Hong Kong Cinema Classics: A Chinese Ghost Story (1987)

Ning Tsai-Shen, a humble tax collector, arrives in a small town to carry out his work. Unsurprisingly, no-one is willing to give him shelter for the night, so he ends up spending the night in the haunted Lan Ro temple. There, he meets Taoist Swordsman Yen Che-Hsia, who warns him to stay out of trouble, and the beautiful Nieh Hsiao-Tsing, with whom he falls in love. Unfortunately, Hsiao-Tsing is a ghost, bound for all eternity by a hideous tree spirit with an incredibly long tongue that wraps itself round its victims and sucks out their life essence (or ‘yang element’)…

The Hong Kong Cinema Classics program is presented by Shout! Factory and GKIDS.

Directed by Ching Siu-tung

1987 | Hong Kong | Cantonese language with English subtitles | DCP