For me, the Chinese vampire or Jiangshi (殭屍 lit, "stiff corpse") have a special place in my heart. That might be because the Mr. Vampire franchise films were some of my earliest movie-watching memories.
It's also helped that the series had some pretty slick martial arts choreography (arguably, a trope codifier for "Kung-fu Wizard") and a quirky, memorable cast of characters that's generally not found in the horror genre these days. (Firmly averts the "Twenty Minutes With Assholes" trope that is so popular in current-era horror films)
And none of these would be possible without the late Lam Ching-Ying's solid acting (in hindsight, I tend to think of him these days as the Chinese version of Brendan Fraser), as well as equally stellar performances by his co-stars. (such as his longtime collaborators Billy Lau, Chin Siu-Ho and Wu Ma; and the Jiangshi being played by the legendary martial arts stuntman and actor Yuen Wah)
It may not be an example of "movies as an art form", but the solid, energetic performances of the cast in playing out their characters, along with the eerily beautiful soundtracks and kickass action choreography has made it a very memorable movie experience for me, thus cementing the position of the Jiangshi as one of my all-time favourite movie monsters.