A Chinese Ghost Story II (Ching Siu-tung, 1990)

Joey Wong and Leslie Cheung in A Chinese Ghost Story II

Cast: Leslie Cheung, Joey Wong, Michelle Reis, Jacky Cheung, Wu Ma, Lau Siu-Ming, Waise Lee, Ku Feng, Lau Shun, To Siu-chun. Screenplay: Edward Leung Yiu-ming, Lam Kei-to, Lau Tai-muk. Cinematography: Arthur Wong. Special effects: Nick Allder, David H. Watkins. Film editing: Marco Mak. 

A non-stop, no-holds-barred extravaganza of ghosts, demons, monsters, swordsmen, priests, princesses, and whatever else can be dredged up from Chinese myth and legend, Ching Siu-tung's followup to the 1987 original, A Chinese Ghost Story II does what the first film didn't: It makes the characters secondary to the special effects. Which is not to say it isn't entertaining, but the gifts of its attractive performers are almost incidental. The head-spinning plot follows Leslie Cheung's naive young tax collector Ning Choi San in the aftermath of his romance with a beautiful ghost (Joey Wong). Wrongfully imprisoned, he escapes with the aid of his fellow prisoner, the scholar Elder Chu (Ku Feng), on a horse he unwittingly -- Ning does most things by accident -- steals from a magician, Chi Chau (Jacky Cheung), and winds up in the company of two beautiful sisters, Ching Fung (Wong) and Yuet Chi (Michelle Reis), who mistake him for the real Elder Chu. They and their retinue are trying to free their father, Lord Fu (Lau Siu-Ming), who has also been wrongly charged with a crime and now faces execution. And as if all this weren't confusing enough, Ching Fung is an exact double for Ning's ghostly love -- a fact that astonishes Ning but the film doesn't bother to account for. Ning's old accomplice, the Taoist priest played by Wu Ma, returns too. Everything winds up in a welter of supernatural phenomena that features, among other things, a centipede the size of a subway train and much swooping and swirling of mysterious forces. It's a lot of noisy fun if you don't insist on logic and coherence.   

A Chinese Ghost Story (Ching Siu-tung, 1987)

Leslie Cheung and Joey Wong in A Chinese Ghost Story

Cast: Leslie Cheung, Joey Wong, Wu Ma, Lau Siu-ming, Lam Wai, Xue Zhilun, Wong Jing, David Wu. Screenplay: Yuen Kai-chi, based on stories by Pu Songling. Cinematography: Poon Hang-sang, Sander Lee Kar-ko, Tom Lau Moon-tong, Wong Wing-hang. Production design: Yee Chung-man. Film editing: David Wu. Music: Romeo Diaz, James Wong.

I hadn't expected a Chinese ghost story, or rather a film with that title (the original Chinese title translates as The Ethereal Spirit of a Beauty), to be so funny. But Chiung Siu-tung's frenetic melange of horror tropes, legend, slapstick, martial arts, and satire is just that, thanks to a charming comic performance by Leslie Cheung. He plays a novice tax collector trying to do his job in a village and meeting more than the usual resistance. Forced to spend the night in an abandoned temple, he encounters a beautiful young woman (Joey Wong) and a Taoist priest (Wu Ma). The latter informs him that the young woman is a ghost, but his infatuation persists. It turns out that she's under the control of a tree demon from whom her soul can only be freed if he disinters her remains and takes them to safety. He and the priest set out to do that, but the tree demon, who possesses, among other powers, a threatening tongue, puts up a fight. There are other spirits to be dealt with, too, including a horde of the undead. The barrage of special effects fortunately never overwhelms the performers.