A Chinese wuxia fantasy directed by Wilson Yip, starring Louis Koo and Kara Hui.
The tree demon's servant from the original has a thing for mortal men. One of them stabbed her in the head with a magic dagger to make her forget him, so she falls in love with another one. Her new romantic interest and 3 demon hunters work to defeat that same tree demon again.
This is obviously not part of the original series. The hour and 36 minutes seemed a little long in comparison with the original film's hyperdrive speed. The plot wandered aimlessly through love affairs, magic and violence that all became a big, muddy mess. Characters were very identifiable, but all of their dialogue and acting was very similar. It was sets and costumes that made this worth watching. Everyone had different clothing and hairstyles. The tree demon even got a hair color change at the end (oops, I ruined the whole plot). The magical locations had the best sets like inside the tree and a sea of leaves. In special effects, we had CG snakes and hair (among other things) as well as people and items flying. Audio had clear dialogue, a good mixdown and a sappy musical score. Although more modern and technically superior to the original film, this lacks its namesake's style and flair. The China Post gave this 2/5 stars, it has 5.7/10 on IMDB and 32% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. 43% average is a little worse than it deserves, but not much. I rate this tolerable because I like the genre, but realize that it's totally lame and hollywooded.
A Chinese wuxia directed by Ching Siu-Tung, starring Leslie Cheung, Joey Wong and Wu Ma.
A young debt collector can't afford to stay at an inn, so he spends the night in a "creepy looking old temple". There he meets men fighting with swords and a beautiful woman playing music. It turns out that the woman is a ghost and the swordsman and debt collector try to save her from "the old dame", a tree demoness who forces the ghost woman to lure men to their deaths.
This is the fastest paced film I have ever seen. It makes Kung Fury seem calm and contemplative by comparison. The hour and a half went by very quickly. The plot was clearly communicated and held my attention with ghosts, demons and the undead. Some call this the Chinese Evil Dead. I didn't really have time to get to know the characters because they were always rushing around and speaking like auctioneers. Dialogue was very thick, lots of words per second and acting mirrored this quality. I really liked the old temple set and the town looked authentically ancient China. The camera-work actually did remind me of Evil Dead. There were lots of close ups, creative angles and high contrast imagery. I watched a version dubbed into English, but the soundtrack was awesome. I could tell that it was mostly created using a cheap keyboard and inferior piano skill, but that's what made it so cool. The style was overflowing. Think Bride with White Hair combined with Evil Dead. This won 12/23 awards that it was nominated for, has a 7.6/10 on IMDB and 67% tomatometer and 86% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Average grade is a 70% C-. I beg to differ. I thought it was full of style, had an interesting plot and did not struggle to hold my attention. The only problem that I found was that it moved way too fast. More like A Chinese Amphetamine Story. I rate this good.
