PUBLISHED ONNovember 29, 2022 11:40 AMByDrima ChakrabortyNostalgia alert: 1990s Hong Kong cult drama classic My Date With A Vampire is getting a remake.
Titled Qu Mo Long Zu Ma Xiaoling, which loosely translates to Dragon Clan Exorcist Ma Xiaoling, the movie is set to release in 2023.
At the lensing ceremony yesterday (Nov 28), the cast offered prayers to ensure a smooth production process. They also revealed details about the upcoming movie and one thing was certain — exorcist Ma Xiaoling is still going to kick butt in a miniskirt.
Karena Ng, who plays the titular lead, told Hong Kong media: “This time the skirts are already so short, but during imaging, the wardrobe department said they are not short enough, they need to be shortened!”
“The biggest challenge for me are the fight scenes because I won’t be so agile in short skirts and heels, so I have to make further preparations to handle these scenes,” the 29-year-old said.
However, she has filmmaker Robert Chan’s approval, who added that he attended the training sessions and noticed that she put in a lot of effort into her fight choreography.
Robert, 55, is the creator of My Date With A Vampire and serves as director, scriptwriter and producer for the remake. He is also married to Joey Meng, the actress who played the original Ma Xiaoling, but remained tight-lipped about whether Joey would make a cameo in the upcoming movie.
“There will be surprises in the movie — there will be more than one surprise,” he said.
My Date With A Vampire is a 1998 drama series which follows Kuang Tianyou, a Chinese guerilla fighter during World War II, who gets turned into a vampire alongside the Japanese imperial soldier he is fighting, Kazuo Yamamoto.
Fast forward to the present time and Tianyou is in Hong Kong, looking virtually unchanged. He meets Ma Xiaoling, the heiress of a clan of exorcists and runs into Kazuo, who is a company boss with an army of vampire underlings set on attacking people and turning them into vampires.
The drama was immensely popular in the region and spawned two sequel seasons.
In the movie remake, Bosco Wong takes the lead role of vampire Tianyou.
Robert mentioned that Xiaoling’s classic nine-word chant would be refreshed for the remake, and that, because the movie takes place in a totally different setting from the drama, “we'll have a different portrayal of the vampires as well”.
Bosco and Karena also shared further details about the stunts they had to do for the movie.
“Our action scenes will include a lot of wire stunts and CGI to complement them, which test not only your stamina but also your creativity,” Bosco, 41, said.
“The crew could only tell us the effects they would add in later on and the rest was up to our imagination.”
Karena added: “There was a scene where I was suspended three or four storeys high and I had to jump off a platform, like a bungee jump — I was a little scared. I had to get over a psychological hurdle.”
Bosco also noted that there were no intimate scenes between the two leads.
He said: “The focus in the movie is more on how a vampire gets along with a human. Tianyou is a confused person. He's tired of life after so many years and he's trying hard to resolve the situation while keeping his identity a secret.”
He also said there would be no love triangle between his character, Xiaoling and Zhen Zhen, played by Jacky Cai.
The movie also stars Sean Wong and Phoebus Ng as the child and adult versions of Kuang Fusheng, a vampire who lives with Tianyou, respectively. Ray Lui will play Kazuo and Malaysian-born actress Fish Liew, his daughter Mirai Yamamoto.
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