A CHINESE GHOST STORY
A film review by Jeff Meyer
Copyright 1988 Jeff Meyer
See at the Seattle Film Festival: A CHINESE GHOST STORY (Hong Kong, 1987) Director: Ching Siu-Tung Screenwriter: Yuen Kai Chi Cast: Leslie Cheung, Wong Tsu Tsien, Wo Ma
I've been trying to figure out how to describe the sheer fun I had at this film. I haven't seen anything that mixed this many genres and kept me this hooked since ALIENS; I hear the VILLAGE VOICE said it "combined the best elements of THE PRINCESS BRIDE and EVIL DEAD II," and recommended that no amphetamines be taken before viewing it. This is a *wise move*. A CHINESE GHOST STORY has more energy in it then last year's entire summer film season (with the lone exception of ROBOCOP), and a damn site more adventure than the last four LucasFilm entries. It also combines romance, horror, adventure, martial arts, comedy and satire and does each one well. I think you'll have the time of your life there, frankly; this is BUCKAROO BANZAI-style genre-mixing, if you know what I mean and I know you do.
Well, what we got? We got a foolish young tax collector whose in bad with the local yokels and decides to spend the night at a haunted shrine. We have a beautiful young thing he falls in love with but who has a terrible secret. We got a bad-ass old samurai who's sharing the shrine with the lad; he bounces off of trees, fires rays from his hands, does a rap number right in the middle of the film, and gets to say the kind of great things that Warren Oates always got to say in his films. We got zombies, ghosts, hags, stupid warrior types and a 40-foot animated tongue. Ho-boy! This is my kind of neighborhood!
Damndest thing is, it works great as a love story, as a folk tale, and as an adventure. The plot and the samurai add a real tongue-in-cheek feeling to the works, and the martial arts sequences takes those leaping-forty-feet-in- the-air sequences you see on Channel 61's Hong Kong Theater every Sunday morning and jacks them up about 400%. I really got to caring about whether the lad and the sweet young thing were going to make it. This is great stuff! Good photography, though on a budget, and a lot of the sub-titles are misspelled, but that kinda adds to the flavor. (first sub-titled film I've been to where you'd hear people asking "*What* did he say?")
This may well be out on video by now; if so, get a load of people, some dim sum and watch it at midnight. You'll be glad you did.
Rating: Faded if not seen on a weekend night. However, worth every penny of $5 if seen at midnight movie, preferably with cronies and munchies. Wouldn't be bad on video, either. Leave the diet pills *at home*.
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
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