“Everything must be based on science,” a rather flippant young policeman insists when faced with the unusual investigative methods employed by Uncle Feng, rural cop skilled in Taoist magic. Though sometimes billed as Mr Vampire 5 and starring Lam Ching-Ying, Magic Cop (驅魔警察) in fact features no vampires but instead revolves around a demonic Japanese sect’s attempts to use Taoist zombies to traffic drugs. Uncle Feng is on the case after agreeing to travel into the city to identify the deceased granddaughter of a neighbour.
Much of the film is indeed about the contrast between rural Tung Ping Chau and the contemporary city. Slick policeman Lam (Wilson Lam) is not exactly thrilled to be saddled with Feng (Lam Ching-ying) as a parter, nor is he that keen on hosting him in his apartment. As he shows off to Feng, Lam’s place has a fancy electronic keypad rather than a key and is decorated in aggressively modern style. It has an unusual open-plan layout in which the toilet is housed in a pretend phonebox while the bath is in the middle of the room. As a modern policeman, Lam believes in things like forensics and harps on about the primacy of science. He doesn’t believe in the kind of Taoism that Feng represents and insists there must be a rational explanation for the fact the dead woman apparently died about a week before becoming the subject of Lam’s investigation.
Even in the city, however, this kind of magic exists in this case wielded by a Japanese sorceress (Michiko Nishiwaki) running a demonic sect. She appears to be a good match for Feng, and otherwise uses a series of ninja techniques while trying to foil his investigation. In using zombies as drug mules, she has after all subverted the Taoist rituals to which Feng ascribes. His old partner on the force, Ma (Wu Ma), suggests that it was his superstitious nature that put paid to his career as an urban policeman. Though adept at solving crimes and catching wrongdoers he gained the reputation for being a “tornado”, creating chaos whoever he went. Lam too is put off by his chaotic nature and is slow to believe that Feng could be right about the black magic and zombies. He describes his investigative techniques as old-fashioned and resents the fact that he disobeys orders. Feng largely ignores him and his assistant Sergeant 2273 (Michael Miu) and acts impulsively, often using Sergeant 2273 as a vessel for his Taoist techniques.
Nevertheless, Lam is slowly made to come around, admitting that Feng is a good policeman. Despite insisting Feng has no mind for science, Lam concedes that there is no science in this case and it cannot be solved scientifically. He is powerless to solve it alone and must reply on Feng’s Taoist knowledge. Though Sergeant 2273 much more readily accepts Feng as his superior and goes along with his suggestion that the case has a supernatural dimension, Feng favours Lam, while the two police officers bicker over their attempts to date Feng’s niece Arlene (Wong Mei-way) who is excited to be in the modern city having come from the rural backwater Tung Ping Chau.
Though juxtaposed with a British flag in Lam’s flat, Feng is in essence returning something of old Hong Kong to the island which is beginning to lose its identity amid its transformation into a financial centre and capitalist hotspot. That the villain is a Japanese woman heading a demonic sect of corrupted Chinese teachings also hints at a fear of cultural dominance and the threat external organisations pose to Hong Kong through capitalistic colonisation. Thus Feng must marshal all his skills to the defeat the demonic sect even while plunged into a more literal hell surrounded by flames. Only then is the city a safe space he can allow Arlene to explore alone while he returns to Tung Ping Chau in the company of his new disciple Sergeant 2273 making the same journey in reverse. Though filled with zany humour, the film never belittles the Taoism at its centre nor makes fun of Feng for his atypical policing methods so much as suggesting that the modern man Lam must open his mind to a world beyond reason and reintegrate these aspects of traditional culture that are in danger of erasure in a rapidly modernising city.
Original trailer (English subtitles)
Windows on Worlds 