Ning Tsai-Shen (played by a young Leslie Cheung) is a tax collector and arrives in a small town were no one seem to be willing to give him accommodation for the night. So in search of somewhere to spend the night he ends up in the Lan Ro temple which is supposably haunted. Around the temple area he meets Yen Che-Hsia, a swordsman who fights ghosts there and warns Ning Tsai-Shen of the evil spirits surrounding the area. He then runs into Nieh Hsiao-Tsing, a beautiful girl with whom he falls in love with. But it's something strange with her and later he finds out that she's actually a ghost and together with the swordsman they try to break her curse.
A Chinese Ghost Story is definitely a landmark when it comes to Hong Kong cinema and made a lot of people from the west appreciate movies from the east together with such film as A Better Tomorrow among others.
The movie is somewhat like an eastern fairytale and has a lot of fantasy elements in it, although it sure offers something from most genres.
This movie actually have some Evil Dead feeling to it, not the same kind of horror but the overall inviroment and some of the atmosphere around the Lan Ro temple. Also there's a scenes with animated zombies or whatever they are that looks very low-budget and quite similar to some scene in Army of Darkness.
 
Today this movie might not be considered being that fantastic but when it came out I guess that all the martial arts, flying swordsman and other stuff looked amazing, some stuff kinda similar to what you saw in Croushing Tiger Hidden Dragon, (A Chinese Ghost Story is a much better movie though).
It's a sort of a horror story but not scary at all and sometimes even really goofy with the featured kind of humour. It has great martial arts and some nice sword fighting and the sets are all eye-candy adding a lot of feeling to the movie itself.
The actors all do a great job, and the story is very good and very captivating. Add to that great fitting music and a lot of it typical traditional chinese style that fits the movie perfectly. The inviroments are awesome and the movie goes full speed ahead from start to finish without ever having a dull moment. If you're into eastern movies this is definitely a must see.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Sinnui yauwan
MOVIE YEAR: 1987
DIRECTOR: Siu-Tung Ching
WRITING CREDITS: Songling Pu, Kai-Chi Yun
GENRE: Action, Fantasy, Horror, Romance
CAST: Leslie Cheung, Joey Wong, Ma Wu
COUNTRY: Hong Kong
RUNTIME: 98 min
RATING: 8/10
Chinese Ghost Story, A Website/IMDB Click here
Chinese Ghost Story, A Trailer Click here
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