Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be checking out a film from 2021. That movie is "Chinese Speaking Vampires".
I'm gonna tell you guys, I know almost nothing about this movie. In fact, I didn't even know this thing even came out in 2021. I really thought it came out somewhere in the late 2000's or something. But no, it actually just came out a few years ago. So, go figure, I guess.
Now beyond the fact that it came out in 2021, I don't really know much else about the movie. I know it has something to do involving vampires, and I know that they speak Chinese in this movie as well...for some reason. I don't know what the context is beyond that. And yes, I could look at the back of the DVD case I own to read about the plot to this thing, however, as I've done with a lot of movies in the past, I want to try and go into them as blind as possible. And this film is gonna be no different.
So, I'm gonna hope for this thing to be at least decent. Or perhaps it could wind up surprising me and be really good. I don't know. The only way I'm gonna find out if it is any good at all, is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Chinese Speaking Vampires".
1 minute later
OK, guys, two things I need to bring up here, in regards to this opening narration. One, there existed a group of "Kung-Fu Vampires" who have the power of super speed, strength, and immortality. I'll get to that last one in a moment. And it's said that their greatest weapon of all was making their victims speak fluent in Mandarin. I don't know how that's suppose to victimize someone, but I'm really curious about that regardless. And two, in 1937 the Japanese army captured them and tried to make them fight for their side in the war, to no avail. And it's said that the Japanese army slaughtered them all in response...even though we were just a told a second ago, that these vampires were apparently "immortal". So...what exactly was their weakness, then? Did the Japanese army just use their weapons on them constantly until they died? Or did they have some sort of kryptonite to use against these vampires? I'm really curious about this now, guys, and it's really gonna start bugging me now the more that this movie goes on. I'm hoping that it gets answered at some point during the film, but for now, it's just really gonna bug the shit out of me.
8 minutes later
All right, I have kind of stupid a question here that I want to ask. So our main character, Tony, is given one month to speak Mandarin by taking a class that will help him speak the language within a month just so he can re-audition for the movie role that he was trying to go for earlier. Now, as someone who's never spoken another language before, don't you think that speaking another language would roughly take about a couple of years at best? I don't know, perhaps *maybe* it's possible to fluently learn a new language within a month, but I just don't see it, guys. I think it would take a lot longer than a month, if you ask me.
16 minutes later
So, one of the vampires gets skewered with, predictably, a wooden stake and dies. Never expected they would turn into dust, but whatever. At least that kinda answers one of my questions from earlier. Still doesn't really explain why they make their victims speak Mandarin, but still, at least they were kind enough to answer that much so far.
17 minutes later
OK, I have another question that I'm really curious about here. So, this teacher has been biting the necks of some of these female students, so now they can speak only Mandarin and are now vampires. If that's the case, then where the hell are their bite marks? Because the teacher was biting the right side of their necks, and there are no signs of bite marks *anywhere* on the right side of their necks. Either these vampires can hide their bite marks after getting bitten, or the person in charge of the make-up effects were too lazy to make decent-looking bite marks to show that they've been bitten. Well, considering how boring this movie has been so far, I think I'm gonna go for the latter in this case.
20 minutes later
Guys, I'm just gonna come out and say this right now, I'm actually really happy that the movie's almost over. The movie has about 18 minutes left to go, and I cannot wait until it's finished, because I have been struggling to stay the fuck awake. That's how boring this fucking movie is! I seriously cannot wait for it to end.
The Review
Thank you god, it's over. Well, guys that was "Chinese Speaking Vampires", and I'm gonna shut this piece of shit off here...OK. So...where the fuck do I start here? I'm trying to figure out where I even start with this thing, because this movie is just shit from top to bottom in just about *every* aspect.
