WINSOME GIRL, SECLUDED SOUL

Nothing says good solid entertainment better than an elderly drunk dancing with a sword.
If Billy Shakespeare had ANY sense, he'd rewrite King Lear right now to include that. Seriously. Gotta get the audience's attention, dude.

Oh wait. I just heard. Never mind.



倩女幽魂A Chinese Ghost Story

Ning TsoiSan (寧采臣), a rather timid scholar played by Leslie Cheung (張國榮 Cheung KwokWing, 1956 - 2003), is a bill-collector (收帳) travelling through the hinterlands on his rounds. He arrives at a town where no lodging is available, and is advised to go stay the night at a deserted temple in the forest.

A hermit Taoist (道士) who lives there would much prefer that he didn't. Whereas a thousand-year old tree daemon (樹妖) is just fine with the idea - which we don't quite find out for a while, as she sends an enslaved female spirit, 聶小倩 (Nip Siusing), played by the stellar Joey Wong (王祖賢) to seduce him and make him ripe for some serious vital essence draining.
He proves to be too decent a fellow, and then things start going horribly and weirdly wrong. The tale soon becomes a struggle between the Taoist (燕赤霞 Yin Chek-haa - "swallow in the rosy glow of dawn") and the tree daemon, with young master Ning and miss Nip being the starcrossed lovers caught in the middle.
All more or less ends well - Ning TsoiSan and the Yin ChekHaa prevent her from being married off to a daemon king in the underworld, and retrieve her ashes so that she can be reincarnated.

Great movie. Well worth seeing.
Comedy, tragedy, love story, and all round good entertainment.


With a dancing drunk.


The Taoist Yin Chek-haa is played by veteran actor 午馬 (Ng Ma), real name 馮宏源 (Fung Hongyuen).
Who is almost unrecognizable with whiskers and weirdly flaring eye-brows,


In this clip, he practices a strange form of martial art.

DANCING TAOIST
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LdxsdUOzQY


Ning TsoiSan gets seriously freaked out during the opening credits, which gives us a very good impression of his character.

NING TSOISAN EATS A MANTOU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvYVB1I1ZmM&feature=related


I would give full links to the entire movie, but the chances of those links being worthless at some point soon is far too great - posting that material on Youtube is a copyright violation, and such things eventually are pursued, the links taken down, the account holder barred.

Instead, just borrow the movie, or buy it off the internet. You'll be glad you did.


[A CHINESE GHOST STORY - Made in 1987, Hong Kong. The Chinese name of the movie is 倩女幽魂 (Sing Nui Yau Wan - 'winsome girl secluded soul'). Directed by Ching Siutung (程小東), produced by Tsui Hark (徐克).]

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