From what I can remember, the actual story was not really about love. It was just another ghost story in that famous book. Unlike those typical scary ghost movies, this movie is more about love.The music was Hollywood like. It has been a few days since I watched it. So I can't call it fantastic or not. Actually, the whole movie felt so different than those typical Chinese movie, the color, the sceneries, etc, they look very western.The costumes look exotic, and colorful. I didn't know that the Lizard man actually was a lizard until after I watched the DVD extra. The make-up artists could have made his face and body more lizard like. And when Xiao wei turned all white at the end of the movie, her face reminds me of the Japanese movie "Grudge". Chinese ghosts typically don't look like that according to the traditional Chinese cultures.Zhao Wei was excellent. I have seen her in other movies. She is entirely different in this movie.

Wouldn't say this is excellent but if you don't know this is a retelling of ancient Chinese ghost fable then you won't get the lack of 'scary' moments.The costumes alone is over-dominating. The close ups are well done. Just the quick black fades are kind of distracting. And the way the story is told with some timeline shifts is not bad, but at times, combine with the quick fade to black, loses me in the suspense for disbelief aspect. However, I suspect there's a 2.5 to 3 hr of stuff in the original idea. And some plot points are explained but didn't make sense - or kind of extraneously or makes things more complicate then it is.

I recently saw this at the 2009 Palm Springs International Film Festival. I didn't know quite what to expect of it but being Hong Kong's official entry to the 81st Acadmy Awards I thought it may be of some value. This film is adapted from the 300 year old classic ghost story of Song Ling Pu and is a combination of historical romance, supernatural and martial arts from director Gordon Chan who also wrote the screenplay along with Abe Kwong and Lau Ho Leung with action scenes directed by Wei Tung. Yong (Donnie Yen) is China's best warrior. His former love Peirong (Wei Zhao) is now married to Wang Sheng (Ken Chen) the commander of the armies. In a raid on desert bandits the beautiful Xiao Wei is taken into the armies custody and she takes a liking to Wang Sheng but Peirong stands in her way. Mysterious grizzly deaths start happening and soon Xia-Bing (Betty Sun) a tough female hunter of demons shows up. Xiao Yi (David Leong) is the mysterious supernatural companion to the beautiful but deadly Xiao Wei. This is an entertaining story and makes for a great debut film for director Chan. Great cinematography from Arthur Wong and a great visual setting from the art department of art director bill Liv and production designer Chung Man Yee. A co-production of Hong Kong with China and Singapore it's a little drawn out but worth seeing. I would give it a 7.5 and recommend it.

This movie is not a horror, monster or romance movie. It reflects very well social panic today in China: third leg in marriage. Almost all Chinese females start to discuss about this fiercely online after watching the movie. There wasn't much horror at least in my opinion, but mainly complicated relationships.Background: Traditionally Chinese men could have one wife and several concubines (with lower social position than the wife). Communist government made up law of one-wife-only since 1949. However, when China started to get rich, underground lovers start to emerge again and this trend is growing stronger each day since the last 15 years.Story and implication: The movie almost directly indicates this social phenomenon: The General indicates a powerful and rich man, his wife represents the Chinese traditional image of wife (she lives for her husband and is very tolerant until the last moment, but still would sacrifice herself for the husband's good). The fox woman and the lizard man are at lower social positions because they are monsters (just how the rich and powerful Chinese see the lower social class). They are highly skilled people though (we can consider them as freshly graduated university students). Just like many Chinese women struggling in the lower social class (in reality can be a nightclub waitress, erotic massager and so on), the fox woman met the General and gave him a "beautiful, weak, needs protection" impression. On the other hand, the lizard man was ignored by society (he was invisible sometimes in the movie), just as many male in the lower social level.The General let the fox woman into his private life, giving her many privileges that only wife can enjoy (having maids, managing daily stuff at home, can even take over the wife's order, see the dinner scene when the wife was late). The only thing that he has not given her is sex-of course in reality the powerful man must have had sex with this third leg in marriage. The fox woman, given so many indications, believed that she could take over the position of wife (social position up-climb), rather than just becoming concubine.However, ex-lover of the wife, and social order keeper (the joker-alike woman) showed up. In reality, there would not be ex-lover, but family and other supporters of the wife (possibly also powerful, like indicated in the movie), and social order keeper can be the public, mass media etc. Social order keeper seemed useless at the beginning in front of the General, which clearly shows today's society power in China. Supporter of the wife could not help much because the wife's own decision determines all.Lizard man's existence was considered redundant by many who could not read the social background of China. Lizard man is skilled but still helpless, struggles alone and loyal to the woman he loves, who only look up to power and money. This indicates a serious social problem in China: imbalanced male-female ratio causes many men with lower social-position to be left out in marriage, while richer and more powerful men can enjoy several women at the same time.It is a good movie after all, though if audience is non-Chinese it can be hard to enjoy: not much visual effect, not much fighting.