfz9Oj8c2cihsxsdWhkpiJXpNU7Gl24SIdEoSZmqmgghHCKRAJEopGQ1QKemKGlqY804YsDb8pt5cCG7Fg2O-sxGIQyOetTmUJ7ubAySRDfk/s1600/mr_vampire.jpg

http://www.stokeyourfires.co.uk/wp-content/files_mf/cache/th_abe8f5de70161fc33cbb43dc68b51ddb_1327488597wallpaper8.jpg

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare5/a%20Ricky%20Lau%20Mr.%20Vampire%20DVD%20Review/vampcap2.jpg

http://www.lovehkfilm.com/reviews/ab3219/mr_vampire.jpg

http://www.hkfilm.net/pics11/mrvampire25.jpg

Entertainment: Horror Movies

Have you ever watched any horror films?

In western, vampires are commonly used as a main element in horror films. A very famous example is Dracula, which originally was a literature, first filmed in 1931.
 But do you know that Chinese horror films also have vampires and zombies?

We called them 'Jiangshi', it usually appeared in Chinese legends and folklore. They are the dead bodies of famous person in China.  They are created when a person's soul fails to leave the body, usually due to an improper death, such as an act of suicide.

At night, it moves around by hopping, with its arms outstretched. It kills human by absorbing people's life essence.

Why is it hopping with arms outstretched?
Jiangshi is so stiff that that it cannot bend its limbs and body, so it has to move around by hopping while keeping its arms stretched out for mobility

 

Outlook of a Jiangshi
They usually wear traditional Chinese clothing from Qing dynasty, which are called 'changshan', meaning long clothes. The style of the costume was wore by people who worked for the loyal family.

Items used to counter a Jiangshi
1) mirrors- It was said that Jiangshis are afraid of their own reflection, therefore when a mirror is held close to them, they will be defeated.

 

2) Fu (i.e. magical paper)- It was said that these 'Fu' contented some magical power, once they were sticked on the head of a Jiangshi, they will lose their conscious and stop them chasing after human.








Taoist priests are person that can counter a Jiangshi.In the movie 'Mr.Vampire', the Taoist priest tack a 'Fu' to the body's forehead, which would enable the body to find its way back to its original home for proper burial by hopping. To prevent attack from Jiangshis, priest usually wear a headdress that has a veil covering his face; this way, the Jiang-Shi he is transporting would travel alongside them without the temptation to devour the priest.



This video below shows some scenes from 'Mr.Vampire' :D

In the next post, we will compare the English film 'Blood and Bone China' with the Chinese horror films :)


References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiang_Shi
http://tw.meetgee.com/Files/Topic/20110722/0687f506e27643358b669e8aff6a1e38.png
http://img25.elex-tech.org/10000/2011/1206/1e/0/45196/180x145x75x0.png
http://info.wenweipo.com/attachments/2010/12/29172_201012111350201rMRL.jpg
http://blog.boxun.com/hero/200803/yanxinwenji/yanxinwenji20080310101671.jpg