1987’s Devil Dynamite has it all: vampires, ninjas, and vampire ninjas
In Films That Time Forgot, The A.V. Club digs up trashy, obscure movies and looks for memorable moments in films that few people remember.
Film: Devil Dynamite (1987)
Director: Godfrey Ho (as “Joe Livingstone”)
Also known as: Devil’s Dynamite, according to the box, the posters, and the IMDB. But the title card very clearly says Devil Dynamite. Also supposedly screened in China as Robocop Vs. Vampires.
Plot: After a decade in prison, Steve Cox, “the gambling king,” is released. He promptly seeks revenge on Madame Mary, the former lover who betrayed him, sent him to jail, and told her new partners about the fortune in gold he buried somewhere. Unfortunately for him, Mary has many criminal allies, including a Westerner named Ronald who’s protecting his smuggling business with an enslaved Taoist priest who controls an army of hopping vampires.
And unfortunately for the entire criminal underworld, plus their vampire servants, there’s a Robocop-like tin-suited “Shadow Warrior” running around getting in the way of their nefarious schemes. Sort of. Like other Godfrey Ho films, Devil Dynamite was stitched together from at least two Hong Kong action films—one about multiple criminal factions seeking a buried treasure, and another about a resurrected cop who fights supernatural horrors. The English dub links the plots together by claiming Ronald is working with Madame Mary, but the stories barely intersect onscreen. Like Blood Of Ghastly Horror, this is the kind of film where viewers can’t let their attention wander for a minute, because of the genre shifts or editing flubs where a man will be fighting vampires one second, and lying in a different part of the room being vampire-dogpiled in the next shot.
Key scenes: After the vampire servants are damaged in a dust-up with the Shadow Warrior, the Taoist starts them healing via the simple process of martial-arts acupuncture… with sparklers. Among other things, the scene displays his tendency to do absolutely everything via combat poses, gestures, and grunts of supreme effort, whether he’s subduing a vampire that’s briefly escaped its controlling spell, or just moving things around on his work table:
When a pack of ninjas fight the hopping vampires and get slaughtered, they turn into a pack of undead hopping ninjas. They move on to threaten some children who are playing tag, with one little girl blindfolded and one little boy pretending to be a vampire. Fortunately, the Shadow Warrior intervenes to save the kids from the vamp-ninjas with a curt, simple battle plan: “I’ll take care of them, you run away.” The little boy hides, but the little girl magically vanishes in a puff of smoke. Later, the boy flirts with the magic-girl by insta-donning vampire makeup and chasing her again, but he’s caught by a vampire who can apparently change his appearance and talk, at least for brief intervals. Luckily, the Warrior intervenes again, this time with a tiny flashing light, which is apparently vampire Kryptonite:
Meanwhile, Fox’s men capture Steve Cox and torture him for information about where his gold is buried. When that doesn’t work, they offer to kill Madame Mary’s fiancé, Louie, so Cox can have Mary to himself again. When Cox blanches at the idea of murdering a man who’s never done anything but protect and love Mary, his torturer flips the script and threatens to kill Louie unless Cox gives up the gold. Cox gives in and takes the criminals to the gold, but persuades them to turn on each other, and he reclaims the gold, then commands one of his lackeys, “Take half the gold. Start a new business with it. But nothing illegal.”