| The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review |
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| Science-Fiction |
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| Fantasy |
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A CHINESE GHOST STORY
(Sinnui Yauman)
Rating: 
Hong Kong. 1987.
Director – Ching Siu Tung, Screenplay – Yuen Kai Chi, Based on the Short Stories by Pu Songling, Producer – Tsui Hark, Photography – Wong Wing Hang, Tom Lau, Sander Lee & Poon Heng Seng, Music – Romeo Diaz & James Wong, Art Direction – Yee Chung Man. Production Company – Film Workshop.
Cast:
Leslie Cheung (Ning Tsai Tsen), Joey Wong (Nieh Hsiao Tsing), Wu Ma (Yen Che Hsia)
Plot: The ineffectual young tax collector Ning Tsai Tsen arrives in a town to collect taxes. No-one will offer him a bed so he is forced to seek shelter at a reputedly haunted temple on the outskirts of town. There he meets the warrior monk Yen Chi Hsia and the beautiful Nieh Hsiao Tsing. He falls for her, unaware that she is a ghost – a soul captured by the evil Matron and sent forth to tempt men and steal their lifeforces. Telling Ning Tsai Tsen her story, she begs him to take her ashes to freedom so that she can have the chance of reincarnation and be saved from betrothal to Lord Dark. But this is something that requires Ning Tsai Tsen and Yen Chia Hsia to journey down into Hell.
Attempting to explain Hong Kong fantasy films to Western audiences often ends up with people scratching their heads. Directors like John Woo and actors like Jackie Chan, Chow Yun Fat and Jet Li had much crossover success in the late 90s but that came more out of Hong Kong martial arts/action cinema. Hardcore Wu Xia Pan meanwhile languished unrecognized, apart from a sizeable cult audience, until the remarkable success of Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000).
A Chinese Ghost Story is perhaps the finest example of Hong Kong fantasy cinema. This genre had begun with Tsui Hark’s Zu: Warriors of the Magic Mountain (1983), a quite lunatic film in its own right, but it was A Chinese Ghost Story that became a landmark within the genre and an oft-imitated template for other films. Trying to pigeonhole A Chinese Ghost Story makes one’s head spin. Imagine a film part Star Wars (1977) and a whole lot Bruce Lee. Or else maybe Kwaidan (1965), as directed by Sam (Evil Dead) Raimi. It is all of these and more.
A Chinese Ghost Story is a grandiosely beautiful film. Ching Siu-Tung’s direction is an extraordinarily dextrous blend of lightning-paced action and startlingly beautiful imagery, all directed quite tongue-in-cheek. The martial arts sequences are amazingly stylized, with opponents performing unbelievable gymnastic acts, twirling about in mid-air and traveling by bouncing off trees or by hanging onto thrown swords, where Ching Siu-Tung’s camera is always poised with a lightning finesse to catch every sword-blow in mist-illuminated silhouette. There are mind-boggling scenes fighting off a giant, slime-slavering, flaming tongue as it crashes through entire houses to try penetrate its victims throats; and an even more visionary descent down into a Hell filled with walls of grasping hands and devouring female faces, lorded over by a metal-masked Darth Vader lookalike. Joey Wong flies through the air as a ghostly train of silk, whipping people about enwrapped in her sleeves. One amazing sequence has hero Leslie Cheung hiding under the water in Joey Wong’s bath trying to avoid detection by the androgynous, human-sniffing Matron, while she passes air to him via kisses. Ching also balances this out with an amusingly self-effacing sense of humour, with the bumbling Leslie Cheung stumbling into situations completely oblivious to the danger about him. And then there’s a quite indescribable scene where Wu Ma starts leaping about in mid-air and bursts into a rap song that goes on about the peaceful virtues of the Buddhist lifestyle. See A Chinese Ghost Story at all costs – it will change your life.
There were two sequels, both directed by Ching Siu-Tung and produced by Tsui Hark:– A Chinese Ghost Story II (1990) and A Chinese Ghost Story III (1991). Leslie Cheung, Joey Wong and Wu Ma re-teamed for the first, which is highly enjoyable; only Joey Wong appeared in the third, which is lesser but likable. Producer Tsui Hark later oversaw the animated A Chinese Ghost Story: The Tsui Hark Animation (1997), which is unrelated to the films but is based on the same book of ghost stories, Scary Stories from a Chinese Studio, by the 17th Century Chinese author Pu Songling. The film was highly influential and inspired a number of imitators such as Swordsman (1990) and sequels, Saviour of the Soul (1992), Green Snake (1993), The Magic Crane (1993) and The Storm Riders (1998).
Copyright Richard Scheib 1990
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