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Review
by Kozo: |
Unless you’re completely cinema illiterate, you should know that Wilson Yip’s 2011 fantasy adventure A Chinese Ghost Story (called A Chinese Fairy Tale in mainland China) is a remake of the 1987 Ching Siu-Tung classic A Chinese Ghost Story. Yip’s new version modifies the love story between klutzy scholar Ning Choi-Shan (Yu Shaoqun) and forest spirit Siu Sin (Liu Yifei, playing a fox demon and not a ghost, as SARFT would require), creating a love triangle between those two and ghostbusting Taoist monk Yin Chek Ha. Previously, Yin Chek Ha was played by a unibrow-sporting Wu Ma, but here he’s embodied by the much hunkier Louis Koo. The film opens with Yin and Siu Sin falling in love before duty impels Yin to remove Siu Sin’s memory. Siu Sin is freed back into the forest while the tortured Yin continues in his quest to bring down the evil 10,000 year-old Tree Demon (Wai Ying-Hung).
Cue the beginning of the 1987 Chinese Ghost Story, with the arrival of Ning Choi-Shan. Tasked with finding water for a drought-suffering village (led by Hong Kong Cinema veteran Tsui Kam-Kong), Ning heads into the mountains where he meets Siu Sin in a loving slow motion shot stolen straight from the 1987 film. Yin Chek Ha shows up to rout the other evil spirits, but the presence of the amnesiac Siu Sin causes his face to contort with great emotional pain (Louis Koo calls this “acting”). Unwilling to let Ning become food for her evil spirit sisters (Lin Peng and Gong Xinliang), Siu Sin hides him, and the two slowly begin to bond. Meanwhile, the Tree Demon still exists, and it’s none-too-happy. Eventually, everything and everyone will collide in a winner-take-all battle for love, destiny and box office earnings. You know, just like the original.
Truthfully, there’s nothing terribly wrong with this remake of A Chinese Ghost Story. The film recalls the original with a number of solid reverential nods; the filmmakers reuse Leslie Cheung’s classic song, and the film possesses the same costumes, character designs, and even the same "feel" as the original. Director Wilson Yip keeps things moving briskly, and collaborates with cinematographer Arthur Wong to create a spruced-up vision of that old Hong Kong Cinema feeling. Liberal use of dutch angles, blue backlighting and wirework add to the grateful familiarity. The visual effects are improved, but Yip lets the roughness of the production shine through, eschewing realism for a patently fake setting that’s obviously the work of the art department. Hong Kong Cinema was once celebrated for being deliriously, gorgeously fake, and Yip wisely retains that manufactured quality in his remake.
However, given audience familiarity with the original film, the new love triangle seems an odd fit. Granted, it gives Louis Koo and Liu Yifei more opportunities to share screen time, and Koo as a tortured romantic lead is something that female audiences would likely support. Also, Yin Chek Ha is called upon to be the butt of many jokes, and Koo is an ace at this sort of self-effacing comedy. Liu Yifei lacks Joey Wong’s seductiveness, making her Siu Sin less enigmatic and alluring than Wong’s take on the character. But Liu possesses the proper ethereal qualities to play Siu Sin, and looks great in the character's trademark robes. She also handles Siu Sin's emotional scenes well. All things considered, Liu is a fine choice for the role.
Unfortunately, the character of Ning Choi-San suffers. Yu Shaoqun gets Ning’s endearing klutziness down, but he lacks the handsomeness of Leslie Cheung, which certainly added some attraction to the original film's star-crossed romance. Also, the love triangle twist essentially kneecaps Ning and Siu Sin’s romance. With Ning marginalized by the script changes, he seems more like an interloper than Siu Sin’s fated love. The fault isn’t in Yu’s performance - it’s just that the film never seems to favor him, casting him as a pale replacement for the more passionate Yin Chek Ha. The supporting roles shore things up slightly. Wai Ying-Hung acts up a storm as the Tree Demon, and Fan Siu-Wong is surprisingly good as Yin Chek Ha’s estranged Taoist comrade. In his minor role, Tsui Kam-Kong (a.k.a. Elvis Tsui) doesn’t do much, but it’s great to see him simply because he’s Tsui Kam-Kong.
A Chinese Ghost Story is fine for mass entertainment, but it’s hard to ignore the film’s biggest issue: it really has no reason to exist, besides the obvious “cha-ching” that the remake industry promises. Ultimately, it would be better if the Chinese film industry remade bad or forgotten movies (like they did with Painted Skin) instead of super classics that don’t need improving. Or, if you’re going to remake a movie everyone has seen, make it really different instead of changing only a few details while retaining most everything else. But they didn’t, and the result is only a modified clone of the classic original. In the end, this is a money play with little courage behind it – the filmmakers wanted the cash that comes with the brand, but feared the backlash to change things too much. The ultimate defense: the filmmakers did this for money, so the capitalist in us all of us should understand. But we don’t have to like it. (Kozo, 2011) |
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