VividSimon Simply Perfect

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

dworldeater A Chinese Ghost Story is the first of three films in a classic wuxia trilogy by famed action choreographer/director Ching Siu Tung. ACGS is a very robust, beautiful, rich looking film starring ghostly vixen love goddess Joey Wang. Leslie Cheung is a traveler that encounters Joey Wang and they fall in love. Joey Wang is promised to another and with the help of a Taoist monk, Leslie Cheung does battle with the undead. The film looks exceptional with great camera-work. Performances are good and the fight scenes are crazy and absolutely astounding. A Chinese Ghost Story blends romance, horror, drama, comedy with fantasy and martial arts and it works. This is the beginning of a very successful series in Hong Kong and influenced many movies to come. If you are a fan of the wuxia genre, this is one swordplay film you should not miss.

mrrockey 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

OllieSuave-007 This is a fantastic Hong Kong film in which a poor scholar meets a female ghost after taking refuge in an old, abandoned temple. The ghost is forced to seduce men and trap them for her master, an evil tree devil, to feed upon.Set in ancient China, this movie is fast-paced and full of action scenes and surprises, which does not drag on the plot. There is a good bit of drama and romance (between the scholar and ghost), mixed in with some comedy and horror scenes (from the tree devil). To top it off, the film has a beautiful music score composed by James Wong and features two songs sung by Sally Yeh and the film's leading protagonist, Leslie Cheung. Mu Wa plays the daring swordsman and Joey Wang plays the beautiful and tragic ghost. My only issues (very minor) are that the movie seems too fast-paced at times, especially in some of the action sequences. And, it appears that some bits of comedy are forced into certain scenes to lighten up what is supposed to be a dramatic story. Other than that, this movie is an outstanding source of entertainment (with all the magic spells, enchanting spirits, creepy demons, enthralling heroic action and unending journeys) and is one of the more popular movies made in Hong Kong, bringing you back to the nostalgia of the movies in the 1980s, which is, in my opinion, the best decade of films made in HK.Grade A

BA_Harrison A Chinese Ghost Story stars the late, great Leslie Cheung as Ling Choi Sin, a penniless tax collector who decides to spend the night at a deserted temple, where he meets and falls for a beautiful woman called Tsing (Joey Wang). When Ling discovers that Tsing is actually a ghost who has been forced to seduce victims for an evil tree spirit who feeds on 'chi' (life force), he decides to try and free the girl by giving her remains a proper burial. Enlisting the help of Swordsman Yin (Wu ma), a crazy Taoist monk, Ling successfully defeats the tree spirit, but must also do battle in hell against the evil Lord Black, to whom Tsing is due to be wed.The first Hong Kong film that I saw which wasn't purely martial arts action, A Chinese Ghost Story opened my eyes to the incredible world of Asian fantasy horror, a magical realm inhabited by beautiful female ghosts, bumbling innocent heroes, sword wielding Taoist monks, monstrous spirits, and dark lords of the underworld; I instantly fell in love with the film's exuberance, energy, humour, inventiveness and visual excellence.Two decades later, and this amazing movie still remains one of the finest examples of its genre that I have seen—a sumptuous, breathtaking masterpiece that brilliantly blends horror, comedy, fantasy and romance. With superb direction from Siu-Tung Ching, excellent editing from David Wu, stunning cinematography, and a whole slew of imaginative special effects (including a humongous killer tongue, a many tentacled monster, and multiple flying heads!), A Chinese Ghost Story is a completely unforgettable and thoroughly enjoyable experience from start to finish.