Vamping it up

The wait is finally over. Even as Twilight Saga: New Moon swept the world, the first in the series, Twilight, hit the big screen across the city on Wednesday.

Can Edward Cullen, the mystical young vampire of this teenage vampire series by Stephanie Meyer, retain its appeal for Chinese moviegoers?

Chinese audiences are, of course, familiar with this genre, from the Dracula-series Mr. Vampire (1985) - one of the genre's most influential productions in terms of number of sequels - to the Hong Kong-made Spritual Boxer (1979, Lau Kar-leung) and Close Encounters of the Spooky Kind (1980, Sammo Hung Kam-bo).