Well, I guess, when in doubt, start with the writing. And to begin with, this movie has a bit of an identity crisis. See, this movie claims to be a horror comedy, along with it being an action movie. But the problem with that is that this movie is neither scary nor funny in the slightest. Every attempt this movie tries to go for as a joke falls flat on it's face, so none of it will make you laugh. It even tries to go for some racial humor. And I would be totally cool with that, if this movie were written in a way that's actually funny. But it's not. It's just casually racist, at best. The movie, like I also mentioned, is not scary in the slightest. But then again, you're reading this from someone who's kinda numb to these types of movies, so make of that what you will. And the action here does exist, but it's done incredibly poorly. However, I'll get into all that later when I talk about the fight choreography. But yeah, this movie is catered to *nobody*. It fails as a horror movie, it fails as a comedy, and as someone who prefers horror comedies over straight up horror movies, that's really disappointing to say.
Now, as for the actual writing...well, what fucking writing? There is no story here that is compelling, or that it will make you care about what's going on. What little story we did have at the beginning revolves around our main character, Tony, who's trying to audition for a movie role which requires him to speak in fluent Mandarin. Except, he's not really good at it, so he's later given a month to go to a Mandarin speaking school where he can learn the language within a month so that he'll be prepared enough to audition for the role again, and hopefully land it. Unfortunately, that subplot gets dropped, until the very end of the movie, where he's seen taking the classes, while also kinda getting accidentally involved in the whole vampire plot that happens later on. See, the girl that he likes, Susie, finds out that one of her friends ends up getting a "private lesson" from the teacher, Mr. Ma, who ends up turning her into a vampire, so that she can speak full-fluent Mandarin. And, in case you really give a shit about Susie, she also ends up becoming a vampire thanks to her best friend.
In fact, why don't we just get the characters out of the way here, shall we? There are no characters here that are worth caring about. Tony has probably one of the most thinnest personalities I've seen in a movie in a *long* time. There is not a shred of depth or personality that makes him interesting whatsoever. The most you get out of him is that, again, he's an actor trying to audition for a Mandarin speaking role, but aside from that, there's nothing about Tony that's gonna make you care about him, or his efforts in trying to get hitched with Susie. And on the latter part, there's a montage in the middle of the movie where it shows him texting with Susie while taking his classes, and it all plays off as some cringy romantic comedy that, much like I said earlier, isn't funny in the slightest. Then again, I despise a lot of romantic comedies in general, so it's just more of a reason for me to hate this movie as much as I do already. There's also these redneck priests that have these shirts that reads "America First! Chinese Vampire Slayers!". I don't know if that was suppose to be a dig at one of President Trump's slogans or not, but either way, it also wasn't funny either.
So yeah, guys, the characters in this movie are all shallow and pigshit. And the story here really is kinda stupid and plotless at best. There is nothing about the writing here that I can comment on further that could be considered a positive. So, why don't we go ahead and move onto the acting here. The acting here is mostly terrible from the entire cast. Now, I can't really comment on when the actors are suppose to be speaking Mandarin, because I'm not very familiar with that language. So, I have no idea if the actors in this movie who were speaking Mandarin were fluent at all, or if they were just making it up as they were going along. I don't know, so I'm just going to assume it's a little bit of both. Either way, the acting here is still terrible. Most of it is very flat and phoned in. Almost nobody here actually tried to act like they gave a shit about their performances. The only actor I'm giving a slight pass to is the actor playing our villain Mr. Ma, since his accent gives me the impression that he doesn't speak English very well. So, I'm not gonna hold that against him. Everyone else, no. All of the acting from them is shit from across the board.
Now let's talk about the special effects. And, oh boy, the special effects here are complete shit. Now, I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that this movie was filmed on an ultra low budget. And you can *totally* tell that the people who made this movie went for the ultra cheap here when it came to it's effects. The most noticeable one is the lack of make-up effects on any of the actors turned into vampires. Because when you see a vampire biting on someone's neck, there is no bite mark on their neck. The closest you'll get to that is the girl you see with Mr. Ma in his office, but even then, it's just a slight mark that you'll barely notice and doesn't really look all that good on her anyway. Which tells me the people in charge of the make-up effects didn't bother to even try to add anything resembling bite marks on their necks. It's cheap as shit, much like every other special effect in this movie. Stuff like when vampires turn into dust or the blood effects all looking cheap, and looking like shit. So yeah, special effects in this movie are complete shit.
