[crabapple]

I remember the first time I saw this, back in the 90's, I was transfixed. For the first hour, the film sort of straddles a difficult line--you don't know what the hell is going to happen next, whether things are going to take a turn for the horrific, or suddenly become romantic/sensual. And the music score is the running thread that keeps you glued to this indecisiveness. It kind of reminded me of Alan Parsons' "Ladyhawke" soundtrack, punchy splashes of synth-rock laid over a story that takes place in a mythical bygone age.

Producer Tsui Hark's "Vampire Hunters," made fairly recently, is a good companion piece to this--a harder, more violent take on similar subject matter, and incorporating some fresh digital effects. It was nice to see Hark's people up to their old tricks but using new tools. I thought the first ten minutes of "Vampire Hunters" was some of the most intense filmmaking I've seen in years. It's such a neat opening scene that the film never tries to do better for the rest of its running time.