Customer Reviews

A Chinese Ghost Story II

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Wonderful film. I first watched this when it came out in theaters and remains one of my favorites. This integrates the right amount of magical fighting and romance, even humor into a movie. Joey Wong has improved on her acting since the first, Jackie Cheung and Tony Leung make quite the comical pair. Tony's naivete as a monk and Joey's advances are well played out. Lo Lo (demon woman/man) is even more evil although less tongue lashing.

If you can enjoy a movie that does NOT depend on martial arts this is definitely for you. And just because there were no martial arts there are other visuals to entertain you (more scenes of the evil Chinese ghost girls doing their thing), the beautiful use of the costumes and colors, the images of Lo Lo in the ending. Some aspects will bring back similar scenes from Ghost Story 1--but it doesn't do anything negative to the movie.

If you're looking for a different plot in this third installment to the popular Tsui Hark's series "A Chinese Ghost Story", you might be a little disappointed. The plot greatly resembles the original "A Chinese Ghost Story". Instead of Leslie Cheung, the leading male actor is Tony Leung-Chiu-Wai (this might be a disappointment to those of you who have grown attached to Leslie Cheung's role in the first two installments). Tony Leung plays a monk who gets seduced by a very beautiful female ghost (once again played by Joey Wong) after seeking shelter in Orchid Temple. In this movie, the long tongued tree spirit from the first installment is resurrected hundreds of years later and once again uses beautiful female ghosts to help lure men into its trap. This third installment of the series is a little more on the humor side...much less serious than the first two. Be warned, this is not so much of a love story as one would expect from the series, and this movie is definitely not scary. Seems like the love and horror theme have been somewhat altered in this latest installment. But no matter what, it is still fun to watch, and Joey Wong is still such a feast for the eyes.

I think that Chinese Ghost Story 3 sometimes gets a bad rap because it's hard to watch this film without comparing it to its predecessors (it's essentially a carbon copy of #1 with half the magic - everything from the opening bloodshed to the evil sister is rehashed). But compared to other films in the genre it's actually a decent film on its own merits and satisfying overall.

More scenes are devoted to dialogue than is typical and the fantasy elements are reserved to satisfying but short bouts of swordplay and magic, but I personally enjoyed the character interaction. There's a long scene in the middle which is basically flirting between the monk (Tony Leung) and the ghost (Joey Wang) and it made me smile. Joey Wang reigns as the epitome of a beautiful Chinese ghost and Tony Leung (even though it's hard not to compare his character to the Leslie Chung's more charming tax collector) plays the role of the innocent "I must stay a virgin" monk well.

Fantasy elements embody bouts between the good guys (Leung as the little monk, the old head master monk, & Jacky Cheung's Taoist swordsman) and the tree demon, which has resurfaced 100 years after the first Chinese Ghost Story took place. Some pretty captivating things happen.... i.e. one scene has the old wise master monk knowing he'll be captured. So he utters some magic words and his ears grow long enough to curl up and shield his eyes from the evil. He also throws his staff at Tony Leung, who ends up being riding it back to the inn where they stay. And for humor, the flying staff ends up crashing into a giant gong.

The one letdown I had was the ending. While Chinese Ghost Story 1 took the heroes into hell, and #2 had them fighting a giant centipede, #3 has them going head to head with some kind of evil demon. To represent the demon, they make the inn become alive and move around but it looks mad cheap - like they decided to do a camera closeup on a hand puppet of a building. It's also pretty long, and 10 minutes of watching a building move around is pretty boring. What am I supposed to do? Close my eyes and use my imagination? A visually anemic ending to an otherwise decent film.

I don't remember why I decided to rent Chinese Ghost Story 2. It's probably because it's one of the best examples of a martial arts historical fantasy, and I use the word "historical" loosely.

It's hard to sum up the plot because it's a blending mishmash of several other plots. There's the reincarnated former long lost love, the bumbling tax collector, the clueless demon fighter, the grouchy monk, and a whole slew of bandits who dress up as ghosts.

But it wouldn't be called Chinese Ghost Story 2 if it was only about fake ghosts. There are real ghosts too - one is a hilarious big floppy monster with big fangs, big eyes, and big claws. The other is the main bad guy, who doesn't actually appear until the second half of the movie. And what a bad guy he is - a demon in the form of a false Buddha in the form of a giant centipede.

Get the picture yet? How about a freeze spell gone wrong, a guardian warrior who wields five katanas at once, and people flying around on swords like they were surfboards. The most hysterical part of the film is the tax collector's misuse of aforementioned freeze spell, managing to paralyze himself, the demon slayer who taught him the spell, and the ghost they're both trying to kill - so all three stand frozen for hours in a very awkward pose waiting for the spell to wear off. It's funnier than it sounds, trust me.

For all its wackiness, Chinese Ghost Story is serious stuff. Characters sacrifice themselves to save others, two sisters battle for the love of the tax collector, and the false Buddha chortles as he extols the virtues of fooling the peasantry with false deities.

In this movie, no one is who they seem and virtue ultimately rules above all. The tax collector is mistaken for a great sage. The bandit leader is mistaken for a reincarnated ghost. The demon is mistaken for Buddha. Ultimately, it is the measure of a man or woman that ultimately defines who they are, as demonstrated by the warrior who fights to the death to defend the honor of those he wronged.

Unfortunately, the subtitles of Chinese Ghost Story suffers from a lazy and inept translation. The spell chants are never translated beyond "Abracadabra, hocus pocus!" and some of the spellings are simply incorrect. Still, it wasn't so awful that it impaired my enjoyment of the film.

If Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon piqued your interest, this movie is the next step into Wuxia cinema.

