A Chinese Ghost Story 倩女幽魂 ~ Chinese Movies&TV

Today let’s take a brief introduction of a famous Chinese movie named “A Chinese Ghost Story”.A Chinese Ghost Story (Qiannv Youhun) is a 1987 Hong Kong ghost film starring Leslie Cheung and Joey Wong, produced by Tsui Hark, and directed by Ching Siu-tung. The plot was adopted from a short story of Qing Dynasty Writer Pu Songling’s Strang Stories from a Chinese Studio (Liaozhai Zhiyi). The film is a classic of ghost movies in Hong Kong.

A Chinese Ghost Story is one of Hong Kong’s classic movies in the 1980s. It is the representative of ghost films almost unsurpassable by other films of the same type. The bizarre world of the demons, the beautiful image of the female ghost Nie Xiaoqian, and the romantic atmosphere of the whole film have become the unique imageries lingering in the hearts of the audience.

The plot is based on a story in Pu Songling’s Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio. A scholar named Ning Caichen met a beautiful and alluring woman Nie Xiaoqian when he sought shelter in the deserted Lanruo Temple on a night. They fell in love with each other. A romantic love story between human and ghost thus begins. The unconventional love and the then most sophisticated special effects make the ultimate excellence of the film from content to form. As the first movie made by the Hsui Hark Film Studio, A Chinese Ghost Story created a box office legend in Hong Kong and led to much envy from film producers. A rush for shooting folklore ghost films thus began in Hong Kong film industry. Later, Tsui Hark produced two sequels of A Chinese Ghost Story.

A Chinese Ghost Story series keep the distinct feature of Tsui Hark – using the past to allude to the present. All the three stories happen at an age when the country was in political chaos and people lived in dire poverty. There was only undisguised interest relationship between human beings, while only the leading characters were filled with passion, ambition, and justice. But they were being laughed at as unrealistic and stupid. The issue of “Tao” that has been carried through all the three movies is also filled with realistic significance. Talking about Tao, is there a standard? Saints and sages have their own standards, so do the thieves and robbers. The civil world and the underworld, the yin and the yang, all have their rules. So what the hell is the universal Tao (standard)?

香港Xiānggǎng:one of the two Special Administrative Regions of the People’s Republic of China, the other being Macau.
清朝Qīng Cháo:also Empire of the Great Qing or Great Qing, was the last imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China.
徐克Xú Kè: a Vietnamese-Hong Kong based New Wave film director, producer and screenwriter.