A CHINESE GHOST STORY III
(Chinatown Video)
Reviewed by Jonathan
Marshall
The first of the Chinese Ghost Story films from director Ching
Siu Tung and writer/producer Tsiu Hark set the standards for
wire-assisted, blue-lit, smoky, flying HK fantasy for some time. Even so, it was a pretty
awful movie - naff even by HK standards (and that’s saying something). Although this
third instalment is almost the same story as the original (everyone has been literally or
metaphorically reincarnated), the comedy is much more consistently successful. Overall, CGS
III is pretty darn cool as far as silly, fantasy-comedy goes - even if it is perhaps
not quite as good as the second film.
Tony Leung Chiu Wai is superb as the lovable, naïve
young Buddhist monk drawn into a dangerous, morally complex romance with a ghost, despite
his attempts to avoid such entanglements. Leung brings a wonderful
honesty which makes his character the perfect comic centre of the piece, as well as
venturing some lovely homilies on life, good and evil along with his master. La
Yuk Ting is back as the vocally-distorted, transvestite tree demon, while Joey
Wong is again a picture of playful, beguiling femininity in the role of the
ghost. Jacky Cheung even comes along for the ride as a mercenary Taoist -
a disciple of the Taoist from the first film - and yes, he even gets to repeat a bit of
the crazy dance Wu Ma performed in the original.
What really makes CGS III (and to a lesser extent CGS II)
work, is that where the first film was heavy on both the pathos and arty, soft-core
eroticism, the third is more generally playful. It is just all a light romp in the
studio-set woods, with nothing very flash about its style (the editing varies from clean
and slow to the typical, mildly disorientating cross-cutting of HK cinema generally).
Similarly, while the score is slightly annoying in its repetitiveness, it does take
traditional instrumentation and romantic folk ballads, and extends them into more light
electronic-based forms, even going for some rolling, synth-ed out beats in the later
action sequences.
The film is only really marred by a heavy reliance on dodgy, and now very
dated special effects, rendering the action ‘finale’ a distinct anticlimax. The
supposedly awesome mountain demon is represented by a big, rubbery temple (go figure) and
a giant, ugly, tacky, styrofoam head. While not a great film, CGS III is a real,
fun treat.
© 2000 Jonathan Marshall
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