"I must be a creature of the night, black, terrible..."
-Bruce Wayne, Detective Comics #33 November 1939
Bat People
The original gothic anti-hero could not hope for better timing in returning to the big screen. With a Hunter's Moon looming large in the sky and hunt for Halloween costumes luring folks to the mall, now is the perfect time for the resurrection of famed undead predator. On DRACULA UNTOLD’s premiere weekend, the shambling hordes of AMC's runaway success THE WALKING DEAD returns and TV's recent vampire apocalypse THE STRAIN, just aired its season finale. This ambitious re-imagining of the vampire mythos by HELLBOY (2004) & HELLBOY II (2008) alumni Guillermo del Toro, tells the story of New York City's collapse upon the arrival of some very gross vampires. Del Toro's aesthetic hearkens back to Steve Wang's creature design for the vampire reaper that Luke Goss played in BLADE II (2002).
Glamorous vampires did not leave the big screen with the Breaking Dawn of the Twilight Saga (2008-2012). INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (1994) director Neil Jordan wrote and directed BYZANTIUM (2012) starring former Bond girl Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan (notable to KFM readers for her 2011 film HANNA). Last year, Jim Jarmusch, writer and director of GHOST DOG (1999), united THOR villain Tom Hiddleston with Tilda Swinton in ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE. These movies could all be in the same world with only minor variations in the modern vampire's lore. Curiously, few contemporary vampire films are set outside the modern day. The oddly amusing genre mash-up ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER is an exception. It is also worth noting for fight coordinator Don Lee's depiction of Lincoln's axe Kung Fu and the casting of Dominic Cooper, who also play lead antagonist in DRACULA UNTOLD.
Chinese Translation
The Chinese Vampire possesses a mythology all its own. It also has its own cinematic history. In the Venn diagram of the undead, the Hungry Ghost of Asian folklore resides somewhere between a Poltergeist, Zombie and Vampire. This allowed for creative license when translating titles for the 1936 Hong Kong film Wǔyè Jiāngshī (午夜殭屍) into MIDNIGHT ZOMBIE or MIDNIGHT VAMPIRE. Years later in a marketing synergy coupe, The Shaw Brothers and Hammer films brought the Dracula franchise overseas with the 1974 collaboration titled The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires or The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula, and even The Seven Brothers And Their One Sister Meet Dracula. The last of nine Hammer-produced DRACULA films, it no longer featured Christopher Lee as the titular bloodsucker but retained but Peter Cushing as vampire hunter Van Helsing.
As the Jiangshi (殭屍) film subgenre spread, Sammo Hung's ENCOUNTERS OF THE SPOOKY KIND (1980鬼打鬼) provided an alchemical mix of Kung Fu, horror and comedy that sustained the hopping vampire genre into the next decade. MR. VAMPIRE (1985) spawned a collection of sequels and spin-offs. This career-launching franchise even allowed the stalwart Lam Ching Ying to compare and contrast Eastern and Western vampire mythologies in VAMPIRE vs. VAMPIRE (1989). After that, he moved on to hunt television vampires in the 1990's. Now the Jiangshi universe is being reborn with Juno Mack’s 2013 homage, RIGOR MORTIS, which goes so far as to reunite cast members from these classics. And this year’s SIFU vs. VAMPIRE (天師鬥殭屍) could signify a modern day resurrection of the genre.
A Darker Knight
When rebooting of a franchise, the trend now is to go "darker" or "edgier". Christopher Nolan's BATMAN BEGINS (2005) remains the reboot to aspire towards. In the vampire genre, the first successful ‘dark’ reboot is Francis Ford Coppola's BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA (1992). Like Nolan, Coppola stayed truer than most to the source material and made a point to offer a glimpse into their story's world before the arrival of the titular character. The connection between the Transylvanian-born Vlad III Dracula of Wallachia, AKA Vlad Țepeș, the Impaler, and the vampire fiend of the 1897 novel was fairly commonplace in 1992. A generation earlier this connection was largely speculative. It is the subject of ongoing debate among Dracula Scholars. Coppola provided Dracula's first on-screen origin in a prologue deftly portrayed by Gary Oldman, who would later perfectly embody THE DARK KNIGHT's ally Jim Gordon in Nolan's trilogy (2005-2012).
