Written by Roy Szeto Wai-Cheuk and Tsui Hark, starring Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Jacky Cheung, Joey Wong, Lau Shun, Lau Siu-Ming and Nina Li Chi. Directed by Ching Siu-Tung, produced by Tsui Hark, with action by Ching Siu-Tung, Yuen Bun, Ma Yuk-Sing and Cheung Yiu-Sing. A Film Workshop/Golden Princess Amusement Co. Ltd production.
Chinese poster
Not the smoothest complexion I’ve ever seen
Set a hundred years after the events of the first movie, the tree demon is on the loose again, controlling some beautiful ghosts. The hero this time is a Buddhist monk nicely played by Tony Leung, and Joey Wong is once again the ghostly love interest.
A smiling monk (Leung) and his master
The ghostly heroine (Wong) and the tree demon
German DVD cover
The original A CHINESE GHOST STORY from 1987 was a horror-martial-arts-ghost-comedy-romance that masterfully merged all its elements very well. This sequel, on the other hand, is far more weighted towards romantic slapstick comedy and is less focused on the sword fights and monsters. This is a shame as the tree demon’s giant killer tongue returns in this movie, but is not used as much as it could have been.
Japanese poster
We do get some brief monstrous moments, though, when a temple building comes to life and the giant stone head of a mountain demon is briefly seen.
A mountain demon’s stony face roars
A temple ‘comes to life’ and grows ‘limbs’
There’s some novel stuff to look out for too, like the master monk stretching his earlobes to cover his eyes when he’s caught by the tree demon: this ‘ear technique’ is quite weird looking!
The Buddhist master extends his earlobes so that they can cover his eyes!
There’s also a ghost girl who can extend her fingernails super-long, but this movie, ultimately, though it boasts some winning performances, simply lacks the heart, the verve and the visual flair of the far better original.
Starring Yuen Biao, Adam Cheng, Meng Hoi, Sammo Hung, Moon Lee, Brigitte Lin, and Tsui Siu-Keung. Directed by Tsui Hark, produced by Raymond Chow, with action by Corey Yuen, Meng Hoi, Yuen Biao and Fung Hark-On.
Zu!
This fine fantasy flick, based on a 1932 book called ‘The Legend of the Swordsman of the Mountains of Shu’ by Huanzhulouzhu (the pen name of Li Shoumin), is so fast, frantic, absurdly action-gorged, fantastical and odd that it makes pretty much any film made in the west look snail-paced in comparison to it.
Yuen Biao!
Ming wants to escape the civil war that is blighting his land
Set in a region called Zu, the film tells the tall tale of Ming (Biao), an army private, who becomes disillusioned with the civil war ravaging his land. He escapes to the Magic Mountains, which is a grim area plagued by demons and evil disciples. Meeting up with some magical warriors, Ming attempts to prevent the Blood Monster from ending the world.
A bunch of bad dudes!
The Blood Monster in its liquid form
Poster
By far the best portion of this movie, for me, is Ming’s initial venture into the mountainous region, a zone of misty boulders and temples, where the private encounters virgin-sacrificing cult members and demons that resemble blue-eyed Jawas with stretching bodies!
There’s a blue-eyed ‘Jawa’-demon behind you!
After teaming-up with three good monk-fighters, Ming confronts the Blood Monster, which first appears as a cascade of blood, then becomes a red sheet-covered entity. To the aid of the heroic foursome comes Long Brows (Hung): a grey-haired mystic who manages to keep the Blood Monster in check by clasping it with his magically extending eyebrows and beard! The Blood Monster protects its soul, though, by surrounding itself with the skulls of sacrificial virgins and tusks!
Long Brows, played by Sammo Hung, has got weaponised eyebrows!
Ming and his three companions go in search of two powerful swords capable of finally destroying the Blood Monster before it grows too powerful to be restrained by Long Brows.
The Blood Monster as a red sheet-covered entity
Tsui Hark adds so many fights, mystics, flying skirmishes, animated magic effects, arguments, twisting Buddha statues and multiple scene-changes that the cumulative effect of this non-stop, energetic assault to the senses is that you feel like your head might explode!
Korean poster
By the time the heroes are flying through red, swirling skyscapes, armed with glowing, magic swords, you wonder if you’re hallucinating it all! Hark maybe tries to cram just too many optical effects into the finale and the end results are often less effective than, say, the mainly practical special effects seen in A CHINESE GHOST STORY, but there’s so, so much to enjoy here, why bother to quibble? And, let’s face it, what other movie contains a fight between a man and a woman zooming about on levitating large elephant statues and a stone griffin?!
Getting ready to fight on the elephant statues…
Note: The English dubbed version starts off in the modern day, and is edited to suit a more western market.
This flick is an energetic assault to the senses
Chinese poster
Frenetic, funny, bizarre, wacky, magical and mad as a box of frogs.
Starring Lau Siu-Ming, Wong Shu-Tong, Michelle Yim, Chan Chi Chi and Eddy Ko, directed by Tsui Hark for Seasonal Film Corporation.
Tien Fung, leader of the Ten Flags clan, investigates the mystery of killer butterfly attacks in the deserted Shum Castle, accompanied by some of his troops and lone woman warrior Green Shadow. Entering the catacombs beneath the castle, they encounter esteemed scholar Fong (Siu-Ming), Master Shum, his wife and a mute maid named Chee. The butterflies continue to kill, hidden rooms are discovered and renowned fighters known as the Thunders enter the story.
