MINT: CFF Opening Gala – A Chinese Ghost Story 4K Restoration 倩女幽魂 4K修复版

A debt collector has no other choice than to spend the night in a haunted temple, where he encounters a female ghost, whom he falls in love with. To save her soul he must work with a monk to defeat the tree demon who owns her spirit.

Programme Strand: Opening Gala / Retro Screening

Curators’ notes: A wisp of a fragrant soul drifts between the human world and the underworld, embodying unfinished affection. Drawn from a well-known tale, A Chinese Ghost Story begins with the encounter between a scholar and a female ghost, reframing Pu Songling’s moral allegory through themes of repression and transgression. No longer a device for testing male virtue, a ghostly figure comes to be experienced as a woman once she is situated within a structure shaped by desire and control. Through its stylised spectral imagery, the film casts the fleeting radiance of human–ghost love against the fissures of gendered order. (Crystal Xinjie Wang, edited by Xiyun Li)

Year of Production: 1987
Duration: 98 min
Genres: Romance Fantasy Xianxia
Production Countries/Regions: Hong Kong SAR
Dialogue Language(s): Cantonese
Subtitle Language(s): English
Director(s): Siu-Tung Ching

Producer(s): Zhen Zhong
Executive Producer(s): Hark Tsui
Premiere Status: UK Premiere
Key Casts: Leslie Cheung, Joey Wang, Wu Ma, Lau Siu Ming

For more information on festival programmes, events and films, please visit MINT Chinese Film Festival’s website: www.unicornscreening.com