Just so...so bad

Highly Overrated But Still Good

A Disappointing Continuation

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

This movie sort of follows on from the first one. It opens with a rehash of what happened in the previous movie and then Ling and the Taoist part ways. As Ling journeys through the land he comes to notice that there is an excess of thieves and robbers, and escapes with his life after entering an inn run by bandits who cut up their guests and eat them. Unfortunately he is captured by guards and locked up in jail and sent to be executed. While in gaol he impresses an old man who gives him a symbol and shows him the way out. He take this way out and comes upon a group of outlaws who behave as ghosts. One of them reminds him of Sui Sin, and throughout the movie he is constantly seeing her as Sui Sin. It becomes evident though that a great evil is menacing the land, and this evil has taken the form of the high priest.Chinese Ghost Story 2 attempts to out do what they did in the first movie. In the first they fight and kill a demon lord, while in the second one they are confronted by Buddha himself. Buddha is far more powerful than the demon prince, but the strange this is that Buddha is behaving very evilly. The characters in the movie, including the general and the Buddha's servants, appear far more dangerous than those in the earlier movie, but this is not surprising considering what Ling has previously been through. First he fights and destroys a demon lord, so to send him up against something less threatening would not be a challenge.These movie should really appeal to roleplayers as there are a lot of fantasy elements in them. They leave the Western Fantasy movies for dead for in these magic is magic and the monsters are real monsters. Magic is far more common in these movies - they are the providence of the Taoist monks - whereas in the Western movies, sorcerers are few and far between. The encounters are far more interesting as well, such as humans who can burrow through the ground, demons that can turn people into beasts, and soldiers that can turn invisible at will.This movie does go far better than the first, but it acts more to build upon it rather than outdo it. With the Chinese Ghost Stories, I think it works far better if we watch them all rather than say one is better than the other and ignore the others. I have not yet watched number three so I cannot comment on that yet. What it does do though is that it remembers what went on before. Ling is a character that has depth to him. He is pinning for Sui Sin, his lost love - one he knows he cannot see again. He holds tightly onto the painting, and enamoured with the woman who looks a lot like her.I find that these movies are very well done. Tsui Hark, the producer for these movies, did a lot to bring the special effects in Hong Kong up to a equal level with Hollywood. What happens in Hong Kong movies though is that the film makers tend to push for much more, and generally arrive at that place as well. Hong Kong horror is not horror in the Western sense, but more fantasy.

Chinese Ghost Story may well be the best HK film I've seen, effortlessly combining fantasy, romance, horror, kung fu action and comedy, and pulling all these elements off fantastically.It's sequel however... well, how do you describe a movie whose main villain is a giant centipede masquerading as a levitating golden buddha that shoots laser beams out its eyes? This movie is a jarring change of pace from the original - it's pretty much an incoherent, rambling, silly and occasionally hilarious mess. The best scene sees Leslie Cheung battling a monster with a 'freeze' spell which he manages to cast on everyone and anyone - even himself - A-grade slapstick.Still, don't go out of your way to see this.

SINNUI YAUMAN II isn't bad at all, but it's disappointing. It isn't as funny, exciting, touching or visually inventive as its predecessor. The device used to reintroduce Joey Wong into the story is just plain wrong; if they didn't want to bring back her original character ( I have to admit they probably couldn't) they should have come up with a new love interest played by a new actress. Limiting Wu Ma to such a brief appearance limits his chemistry with Leslie Cheung, which is one of the things that made the first film such fun, and there's just about no one else here, except Cheung, who has as much charisma. It is a novel way to bring back the two actors, but it's a letdown.As for Cheung himself, he just isn't as disarming here as in the original; he doesn't fit his character as well. There's also what seems to be some kind of political allegory near the end that doesn't fit the rest of the story - maybe you have to be more familiar than I am with China to appreciate it? Oh, maybe I'm griping too much; it has its good moments (especially a scene concerning a slowly 'thawing' monster)...just not nearly as many as 1987's SINNUI YAUMAN. It waters down the impact of that jewel a bit, and frankly, I wish they'd taken all the good stuff in this film and used it on some entirely different project.

Not entirely sane mixture of martial arts, supernatural tomfoolery, adventure epic, picaresque, Eastern philosophy and religion, and monster movie; featuring cowardly, yet devilishly handsome scholar-heroes, potty priests with magical nous, fearsome, yet cute, highkicking heroines, fat evil fake Buddhas, mendacious high priests, lumbering trolls, hairy gurus and noble warriors. You can choose either THE PHANTOM MENACE and George Lucas, who stole many of these elements to create an enervating sticky gloop that goes on way too long; or this, directed at a breathless pace, full of fun, joy, energy, terror, invention and wonder (and socio-historical critique) which ends far too soon.