Infamous classic from producer Tsui Hark and once again, a blue print for many copycat and spoof films, A Chinese Ghost Story stills stands tall as one of the best - even more so than its 2011 remake that seemed to switch charm for more CGI.Brilliantly directed by fight master Ching Sui Tung, with superb effects, great performances from all, and great action pieces including the fantastic Wu Ma as a sword wielding priest defending Leslie Cheung against the beautiful Joey Wong, an army of undead, demons and the world's largest, killer tongue.Plenty to see, plenty to love – A Chinese Ghost Story is a fantastic piece of Hong Kong cinema and well worth a place in any movie fan's collection.

A Chinese Ghost Story is the first of a trend of supernatural horror/thriller/romance/martial arts/comedy films made in Hong Kong. It was incredibly successful in Asia and is one of the most iconic Hong Kong films ever made, easily up there with films such as A Better Tomorrow and Infernal Affairs. It's hard to review a film that's already received so much praise and accolades and not let that cloud your judgment but with that said, this is a really fun movie!The plot follows a timid debt collector by the name of Ning Choi-San, whose job requires him to travel to rural areas around ancient China. He arrives at a town but fails to find a place to stay so resorts to staying in a deserted temple, where he finds the beautiful, seductive ghost named Nip Siu-Sin, who he eventually falls in love with.What works about A Chinese Ghost Story is its blend of horror, romance, action, and comedy. Hong Kong films are notorious for being uneven in tone, they often blend a bunch of different tones in one movie. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't but here, it completely works. We have the over-the-top horror, the extremely sappy romance, stylized action, and tongue-in-cheek humor and they all compliment each other extremely well. The reason it works is because everything feels consistently exaggerated and blown out of proportion. If we went from realistic, human drama to over-the-top horror, the change in tone would feel very abrupt but since everything feels very over-the-top and unrealistic, it feels like you're just being immersed into the film's world. The film's romance is extremely sappy and melodramatic but it works because the story IS a melodrama. The concept itself is very melodramatic in the first place so the filmmakers just went with it and made it as sincere as possible. The actors do it with the utmost passion that you can't you help but appreciate them for it. The romantic moments in the film are often very funny and affectionate and even touching on a few occasions. You can get away with a lot of silly stuff in your movies if you do it with sincerity and this film is a perfect example of that. The action is very creative and fun to watch throughout and the horror, while not exactly scary, makes you feel like a kid again while watching it with the goofy-looking creatures, foggy scenery, and overall spooky atmosphere, it's all good fun. The comedy is probably gonna be the most divisive thing for Western audiences. Hong Kong Cinema has a very BROAD sense of humor that won't necessarily appeal to everyone but I myself, found it amusing throughout and it never goes overboard, it always comes organically into the script and it never feels disruptive of the overall flow of the film.The cast is surprisingly effective in this zany, over-the-top world created by Ching Siu-Tung and Tsui Hark. Leslie Cheung plays Ning Choi- San as a bumbling bafoon who makes a complete fool out of himself in every scene and we love him for it. Cheung is very funny throughout but he also handles himself well in the dramatic elements, his love for Nip Siu-Sin is incredibly genuine and heartfelt. Joey Wang is incredibly sexy as Nip Siu-Sin but also a believable sympathetic side as well. But for me, the biggest scene stealer is Wu Ma as swordsman Yip Chik-Ha. His character is fascinating throughout as his motives are very opaque and confusing throughout and we don't really know how to feel about him. But he's also shown to be a bada$$ swordsman and a sympathetic character as he's a loner who doesn't belong in neither the world of the living or the dead. The rest of the cast is good too, although Lau Siu-Ming does look a little goofy as the tree demon but that's about it as far as complaints go in the acting department.Lastly, this is a pretty well-made film for an 80's Hong Kong production. The cinematography has a great, spooky look to it with a lot of blue backlighting for the night-time scenes and the camera-work is very inventine and dynamic with a lot of effective POV's for the tree demon. The special effects, while a bit cheesy and fake today, are nonetheless, really cool to look at and fun to watch. Overall, A Chinese Ghost Story is a over-the-top fun with a sappy yet sincere romance, fun action, spooky horror, amusing comedy, an effective cast, and solid production values. 8/10

This film may have been the biggest let-down I've experienced in renting movies based on IMDb reviews. Overall, I simply found this to be a second-rate movie.Leslie Cheung is certainly passable as the antihero and Ma Wu handles his character with cheerful competence. On the other hand, Ma Wu's makeup (facial hair) is so obviously phony that I simply could not take him seriously. He looked like an overweight teenager dressed up for Halloween, complete with the $4.95 stick-on beard.The special effects were so-so, though the "undead" in the cellar were pretty good. The tree-tongue looked like something from a bad 1950s monster flick, though the POV shots from the tongue's view more closely resembled Sam Raimi's trademark shots in the more recent "Evil Dead" trilogy. The pyrotechnics were ho-hum and the final battle is about as dull as you can get. (In fact, it most closely reminded me of the "Lost in Space" episode where the Robinsons are caught in a sandstorm and....) The plot was not particularly original and has been told countless times in the form of European fairy tales. There was no suspense and no plot twists. In fact, you know right away as you are introduced to the characters who is good, who is bad, and who is going to survive.I just returned this film to Netflix and then I sat down to write this review. The very first thing I did was check the production date. Yep, it says 1987...not the 1967 that I thought it might be. And that pretty much sums it up: The production values and FX are typical of the 1960s. The plot and action seem much older, as Hollywood was actually producing some interesting and challenging films in the 60s.** out of *****

Sinnui yauman, is without a doubt one of the best ghost stories ever made into film. Written by Songling Pu and directed by Siu-Tung Ching, A Chinese Ghost Story has it all. Ling Choi Sin played by Leslie Cheung is a young man down on his luck who goes in search of a monastery for lodging, deep in the woods, a place the villagers seem very afraid to go near. The trek alone is perilous with wolves, and a crazy taoist monk lives at the temple.Ling Choi Sin meets Tsing, a beautiful and mysterious young girl who also lives nearby in a deserted temple. She is forced to seduce men for her evil mistress, but when she meets innocent Ling Choi Sin they fall in love.Ling Choi Sin is sort of a bumbling fool but his heart is in the right place, while Tsing tries to protect him from the other spirits in the woods, he tries to protect her from the monk who is trying to kill the spirits in the woods. There's great martial arts, even a monk that breaks out into drunken song as he performs ritual taoist sword forms. The movie does a lot of traditional old martial art films acrobatics, with magic and flying through the air, leaping from tree to tree, with elegant long gowns and scarves, but the movie genuinely flows, and everything is effective.Tsing is to be married to a evil tree monster, which cant be good, and we feel her plight in her home where we meet her sisters and stepmother who is truly not nice.In the end they must fight a tree witch with a deadly tongue, and go with Yin deep into the heart of hell to fight a thousand year old evil to save their souls, and bring Ling's ashes back to her home for a proper burial so she may have a chance at reincarnation.A beautiful story that truly pays attention to details. One is touched in many ways by this movie, you'll laugh, cry, and just have fun with the great martial arts and cinematography. And though at the end, Yin and Ling Choi Sin ride off into the morning sun under a enchanting rainbow, we never know if Tsing was afforded a reincarnation, but we do know her