Watch it!
Wonderful film. I first watched this when it came out in theaters and remains one of my favorites. This integrates the right amount of magical fighting and romance, even humor into a movie. Joey Wong has improved on her acting since the first, Jackie Cheung and Tony Leung make quite the comical pair. Tony's naivete as a monk and Joey's advances are well played out. Lo Lo (demon woman/man) is even more evil although less tongue lashing.
If you can enjoy a movie that does NOT depend on martial arts this is definitely for you. And just because there were no martial arts there are other visuals to entertain you (more scenes of the evil Chinese ghost girls doing their thing), the beautiful use of the costumes and colors, the images of Lo Lo in the ending. Some aspects will bring back similar scenes from Ghost Story 1--but it doesn't do anything negative to the movie.
Fans of the Series Should Definitely Check This One Out.
If you're looking for a different plot in this third installment to the popular Tsui Hark's series "A Chinese Ghost Story", you might be a little disappointed. The plot greatly resembles the original "A Chinese Ghost Story". Instead of Leslie Cheung, the leading male actor is Tony Leung-Chiu-Wai (this might be a disappointment to those of you who have grown attached to Leslie Cheung's role in the first two installments). Tony Leung plays a monk who gets seduced by a very beautiful female ghost (once again played by Joey Wong) after seeking shelter in Orchid Temple. In this movie, the long tongued tree spirit from the first installment is resurrected hundreds of years later and once again uses beautiful female ghosts to help lure men into its trap. This third installment of the series is a little more on the humor side...much less serious than the first two. Be warned, this is not so much of a love story as one would expect from the series, and this...
decent film
I think that Chinese Ghost Story 3 sometimes gets a bad rap because it's hard to watch this film without comparing it to its predecessors (it's essentially a carbon copy of #1 with half the magic - everything from the opening bloodshed to the evil sister is rehashed). But compared to other films in the genre it's actually a decent film on its own merits and satisfying overall.
More scenes are devoted to dialogue than is typical and the fantasy elements are reserved to satisfying but short bouts of swordplay and magic, but I personally enjoyed the character interaction. There's a long scene in the middle which is basically flirting between the monk (Tony Leung) and the ghost (Joey Wang) and it made me smile. Joey Wang reigns as the epitome of a beautiful Chinese ghost and Tony Leung (even though it's hard not to compare his character to the Leslie Chung's more charming tax collector) plays the role of the innocent "I must stay a virgin" monk well.
Fantasy elements...
Click to Editorial Reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment