Kung Fu. Check. Jiangshi. Check. Steven He. Check.

Let’s be honest here: there was very little chance I wasn’t going to adore this film.

It takes the glorious, unhinged spirit of classic 1980s Hong Kong hopping-vampire cinema and drops it right into the middle of Dublin, forcing two utterly useless pest exterminators, Danny (Steven He) and his mate Frank (Michael Tient), to deal with an ancient threat that is very much outside their job description.

This is exactly the sort of ridiculous collision of genres I’m a complete sucker for.

Kung Fu Deadly knows precisely what kind of film it wants to be. It takes the supernatural madness of jiangshi cinema, throws in martial arts, slapstick comedy, horror and a couple of blokes who probably shouldn’t be trusted to remove a wasp nest, then lets the whole bloody thing loose on Dublin.

Seeing Steven He make the jump from YouTube comedy into a feature-film lead is great, and even his Irish accent actually holds up without becoming an embarrassing caricature. He brings the same manic energy you’d expect from his comedy work, but there’s enough actual characterisation underneath Danny’s stupidity to stop him becoming nothing more than a collection of reaction faces and punchlines.

Michael Tient makes an excellent partner in crime, too. The back-and-forth between Danny and Frank lands because it feels like actual street-level banter rather than a polished Hollywood routine. Neither character seems particularly qualified for anything they’re doing, which makes watching them stumble into increasingly supernatural shit even better.

The comedy is right up my alley. It embraces seriously stupid, unpretentious slapstick with people taking tranq darts to the face and blokes getting hit in the nuts, but it never feels like the filmmakers are embarrassed by any of it. There’s no desperate attempt to convince you that the jokes are clever. Sometimes a bloke getting twatted in the bollocks is funny because a bloke getting twatted in the bollocks is funny.

What really makes the whole circus work, though, is that the genre mechanics aren’t treated like a joke.

The horror holds its own, the ancient hopping vampires and increasingly huge stakes are handled with proper care, and the practical makeup effects are really fucking good. The film clearly understands that the jiangshi work best when they’re allowed to be genuinely fucking creepy rather than simply becoming another excuse for a gag.

That balance is probably the thing I enjoyed most. Kung Fu Deadly can be completely ridiculous one minute and then suddenly remind you that these things are supposed to be monsters. It doesn’t spend the entire running time winking at the audience and shouting, “Look how silly this is!” It just gets on with being silly.

And then somebody inevitably gets punched in the face.

Action-wise, Lee Huang’s choreography is ridiculously sharp. The man has worked on everything from Dune: Prophecy to Warrior Nun, and that experience is all over the fight scenes here. They’re fast, clean and energetic without losing the sense of physical impact that makes martial arts cinema so much fun to watch.

Gemma Chua-Tran steals the entire bloody picture, too. Every time she gets into a fight, the film suddenly shifts up another gear. There’s a precision and speed to her movement that makes the whole thing look gloriously fucking effortless, and she brings a physicality to the role that makes it impossible not to sit up and pay attention whenever she appears.

Director Fergal Costello clearly understands that this kind of film lives or dies on its tone. It’s very easy to make a movie involving hopping vampires, kung fu, pest exterminators and Dublin look like a bunch of people desperately trying to convince you they’re making something cool.

Thankfully, Kung Fu Deadly doesn’t do that.

It’s confident enough to embrace the lunacy while still giving the horror and action room to breathe. That’s what makes it feel like a genuine genre film rather than a comedy wearing a horror costume.

It’s funny, violent, hugely entertaining, and exactly the sort of glorious nonsense I want from a film like this.

Easily one of the best times I’ve had with a genre film all year.