ROBO VAMPIRE / DEVIL'S DYNAMITE

By: BRIAN THOMAS
Review Date: Saturday, May 13, 2006

Asian horror has been rediscovered by Westerners in a big way in the past few years, but this release in the "Eastern Horrors" series is not representative of the much higher quality Japanese and Korean films one usually associates with this category. Far from it. This twin bill is the work of the infamous Godfrey Ho. Shown as ROBOCOP VS. VAMPIRES in districts where he could get away with it, Ho's ROBO VAMPIRE mixes Chinese gyongsi (hopping vampires) with cyborg cops in another Frankenstein monster of a movie typical of his productions. It was not uncommon for Ho to use chunks of an unfinished or even released film under his control to pad out a new movie, making it difficult to track how to credit his work. As seen in a lot of imported/international productions, many credited names had more to do with the dubbing and editing than actual filming.

Tom Wilde, an "anti-drug agent," is making business rough for narcotics trafficker Mr. Young. His underling Boss Ko comes up with the most logical solution to the problem: he gets a scientist/sorcerer to train vampires to fight with Tom. Thugs Ken (Sun Chien) and Tony (Donald Kong) pack bags of heroin inside vampire coffins for easy smuggling. But since someone has replaced the drugs with rice flour, the vampires wake up and nearly escape. The sorcerer's special project is to create a Vampire Beast named Peter, but his ghost fiancé Christine objects, since this ruins their suicide pact and they can't be reunited in the afterlife. The sorcerer commands Peter to fight the ghost, but he recognizes her tattoo and stops cold. The gangsters decide to let the supernatural creatures get married, as long as they both agree to work for them afterward. Working on info provided by undercover agent Sophie, Tom and his men shows up to intercept a deal, but Tom is killed fighting the vampires (in broad daylight). A scientist gets permission from Mr. Glen to turn Tom's body into a cyborg ninja. Meanwhile, Sophie has her cover blown and is held captive by Mr. Young. At this point, the middle section is padded out with scenes from a Thai movie about mercenaries led by Agent Ray (Sorapong Chatri) fighting drug runners and trying to rescue Sophie. The Robo Warrior's first mission is a disaster: the vampires don't hurt him much, but the bad guys blow him to pieces with a grenade launcher. Right after a shot of the robot being totally destroyed in a fiery explosion, there's a scene back in the lab where Glen says he has a short circuit, and the scientist says it's "not that serious"!


There's a ghost in a see-through shroud, vampires sleeping with snakes and hamsters, a robot that looks like old junk stapled to plastic garbage bags, a blonde actress doubled by a stuntman wearing a gray wig, gyongsi in a gorilla mask, and some sets consisting of a mere black backdrop. Now, isn't this what creative filmmaking is all about? The Robo Warrior also showed up in Tang's COUNTER DESTROYER.

The same is true for DEVIL'S DYNAMITE, another Ho abomination that's not quite as ridiculous but not by much. Another triad leader Fox, who leads a team of movie ninjas disguised as a cop with his American partner Ronald, has acquired a handful of gyongsi to use as enforcers in his illegal drug operation. Having heard that his old rival and girlfriend Mary's ex-husband - Steve Cox is getting out of prison, Fox sends his ninjas and vampires to kill him. Cox, who is out for revenge against Mary (Angela Mao) for betraying him and taking over his business, escapes their first attack when a silver-clad, helmeted hero known as Shadow Warrior steps in to help. At Mary's birthday party, Cox shows up to make polite threats until ninjas attack, but again Shadow Warrior appears to save the day. Meanwhile, a vampire kid an unfortunately popular sidebar of the gyongsi genre - befriends a ghost girl haunting Mary's mansion. Cox is also determined to stop Mary's gang from finding a cache of hidden gold, but the villains manage to capture him and try to force the location out of him. Will Shadow Warrior find him in time?

If this sounds confusing, well, it is, and please forgive me if I've messed up the synopsis somewhere. Ho may have mixed together footage from a 1982 Taiwanese ninja/crime movie entitled STUNNING GAMBLING with his vampires and futuristic superhero, but it's hard to tell. Ho would dub all the dialogue from scripts designed to incorporate mismatched continuity in his patchworks, but sometimes this just made things more confusing. Characters sometimes come and go from the narrative, and in some cases it appears that different actors are playing the same character in different scenes. The "Steve Cox" character is made up to look much older in his scenes with Mary than he does in scenes with Shadow Warrior, and wearing a hat can't disguise it. Like its co-feature, DEVIL DYNAMITE (onscreen title) is credited to "Joe Livingston", though different prints seem to credit other pseudonyms. Some fans find Ho's film's irresistible because they're so mind-bendingly awful and in such strange ways. But it's understandable that most viewers will find them impenetrable.

BCI gives these two Asian turkeys much better packaging than one would expect, delivering them each on a separate disc in an album keepcase inside a richly printed sleeve. ROBO VAMPIRE is presented in its original widescreen format, which likely makes this edition definitive. Both features were filmed on a variety of cheap stock, and likely never looked that good to begin with, so it's no surprise that they look a bit aged and grainy here.

Copyright © 2006 Brian Thomas, author of the massive book VideoHound's DRAGON: ASIAN ACTION & CULT FLICKS.
Questions? Comments? Let us know what you think at feedback@cinescape.com.