Plot: Ling Choi San (Leslie Cheung) is a humble tax collector who arrives in a small village to collect the tax from some of the local businesses. Unsurprisingly, no one is willing to give him shelter for the night, so he decides to travel through the forest to the Lan yeuk temple, which turns out to be abandoned and haunted.
Whilst staying there for the night he meets a Taoist Swordsman Yin Chek Hsia (Wu Ma), who warns him about the evil sprits. Unable to sleep Ling wonders off into the forest where he meets the beautiful Nip Siu Sihn (Joey Wong), with whom he falls in love with.
Unfortunately, Siu Sihn turns out to be a ghost, bound for all eternity by a hideous tree spirit (Lau Siu-Ming) with an incredibly long tongue that wraps itself round its victims and sucks the life right out of there body, but this wont stop Choi San…
Review: This is a film for all I say. It is the perfect blend of genres. I’m not really a fan of romance films, but this film balances it out with noticeably comedy, action, drama and its memorable theme tune.
Ling Choi San is a turns out to be the poor soul dragged into this mess. His character is very shy, innocent and Nip Siu-Sihn cant find it in her heart to devour him, or at least distract him until the tree demon arrives.
Siu-Sihn is a lonely succubus – a Chinese ghost known to devour men by loving them to death. Siu-Sihn is watched out by the evil tree demon who practically controls the woodland area that she ‘works’ in. The tree demon informs Siu-Sihn that she is due to marry the Lord of the black mountain, against her own will, Siu Sihn has no choice be agree.
Master Yin is a fun character, also known as the Daoist Swordsman, he adds the a healthy dosage of Action/Swordplay. Master Yin acts as the voice of reason to Choi San as he warns him about the ghosts haunted the woodlands, but did he listen?
I’m not going into anymore detail on the film, but its fab and I think everyone should at least watch it once. Leslie Cheung gives an outstanding performance. It shows him in a different light compared to his past role in the John Woos ‘A Better Tomorrow’. The film just doesn’t finish here let me mind you, they go on to a just as good sequel starring Jacky Cheung along with Leslie, even Joey Wong and Wu Ma come back!
