Painted Skin (2008)
"Hua pi" (original title)

An action-thriller centered on a vampire-like woman who eats the skins and hearts of her lovers.

Directors:

Gordon Chan, Andy Wing-Keung Chin,

Writers:

Ho Leung Lau (screenplay), Abe Kwong (screenplay),

Stars:

Xun Zhou, Wei Zhao, Kun Chen

8 wins & 20 nominations.

Cast

Credited cast:
Xun Zhou	...	Xiao Wei
Wei Zhao	...	Pei Rong
Kun Chen	...	General Wang Sheng
Donnie Yen	...	Pang Yong
Betty Sun	...	Xia Bing (as Li Sun)
Yuwu Qi	...	Demon Xiao Yi
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Michael Tan An-Ye	...	Da Dao
Zhao Chang-Zhou	...	Jing An
Kim-Fai Che
Ke Cheng
Kwok-Ping Choi
Xiao Cong	...	Jing Ping
Qu Da-Lei	...	Ding Yi
Wang Fei
Liu Fei-Long

Storyline

Where there is trouble, there is solution. This time, the troubles comes from two myth spirits that take the form of a human. Disguise in human skin and clothes, the two continues to take the heart of human to stay alive and young. But one of them leads to the wrong path and fall in love with a married man. What will happen to the live of this man and his wife after saving the her from the barbarians?

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Plot Keywords:

skin | heart ripped out | sacrifice | love triangle | female nudity | 

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Genres:

Action | Drama | Thriller

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Details

Official Sites:

Official site [jp] Official site [kr]

Country:

Singapore China Hong Kong

Language:

Mandarin

Release Date:

25 September 2008 (Hong Kong)

Also Known As:

Painted Skin

Box Office

Budget:

$10,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Ningxia Film Studio, Shanghai Film Group, Mediacorp Raintree Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

103 min 118 min (Director's Cut)

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Hong Kong's 2009 Academy Awards official submission to Foreign-Language Film category.

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Goofs

All mail armor in this film is made with the the mail going vertically rather than sideways. This would make the armor less effective, as it spreads the ring pattern open, making it easier to penetrate. All historical examples of mail armor have the ring pattern going from side to side for this reason.

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Connections

Remake of Hua pi (1966)

User Reviews

Worst Chinese film in decades? I think so!

After all the effort of building international reputation with films like "Heroes" and "Crouching Tiger", Chinese film has gone back to the starting point with this one. "Painted Skin" is nothing but an amateur attempt trying to imitate other ones, without sufficient skill or patient. The lines are simple AWFUL!!! I wonder whether they came up with the script in two days. The costumes and makeup is a joke, look like recycled from other movies. The acting....Donnie Yen's performance is probably OK for a HongKong TV show and nothing else, and all those supposedly emotional scenes are so badly handled, gave me goose bumps. The worst thing of this film is the directing, the editing and camera works. It is absolutely mind-blowing that such a horrible production, worse than an average video on Youtube, has spent so much money on advertising and publicity stunt, but nothing on making this movie worth seeing.