Jiangshi (hopping corpse)

Sources primarily present the jiangshi as an otherwise-dead human corpse that has become reanimated rather than a naturally born supernatural being. In film plots and genre summaries, causes for reanimation include improper funerary handling, malicious sorcery, or ritual mishap; the corpus emphasizes narratives in which human actions (neglect of burial rites, witchcraft) and the need for priestly intervention are central. The supplied materials do not provide a single canonical premodern origin myth or liturgical account, and some variation in cause is shown across cinematic narratives.

Descriptions in the provided sources stress a stiff, cadaverous body that moves by rigid hopping. Modern cinematic iconography frequently dresses jiangshi in Qing-dynasty official robes and associates them with yellow Taoist talismans (fulu) attached to the forehead; film-genre commentary and summaries identify these dress and prop elements as a standardized visual shorthand created by Hong Kong films rather than an exclusive traditional prescription. Traditional accounts as cited focus on the animated corpse and its stiff motion rather than a single standardized costume.

Across the cited corpus, the jiangshi is characterized chiefly as a reanimated corpse that can move and pose a threat to the living in narratives. Its distinctive locomotion is hopping, produced by a stiff, cadaverous body. Film and genre sources repeatedly depict the creature as something that must be restrained, contained, or exorcised by ritual specialists: Taoist priests use talismans and ritual implements to bind, control, or immobilize the corpse. Some modern descriptions (noted in the sources) add vampiric features such as blood-drinking, but at least one source identifies blood consumption as a later, Western-influenced accretion rather than an original, consistently attested trait.