And speaking of which, let's talk about the fight choreography. First of all, if you look up the DVD cover for this movie, you might happen to notice some of the vampires in this movie holding weapons that they never use. For instance, there's a girl vampire in the middle holding both a wooden stake and a gun. Wooden stakes are used in the movie, but only to kill the Chinese speaking vampires, obviously. There's also a katana that Tony is wielding, along with another vampire girl holding a shotgun. And again, none of these weapons are ever present or used in the movie. Instead, most of the fighting is taking place in the third act, and the fight choreography here is definitely a joke. None of it has any natural flow to it, and it's all clunky and half-assed. I would almost say it's on par with the awful fight choreography I saw in movies like "Panther Squad" and "The Russian Ninja". Which is saying a lot, because I can't think of any other movies I've seen that have had awful, terrible fight choreography than those two movies.
What makes the fights even more annoying is the editing and camerawork. I normally don't mix these two in very much, but for this movie, I have to make exception here. You see, most of the fight scenes are done in the third act, and most of it is just one gigantic brawl between the vampires, both the villains and heroes. And the camerawork during all this is jerky, it's shaky, and for whatever fucking reasoning, at times, they will even do these odd zoom-ins whenever someone gets hit or inflicted with damage. It's stupid, annoying, and it ruins the flow of all the fight sequences here. If you want fight scenes that are done right, or at least better than this crap, go watch movies like "Bloodsport", where the fight sequences there are done one at a time in a tournament fashion. It gives everyone who was in that tournament a chance to show off their skills, and the camerawork there doesn't ruin the flow of the fights either. This shit, on the other hand, doesn't know how to showcase fight sequences properly here. Like I said, it's all poorly done, and none of it feels natural in the slightest.
Now what about the editing? Well, similar to what I just talked about, not only are the fight sequences poorly done, but they're also poorly edited, too. Because most of the fights in this movie are done with jump cuts, and there are so many of them here that it almost made my head hurt. In fact, thinking about it, there was one other movie that I reviewed a *long* time ago that did almost the exact same shit, and that was a movie called "Valentine: The Dark Avenger". A movie that I honestly had forgotten about until just now when I was talking about the fight scenes and how poorly done they were. This movie is no different with it's jump cuts. The worst bit of editing comes from the final fight between Tony and Mr. Ma. Because the fight between them is either shot during the day...or at night. Yeah, so what happens here is the two will fight, but in some cuts, it will show the sun coming up, and in another cut, it will show them fighting during night...and then during sunrise...and then nighttime again. It's all very inconsistent, which makes this fight quite possibly the worst fight scene in the entire movie! That's how bad it really was.
So yeah, camerawork and editing here are complete shit as well. The lighting here is...OK...I guess. The sound-mixing here is passable. And music here is shit, too. There's some rock music, along with night club music, which takes place in the first half hour of the movie. It sucks completely. But then again, club music in general sucks, so I guess that's to be expected. But yeah, the score here is shit, as is the soundtrack, too.
So...when all is said and done, guys, am I able to recommend "Chinese Speaking Vampires"? What the hell do you think? No, I am not gonna recommend this movie to *anybody*. It sucks as a horror comedy, the action sequences are dogshit, combined with the horrible editing and piss-poor camerawork, it all just leads into a fucking disaster of a movie. If you see this thing anywhere on DVD or online, do not waste your time in buying this or giving it a single viewing. It's 80 minutes of movie that you'll never get back, and it's definitely one of the worst horror comedies I've ever had the displeasure of watching. It sucks from top to bottom, and it kinda makes me yearn for a better horror comedy, because I haven't really run into one of those in a while. So, until I find another decent one, I'm just gonna go find one of the ones I already have on DVD. Perhaps I'll watch something like "Killer Klowns From Outer Space" and if I'm for up it later, I'll watch "Dead & Breakfast" afterwards. So yeah, I'm gonna go do that next, so I can feel a little happier for myself.
And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
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