CRAZY SAFARI certainly lives up to its title and stands as one of the most bizarre movies I've ever watched. It turns out that a couple of South African movies starring bushman actor N!xau, THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY and its sequel, must have been really popular in China. Soon after they were made, Chinese producers were recruiting the same star and in this film they head off to South Africa to cash in on his popularity.
To make things even stranger, CRAZY SAFARI is a film heavily indebted to the MR VAMPIRE saga, and it even stars Lam Ching-Ying as his traditional One-Eyebrow Priest character. The storyline sees the priest and his companion travelling to England where they buy his friend's ancestor at an auction and transport him back to Hong Kong, only to get stranded in Africa en route. The film was written by the great Barry Wong, who handled the scripts for many classics like HARD-BOILED and ARMOUR OF GOD.
A hopping vampire plays a big part in the story and his scenes are a real hoot, with all of the traditional special effects work used to make him jump huge heights and the like. The middle of the film seems to have been made up as they went along, as the characters interact with the wildlife in various ways (they hide up a tree from a rampaging rhino), but then things pick up for an eye-popping climax in which the heroes and their allies must battle an evil tribe and a couple of diamond hunters who seem to have come from an Indiana Jones flick. There's a hilarious duel scene involving the spirits of a baboon and even Bruce Lee, and plenty of wacky humour that works really nicely. Your enjoyment of CRAZY SAFARI will depend on how big a fan you are of this 'hopping vampire' genre; if it's up your street then you'll love this too.
To make things even stranger, CRAZY SAFARI is a film heavily indebted to the MR VAMPIRE saga, and it even stars Lam Ching-Ying as his traditional One-Eyebrow Priest character. The storyline sees the priest and his companion travelling to England where they buy his friend's ancestor at an auction and transport him back to Hong Kong, only to get stranded in Africa en route. The film was written by the great Barry Wong, who handled the scripts for many classics like HARD-BOILED and ARMOUR OF GOD.
A hopping vampire plays a big part in the story and his scenes are a real hoot, with all of the traditional special effects work used to make him jump huge heights and the like. The middle of the film seems to have been made up as they went along, as the characters interact with the wildlife in various ways (they hide up a tree from a rampaging rhino), but then things pick up for an eye-popping climax in which the heroes and their allies must battle an evil tribe and a couple of diamond hunters who seem to have come from an Indiana Jones flick. There's a hilarious duel scene involving the spirits of a baboon and even Bruce Lee, and plenty of wacky humour that works really nicely. Your enjoyment of CRAZY SAFARI will depend on how big a fan you are of this 'hopping vampire' genre; if it's up your street then you'll love this too.