A CHINESE GHOST STORY
(Chinatown Video)
Reviewed by Jonathan
Marshall
Hong Kong action and fantasy cinema has always depended upon a high level
of tackiness and general illogic for its effects. Although Chinese Ghost Story I
(1987) is regarded as something of a classic of HK ‘swords and sorcery’ film,
the sheer of level stupidity in this movie can be hard to take. The wire-assisted
acrobatic effects and flying scenes are virtuosically devised and choreographed by Ching
Siu Tung (who also directed the film) and set the standard in this field until Once
Upon a Time in China came out (1990). The ability of CGS to inspire two
sequels must moreover surely count for something. Nevertheless, CGS compares
unfavourably with its many derivative successors. Magic Cop (1989) and Saviour
of the Soul (1991) for example share the crazy, leap-frogging plot tendencies of CGS
and its recurrent blue-lit, smoky fight sequences, but they have much greater flair
and considerably less embarrassing characters and jokes.
For those who found Sex and Zen (1991) amusingly silly rather
than downright crap, CGS certainly holds considerable appeal, but its
foreshortened narrative structure and the entirely unsatisfying shift from one major
villain - the camp, masculinised female Tree Demon with a penetrative tongue that makes
even the tree from Evil Dead (1983) look tasteful - to the shadowy, changeable
Hill Demon - who we never really do get a good look at - fractures the feel and point of
the film in a way even Jackie Chan would blanche at (Lucky Stars [1985] aside).
Even so, the point at which the ghost-hunter (Wu Ma) spontaneously bursts
into a Daoist song about finding the middle path, all the while leaping around, sword in
hand, captures a sense of joyous insanity last fully explored in English-language cinema
when a chorus line was placed on an aeroplane’s wings for Flying Down to Rio (1933).
Basically, this is a film for real connoisseurs of bad taste.
© 2000 Jonathan Marshall
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