A big fan of both Leslie Cheung and Joey Wong, I was disappointed with the Sequel when compared to the original - The original remains a classic, while the Sequel feels like it was hastily put together to ride the success of the original. What I really didn't like about the movie was the very fake looking ghost/monster...whatever you prefer to call it - okay, even though this was back in the 80s, but I am sure they could have come up with better stuff than that. Leslie revives the role of the helpless scholar/tax collector who is neither a martial arts expert nor a monk who can rid evil to the tee, Joey plays a new character who resembles the original 'ghost', Jacky Cheung is definitely a great addition to the movie but the plot definitely lacks the momentum of the original movie. Some great comical moments.

This is a great movie that I never get tired of watching. Supposedly it is a sequel that take place a hundred years after the events of the first two movies, but in reality it is more like the cinematic equivalent of a remix of the first movie (same basic storyline with elaborations, same actress playing the heroine, similar character types, and so on). And like the first one, it manages the great alchemical mix of genres and moods: romantic and creepy, action-packed and humorous, haunting and light-hearted. But it succeeds in upping these a notch. The romantic relationship between the hero and the ghostly heroine is complicated and given tension by his being a monk (monastic vows and all) and by her being less overtly benign. The special effects are way, way, way better (which is partly due to the passage of time, of course), and these contribute to the choreography of the action...the part where the senior monk detects the presence of evil and abruptly shoots up from his meditation seat into the air and starts gliding about doing reconnaissance is totally cool no matter how many times I see it. And to top it all off, even the subtitles are better.

Also intensified are the religious motifs and themes, obviously, and while Buddhism and Taoism come out as more distinct in this version, the manner in which they are both portrayed in the popular imagination is again fascinating and intriguing in its own right. Anyone who studies East Asian Buddhism could find a lot of food for thought here...and have a great time doing so, to boot.

So don't deprive yourself of this wonderful, entertaining adventure. Watch and enjoy!

A good mix of over-the-top fantasy, lots of wire-fu, an incredibly inept "hero" scholar, the beautiful Joey Wong, some very funny moments, all presented at a break-neck, full-spead-ahead pace. Yes, typically laughable not so special effects, but the story is so interesting, the action non-stop, and atmosphere nearly perfect, that you will find yourself willing to overlook the absence of the kind of quality that one would expect from a Hollywood effort. No, you don't need to see Ghost Story One to understand this one; it's not as if the plot really mattered--what plot there is a very easy to follow. A pretty good DVD, with a cleaned up picture, good sound, lots of language choices. A very enterataining movie.

The second installation falls short of the high standards of eroticism and humor and is not as scary as original Chinese Ghost Story. The plot (what there is of it) is less well defined and the emphasis is more on the humor, which is a little labored. All this is not to say that the film is not fun and worth watching, merely that it is not the classic that the first one is. Good but not spectacular special effects. I think one should definately watch these films in sequence, or you'll be left out in the dark a lot.

This is the second enstallment in a trilogy of rather bizarre and highly special-effects-oriented movies. The first of the three focusses mainly on the love affair between the hero and the spirit of a dead girl. The second film trades much of the romantic elegance of the first for a heavy helping of very exciting and creative action.

Taking place in a fantastic world of Chinese myth and legend, the story follows the young hero from the first movie as he encounters a living woman who bears an identical likeness to his spirit lover from the first film. The events are often strange and sometimes confusing, but always highly entertaining.

Viewers who are new to this particular genre of Hong Kong film will likely find this movie to be very strange and perplexing. It would be best advised to tackle some of the less fantastic fantasy films first, such as "Wing Chun", "Tai Chi Master" or "Dragon Inn" before viewing this trilogy. But once one is accustomed to the style of these kinds of films, Chinese Ghost Story II is well worth the effort of seeking out and finding.

This is just a warning for old school cinema hong kong fans. You may do what I did... buy this video thinking it's a new ghost story movie. This is the 1991 version which was originally titled 'Chinese Ghost Story 2'. I already had this tape in my library so I was looking forward to seeing what I thought would be a previously unseen feature. After tracking Amazon.Com's video selections, I came to learn that this movie is actually 'A Chinese Ghost Story 2', the movie they're selling as 'ghost story 2' is actually the original 'A Chinese Ghost Story'. And what they're selling as 'chinese ghost story', is a children's animated feature from 1987 of the same title. This isn't Amazon's fault, this confusing mess is due to Tai Seng Distribution's updating the marketing on their video catalogue for international retail. This apparently required changing the titles of movies and their sequels (!?!).

On to the review. If you've never seen this movie, but are interested in Cinema Hong Kong, this is an absolute treat. It captures all the action and visual eye candy of Hong Kong's best movies, but also has a sublime beauty beneath the surface for those willing to look. There are strong elements of spirituality and honor. Watch the struggle of light and dark with a buddhist twist as you follow the wise monk and his apprentice to a haunted estate, wherein lies a powerful demon and a duo of beautiful ghosts. Morality, deception, temptation, and redemption, in fact just about every sin or virtue is played out in a grand CHK style where monks can fly, and often do in their quest to crush evil. Evil which aparently can manifest itself as anything from an androgynous sorcerer a giant prickly tongue, or even a living breathing mountain. Tsui Hark makes fun movies with strong production values. The lighting and photography are top notch, and the erotic implications of the alluring ghost tempting the monk's naive apprentice tears this movie away from the pack of CHK's mindless (tho' visually appealing) martial arts movies. For all the visual fun, there are mature themes lurking beneath to titilate even the 'substance over style' armchair critics of CHK. The ambient dreamy soundtrack just adds quality depth to what is one of Tsui Hark's best films, and a true classic of modern Hong Kong Cinema.