Hua pi zhi: Yin yang fa wang (1993)

Director:

King Hu

Writers:

Cheng Ah, King Hu

Stars:

Li-hua Chang, Adam Cheng, Ting Chou

Cast

Credited cast:
Li-hua Chang
Adam Cheng	...	Wang Hsi-Tzu (as Cheng Shao-Chiu)
Ting Chou
Sammo Hung Kam-Bo	...	High Monk
Ching-Ying Lam	...	Purple Taoist
Shun Lau	...	Zhang Daoling
Sheng-yuan Li
Shugui Lu
Joey Wang	...	You Feng
Ma Wu	...	Zhang's Senior
Yi Yang

Storyline

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Genres:

Horror

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Details

Country:

Hong Kong China

Language:

Mandarin Cantonese

Release Date:

18 August 1993 (Hong Kong)

Also Known As:

Human Night in Painted Skin

Company Credits

Production Co:

New Treasurer Films Company

Technical Specs

Runtime:

94 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Connections

Remade as Painted Skin (2008)

User Reviews

Not King Hu's best, but still entertaining ghost flick

Towards the end of his life King Hu seems to be showing interest in ghost stories and supernatural materials and the likes. Similar to "Legend in the Mountain" (1979), this is essentially a story where a benign ghost asked for the help from an exorcist (here Taoist) to help relieve her of her subjugation by an evil, powerful spirit. Unlike what most people say here, the film is actually somewhat more interesting than most HK productions, although it is by no means the equal of, say, the "Mountain" films or "A Touch of Zen". Certainly, Adam Cheng's portrayal as a frivolous scholar-musician helps, and Joey Wong reprises her role as a female spirit in this tale. Wong is outstanding, as always, in this sort of role; Sammo Hung's acting as the Taoist priest also scores well. Although this film would seem more like the usual HK 1990s film than your King Hu affair, some of Hu's signature marks are still there, for instance in the no-nonsense scriptwriting and the very clean, clear-cut editing. It certainly does not deserve the mere 5.1 rating at IMDb at this time of writing.