The Cinematheque

New Restoration

“A Chinese Ghost Story is a seminal text, for it brings to an apex everything Hong Kong cinema is good at, [taking] ideas and techniques from everywhere.”

Berenice Reynaud, Film Comment

After Tsui Hark met action coordinator Ching Siu-tung while working on Peking Opera Blues, the two teamed up to make one of the great B‑movie series during the height of Hong Kong action cinema. A gothic romance, a folk horror story, and a showcase for gravity-defying wirework, A Chinese Ghost Story centres on the relationship between hapless tax collector Choi-san (Leslie Cheung) and an ethereal ghost (Joey Wong); the lovers are chased by stop-motion undead, tree demons, and the rapid pursuit of POV camera acrobatics. Tsui and Ching were working from reliable material, given the source tale for the film had already been adapted by Li Han-hsieng (The Love Eterne) in The Enchanting Shadow, a successful Shaw Brothers production. What makes this version endure is its mix of montage precision and nearly surreal nonsense. Cheung’s performance oscillates between slapstick and swoon-worthy romanticism, talents also invoked in the haunted love story of Stanley Kwan’s Rouge.

In Cantonese with English subtitles

“Casually virtuosic … Full of movement but never seeming rushed or confused, A Chinese Ghost Story displays a patterned precision typical of 1980s Hong Kong cinema.”

David Bordwell, Planet Hong Kong

“The original [Chinese Ghost Story] is hard to top for stylistic boldness, vivid pictorialism, and dramatic power.”

Ted Shen, Chicago Reader