Now Universal Studios is hoping for an even more successful reboot in DRACULA UNTOLD. Only Sherlock Holmes has been on screen more times. Universal Studios has made a regular habit of reintroducing audiences to their monsters with uneven results. In some cases they do well enough to result in Kung Fu-themed sequels like THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR (2008).
Dark Fantasy Not Bright
With the recent discovery of the tomb of Vlad Tepes debunked, neophyte director Gary Shore was free to cast Luke Evans in the leading role he's been waiting for. Evans played Apollo in THE IMMORTALS (2011) before joining the cast of THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS 6 (2013) as well as THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG (2013). Following an opening sequence that includes a visually novel approach to the obligatory prolonged prologue, Evans is introduced as The Impaler, then immediately repents from the carnage he has wrought. It's this Prince Vlad we accompany, first through verdant medieval forests and then into the dark mountains that loom over his countryside like the threat of war.
Despite the unfortunately bland name of "Master Vampire", Charles Dance is chilling in his role as the "Adam" of vampires. In explaining his origins, the movie offers another visually luscious sequence that should have delved just a little deeper into Greek mythology for a proper name. Why not Strigoi? or Ambrogio? At least he's referred to as an ekimmu from Sumerian mythology in press material. What matters is that Dance steals the few scenes he shares with Evans and looms over the movie's plot in a satisfyingly iconic fashion.
The movie slows down to introduce its sole speaking woman, played by Sarah Gadon, to present courtly romance with family values. Mrs. Dracula offers sympathy and unconditional love to one of history's legendary war criminals while Luke Evans as loving father seems to put those dark ages behind us all. That is, until dinner is interrupted by a belligerent Military Industrial Complex who wants to turns boys into killing machines, as was done with Vlad. In the same way that the first fight scene seems loosely sketched (Vlad takes out 6-8 Turkish soldiers with one of their swords), character choices and motivations are shaky and hard to follow.
Thankfully Charles Dance returns to provide the ultimate WMD Vlad will use against the Turkish war machine. Single-handedly fending off an army, there is a moment when one thinks fight trainer Vincent Wang or stunt coordinator Buster Reeves must have seen Jet Li in HERO (2004). But by this point, the movie is more interested in the killing potential of CGI bats. A newer twist in the vampire mythos allows for a three-day trial period where Vlad is afforded the powers of a vampire plus the status of a superhero. Even after admitting that a monster is needed to win his war and impaling that first army, Vlad is absolved by his wife for the threat posed to their son. The movie continues to promise spectacle on par with 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE (2014) but remains remarkably bloodless.
At its best, this is a collage of visually interesting set pieces, some lifted directly from Coppola’s version. This Dracula soars between epic fantasy and superhero tropes even after spontaneous immolation by an angry mob. When Vlad is a hero, he is finally given permission by his wife to embrace the dark side. What is this movie saying about women when its lone female character is the cause for every dark turn in the story?
Come the boss fight (with Dominic Cooper as the evil sultan), Buster Reeves' choreography literally shines. Looking back, the stunt coordinator says: “I first looked at Transylvanian war craft, which is just basic broadsword and hacking, and then the Turks, whose style is heavily influenced by Asian styles, so it’s very circular. It was a combination between the two that we came up with for Vlad’s fighting style: the strength and agility of the broadsword with the fluidity and dynamic, almost aesthetically pleasing, work of Turks’ scimitar.” However, in some cases, that circular fluidity could have benefited from additional CGI bats.
Thankfully, the movie climaxes in a pulpy flourish of Gothic mayhem. Day becomes night, peasant girls become sexy vamps, and those hippy monks (who occupied Vlad earlier) make themselves useful. There’s some cognitive dissidence when literature's most famous villain with a genocidal origin is cast as a hero, or when the previously admonished priesthood becomes the safest place for young boys. But if one is willing to overlook the dissidence and focus instead on its nostalgic matinee glee, then it's easy to forgive DRACULA UNTOLD's contradictory themes and anachronistic non-ending. This movie is rumored to be the beginning of an AVENGERS-styled shared cinematic universe. Only time will tell if there's a chance in hell for this new Dracula franchise.
About
Patrick Lugo :
Patrick Lugo has been Senior Designer at Kung Fu Tai Chi Magazine, since the 90's, and has done design work for martial art books as well as illustrations. Most notably, he illustrated the award winning Little Monk & the Mantis. More artwork and comics can be found at PLUGOarts.com or at select art galleries in the San Francisco Bay area.
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