Hopping Vampires are...strAInge
A look at a uniquely Chinese Undead
strAInge: The Dead Come Home, China’s Hopping Vampires
The jiangshi is commonly called the Chinese hopping vampire, but it is neither quite a vampire nor quite a zombie. It is a stiff corpse that refuses to remain still, sometimes feeding upon the qi of the living and sometimes travelling under the command of a ritual specialist.
In this episode, strAInge follows the jiangshi from tales of bodies transported across the mountains of western Hunan to the supernatural collections of Pu Songling, Yuan Mei, and Ji Yun. We examine corpse drivers, yellow talismans, bells, mirrors, peach wood, glutinous rice, breath holding, and the uncertain line separating old beliefs from rules created by popular entertainment.
We then enter the golden age of Hong Kong horror comedy, where Sammo Hung’s Encounters of the Spooky Kind helped combine animated corpses with martial arts and slapstick. Ricky Lau’s Mr. Vampire transformed that combination into a film phenomenon and made Lam Ching-ying’s stern Taoist master one of the defining figures of the genre.
Next time on strAInge, we remain with the human body after death, but replace mountain roads and magical charms with honey, medicine, and the promise of impossible healing. The next episode is about the Mellified Man.
Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling, translated by Herbert A. Giles. This public-domain collection includes Pu’s tales of risen bodies, ghosts, transformations, and supernatural encounters.
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43629
The complete online text of Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43629/43629-h/43629-h.htm
A Dead Occupation: Transporting a Corpse over a Thousand Li, from Reed College’s Spirited Ink project. This essay considers corpse transportation, western Hunan traditions, and stories of walking or hopping bodies.
https://pressbooks.pub/chin330/chapter/a-dead-occupation-transporting-a-corpse-over-a-thousand-li/
Asian Gothic, from The Cambridge Companion to the Modern Gothic. The chapter discusses the jiangshi as a specifically Chinese supernatural figure popularized internationally through Hong Kong martial-arts comedy.
Global Gothic 2: East Asian Gothic, from The Cambridge History of the Gothic. This chapter examines East Asian horror traditions and the emergence of the hopping-corpse film.
Animated Pasts and Unseen Futures: On the Comic Element in Hong Kong Horror. This academic chapter examines how Taoist folklore, animated corpses, martial arts, slapstick, and horror became combined in Hong Kong cinema.
https://academic.oup.com/edinburgh-scholarship-online/book/18226/chapter/176189132
Encounter of the Spooky Kind, Hong Kong Film Archive. The archive describes Sammo Hung’s 1980 film as a pioneering mixture of action comedy and supernatural horror that helped establish a distinctly Hong Kong genre.
https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/en/web/hkfa/2026/fantasy/pe-event-2026-fantasy-fs-film08.html
Mr. Vampire, Hong Kong Film Archive. The film became one of Hong Kong’s five highest-grossing releases of 1985 and sparked a wave of jiangshi productions.
https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/en/web/hkfa/2026/fantasy/pe-event-2026-fantasy-fs-film09.html
An earlier Hong Kong Film Archive examination of Mr. Vampire and the film’s mixture of folk legend, popular literature, kung-fu comedy, and supernatural cinema.
https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/en/web/hkfa/pe-event-2017-6-1-4.html
Performing Comic Abjection in the Hong Kong Ghost Story, from Hong Kong Horror Cinema. This chapter discusses hopping vampires, wandering spirits, monsters, physical comedy, makeup, and special effects in Hong Kong horror.
The Ancient Terror of the Chinese Hopping Corpse, Jiangshi, from PBS’s Monstrum. This video provides an accessible overview of the creature’s folklore and modern appearance.