Tien Fung and Green Shadow inspect a dragon carving in Shum Castle
Poster
Butterflies munch on a victim’s hand
Tsui Hark’s first film is an assured, thoroughly engrossing Hong Kong new wave wuxia murder mystery with creature feature elements. The empty Shum Castle itself, often shown from the outside, looming above the long grasses, adds immeasurably to the atmosphere of the film, as does the effective use of Jerry Goldsmith’s PLANET OF THE APES score. Wong Shu-Tong is steely, stoic and thoughtful as Tien Fung and Michelle Yim is playful and acrobatic as Green Shadow.
Wong Shu-Tong is a cool dude in this movie
Butterflies on a corpse
The film offers a realistic reason for characters being able to fly about, by showing them using various line-firing gizmos, but there are still fantastical components to the story, like a fire crow bird that explodes on contact with people and the notion that butterflies can actually kill a person, though these lethal Lepidoptera assaults are actually explained away as being the result of the use of ‘butterfly-controlling medicine’.
Master Shum is assaulted by a swarm of butterflies
Be careful… this bird can blow up!
The introduction of a helmeted armoured man becomes the focus of the latter stages of the movie, with the killer butterflies taking a back seat, as fights involving dart-ejecting weapons and explosive projectiles ultimately lead to a nihilistic finale.
The mysterious armoured dude
Art by Maya Edelman
The secret plans and rivalries eventually revealed to be the reasons behind the events may fail to be particularly compelling, but THE BUTTERFLY MURDERS remains a very moody, intriguing, enjoyable viewing experience.
A giant tongue sprouts a toothy mouth and tentacles!
A tax collector (Leslie Cheung) travels to a rural town and ends up taking shelter in a creepy, deserted temple in the forest. Here he encounters a beautiful young woman (Joey Wong) and falls in love with her. A Taoist priest (Wu Ma), however, informs our hero that this woman is a ghost… and it is soon revealed that she is under the control of an evil Tree Demon.
Poster
Shrivel-faced zombie!
Directed with kinetic panache by Ching Siu-Tung, this film is a horror-romance-martial-arts-comedy-actioner that is crammed with atmosphere, emotion, gravity defying swordplay and some goofball physical comedy.
Leslie Cheung and Joey Wong
Its mix of Asian story elements (beautiful flying ghosts, a Taoist priest-swordsman, etc) and western filming techniques (Sam Raimi-esque roving cameras and some gooey FX) make this Hong Kong production an enormously entertaining watch, with Leslie Cheung, Joey Wong and Wu Ma all perfect in the leading roles.
Wu Ma performs a very acrobatic Taoist rap!
Joey Wong is a standout playing the sexy-yet-vulnerable ghost, flying about the stylishly-lit locations in her flowing silk robes. There is a wonderful moment where she gives Leslie Cheung’s character (who is having to hide from her evil ‘sisters’ underwater) a slow motion kiss that is also providing him with much-needed air. (This is my all-time favourite screen kiss!)
The mysterious ghost-girl
And, of course, we shouldn’t forget the shrivelled stop-motion corpses in the temple. These undead dudes shuffle around the building in the early part of the film, trying to get hold of the hero, but thanks to a series of comedic, lucky mishaps he remains completely unaware that the zombies are there, eventually killing them with sunlight without ever noticing them!
Stop-motion corpses in the attic!Another shot of the stop-motion zombiesFull-scale zombie head used for close-ups
The ancient tree spirit villain is a great antagonist, appearing as a cross-dressing dame or a gigantic human tongue. At one point the tip of the huge tongue splits, becomes a toothed maw with a face at the back of the jaws, with tentacles sprouting everywhere!
The tree demon!
Giant tongue erupts through the floor!
80s Hong Kong madness!
Produced by the legendary Tsui Hark, the film’s plot is loosely based on a tale from writer Pu Songling’s short story collection STRANGE STORIES FROM A CHINESE STUDIO. That ghost yarn was originally adapted for the screen in 1960 as the Shaw Brothers film THE ENCHANTING SHADOW, a movie that was an influence on Hark when he made his own version of the tale in 1987.
I was really impressed with A CHINESE GHOST STORY when I first saw it in the cinema back in 1987. With its effortless merging of genres, a haunting score and a finale featuring the heroes battling it out in the netherworld to save the heroine, the movie turned me into an avid, obsessed Hong Kong movie fan!
Wu Ma is especially good as the sword-fighting monk
Japanese poster
Awesome stuff!
Netherworld finale!
(If you hunt this down to watch, make sure you see the perfectly-formed ’87 version and not the remake)
One more look at the undead corpses in the attic!
Episode 79 of MOVIESTRUCK…
MOVIESTRUCK is a New York-based podcast about movies and the people who watch them – and this episode features me, along with Eastern Heroes magazine publisher Ricky Baker, talking to host Sophia Ricciardi about the utterly amazing A CHINESE GHOST STORY (1987). You can listen to it HERE!
Devoted to every kind of movie and TV monster, from King Kong to Godzilla, from the Blob to Alien. Plus monsters from other media too, including books and comics.
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