Uncle:
We have to take the Chi Vampire's left sock, put a mushroom in it, and throw it into a river to depower it. Jade::
....you're making this up. ->
Jackie Chan Adventures Episode 35 "Chi of the Vampire"
The monster called a Chinese vampire is also known as a hopping corpse, hopping vampire or similar names, and in Chinese is known as Jiangshi, or other variations depending on how you romanize the name.
Despite the name, the idea developed independently of Western vampires and they aren't all that similar. A typical Chinese vampire drains life energy (because of Western influence, some versions do drain blood instead). It is more of a monster than a Western vampire; it doesn't speak and has pale ski, long clawlike fingernails, and a long prehensile tongue. It can move only by hopping and has its arms outstretched in rigor mortis. The Chinese vampire is usually dressed in Qing Dynasty robes. Interestingly,
jiangshi is Chinese for "Stiff Corpse", which is the reason for its odd method of locomotion: being dead, the body is stiff and therefore cannot walk and has to hop.
In some versions, it detects potential victims by their breath and holding one's breath will temporarily hide from one. It may be controlled with a parchment inscribed with runes placed on its head. Legend has it that the Jiang-shi were corpses enchanted by sorcerers to walk home to be buried in their ancestral burial grounds.
Like Western zombies, its attack can infect a person and turn the victim into another of its kind.
Examples:
Hong Kong/Chinese Movies
- Mr. Vampire from 1985 is the classic example of a Chinese vampire in films. It started off a small craze of supernatural-themed movies in Hong Kong at the time, and had four sequels.
- Spooky Encounters.
- Tsui Hark's Vampire Hunters.
- The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974) is a co-production with Hammer Horror, and features Western and Chinese vampires in the same film. It has been released cut with various titles such as Seven Brothers Meet Dracula.
- Horribly, a really naff Hong Kong sequel to The Gods Must Be Crazy features one of these!
- Specifically, "The Gods Must Be Crazy in China". A group of tribesmen come across the vampire, and use it to get fruit out of a tree, by having it hop into it repeatedly. Yeah.
Non-Chinese uses
- The NES game Phantom Fighter puts you in the role of a traveling monk who goes around fighting jiangshi (or "kyonshees", as the game calls them).
- The mook enemies in Gekiranger, the Rinshi, are based on the Jiang-shi.
- Aside fron parsing the name as two words rather than one and making them feed off of fear, no significant changes seem to be made to the Rin Shi in Gekiranger's adaptation, Power Rangers Jungle Fury.
- Hsien-ko (US)/Lei-Lei (Japan) in the video game Darkstalkers is a Jiang-shi; her sister's soul resides in the talisman on her forehead to protect Lei-Lei from becoming evil.
- The Pionpi in Super Mario Land.
- An entire roleplaying supplement in the World Of Darkness. Calling themselves the Kuei-Jin, they are spirits that fought their way back from the afterlife and back into their bodies, which they reanimate and keep alive by feeding on the chi of other people. In the setting's present day, they're usually involved in turf wars with western vampires. Only people of Asian descent can become Kuei-Jin. Primarily another example of the setting's many conflicting religions which are all somehow true and mutually exclusive from one another.
- One of these is featured in an episode of Jackie Chan Adventures; it drains chi via green beams of light from its victim's eyes. The Jiang-shi has most of the usual weaknesses, but loses them when it has enough chi.
- The third Sly Cooper has praying mantis Jiang-shi.
- The corpse servants of the Tao family in Shaman King are referred to as Jiang-shi, but bear little resemblance to the traditional version. Lee Pai-Long, on the other hand does resemble one closely - but is much less stiff, being a Bruce Lee Clone.
- One of the many monsters used by the Eaters of the Lotus from the Tabletop RPG Feng Shui. The Architects of the Flesh also use them, modifying them with Arcanowave technology to become Bouncing Benjys.
- From Kingdom Hearts II, we have Nightwalker heartless in the Land of the Dragons, Mulan's homeworld.
- From the MMORPG Ragnarok Online, there are male (Bongun) and female (Munak) versions. They bounce to move.
- There's also a bishonen one, Yao Jun. Bongun, Munak, and he have a rather sad little love triangle plot.
- One of the blonde heroine's costume changes in Asian Dynamite is one of these.
- An optional boss in Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia is a Jiang Shi. Surprisingly, it's the only boss to not be permanently destroyed after you beat it; it is frozen by a talisman upon defeat, and if you attack it again, the talisman will break, causing it to revive and attack you, once more.
- In My Life As A Teenage Robot, XJ9 a.k.a. Jenny goes to Japan and battles a horde of these. Yes, Japan.
- A classic example of a hopping corpse is sent by Fu Manchu to first threaten and then attack Geneviève Dieudonné in Kim Newman's Anno Dracula.
- A particular level in Spelunky features Jiang-shi as relatively weak enemies in a graveyard.
- The CMX manga Zombie Fairy
features one of these in the title role.
- Uzumaki features a Chinese Vampire with an unusually high degree of Body Horror.
- The manga? I watched the movie but can't remember seeing something vampire-like.
