Master Kow [Ching-Ying Lam] runs the local mortuary and is an expert on vampires and
ghosts. He and his two bumbling assistants, Man Chor [Ricky Hui] and Chou [Chin Siu-hou], have the
responsibilities of performing funerary rituals and carrying for the
bodies of the dead, which includes the eight chiang-shih (hopping
vampires) who, along with the Taoist priest who controls them by ringing a
bell, are Master Kow's guests. That evening, as Man Chor is checking the
wards pasted on the foreheads of the chiang-shih, lighting the incense
which feeds them, and making sure that the flame which holds them
motionless does not burn out, the joke-playing Chou startles Man by
jumping out of a casket wearing a walking corpse* costume. While trying to
save himself, Man stumbles against the altar, extinguishing the flame.
Immediately, the wards start falling from the foreheads of the
chiang-shih, and they start hopping around. Fortunately, Master Kow and
the priest are able to secure them again, but the priest and his
chiang-shih decide to stay elsewhere.The next day, Master Kow and Man meet Mr Yam for coffee. Mr Yam wants
to talk to them about digging up and reburying his dead father, because he
was told by a fortune-teller that it will bring him good luck. While Mr
Yam and the Master discuss the process, Man has become enamoured of Mr
Yam's daughter Ting Ting [Choi-fung Li], who has just returned from the city where she
has been studying cosmetics. Three days later, everyone gathers at
Grandfather Yam's grave for the disinterment. Master Kow tells Yam that
the ground is contaminated and that they must bury Grandfather Yam
elsewhere. He offers to take the body to his mortuary where it can be kept
until another spot is found. To ease the spirits of the other bodies
buried there, Man and Chou are told to place incense on each grave. One of
the graves catches Chou's eye. It is the grave of a young girl named Jade.Later that evening, when the Master looks at Grandfather Yam's body,
he notices that his skin is changing and his fingernails are long and
blue, signs that he's turning into a vampire. Master Kow prepares a magic
ink which must be painted at right angles all along the coffin, forming a
grid which will help to keep the body from getting free. Unfortunaely, it
doesn't work, and Grandfather Yam [Wah Yuen], now a chiang-shih, escapes during the
night. The first place he hops is over to Yam's house, where he kills his
son. Wai [Billy Lau], the bungling captain of police who also has the hots for Ting
Ting, blames the murder on Master Kow because of his long fingernails and
arrests him. Kow warns Man and Chou that Yam will rise as a corpse, too,
and bids Man to protect Ting Ting while Chou is to bring him an inkpot and
some sticky rice and meet him at the jail. Just as Chou is delivering the
sticky rice (which, unfortunately, he cooked instead of bringing it raw),
Yam awakens. After a bit of kung-fooy, during which Wai gets the worst of
it, Master Kow and Chou manage to stake Yam and set his body on fire. One
vampire down, but Grandfather Yam is still out there.Meanwhile, Grandfather Yam has returned to Yam's house where he
chases around Man and Ting Ting for a while. Fortunately, they know that,
if you hold your breath, a chiang-shih can't see you, so they manage to
elude him until Master Kow, Chou, Wai, and the police show up. In the
melee that follows, Man is bitten by Grandfather Yam, who gets away. Now
they've got another problem on their hands in that Man could turn into a
vampire, too. The only thing to do is to keep Man moving so that his blood
doesn't turn stiff and to send Chou after some more sticky rice to draw
out the poison.But Chou has his own problem. Jade [Siu-fung Wong], the girl whose grave Chou saw
when they were digging up Grandfather Yam's body, has fallen in love with
Chou and come back as a succubus ("Lady ghost") to make love to him. She
forces the night watchman to flirt with her, then screams for help just as
Chou is riding by with the sack of rice on his bicycle. He rescues her and
takes her to her home. When a sudden thunderstorm sends down torrents of
rain, she convinces him to stay the night. The next morning, when Chou
returns, Master Kow notices the love marks on his neck and surmises that
Chou has slept with a ghost. Chou sleeps away the day. When he wakes up,
he heads right back to Jade's house. Master Kow follows him, where he
fights with the succubus (who does some interesting things with her head)
until she flies away.Later that night, after tying up Chou, the Master waits on the front
porch for Jade to come. When she does, he does magical battle with her.
Meanwhile, inside the house, Man has awakened from sleep and found that
he's transformed into a vampire (of the walking corpse type). He tries to
bite Chou, but Jade saves him. Chou begs Kow not to harm Jade, so he
washes his hands of their love affair and reminds them only that they are
from two different worlds. With tears in her eyes, Jade flies away. Now
the question is why the sticky rice didn't prevent Man from turning into a
vampire. Master Kow takes a hard look at the stuff and finds that it's
been cut with regular rice. He sets Ting Ting to work sorting the grains,
while Chou files down Man's fangs.Suddenly Wai and his men burst in the door. Grandfather Yam is on the
move again. Man, Chou, and Ting Ting spread sticky rice all around the
house, then barricade the doors and windows. But they forgot the skylight.
Grandfather Yam, now looking more like a walking corpse, breaks in through
the skylight and takes them all on. Suddenly, the Taoist priest and his
eight chiang-shih pay a visit. When the priest sees what's going on, he
leads his vampires into the house and commands them to surround
Grandfather Yam. But Grandfather Yam is one strong corpse and knocks out
all the chiang-shih. At some point, the priest drops a ceiling lantern on
Grandfather Yam. He bursts into flames as do the chiang-shih.*Both the chiang-shih and the walking corpses appear to be vampires, but
the chiang-shih hop and are controllable by the Taoist priest while the
walking corpses lumber along more like ghouls and are difficult to stop.
[Original Synopsis by bj_kuehl.]