--- title: "A Chinese Ghost Story" year: 1987 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/a-chinese-ghost-story" fi1m_id: "a-chinese-ghost-story" imdb_id: "tt0093978" tmdb_id: 30421 wikidata_id: "Q300356" fi1m_score: 82 critics_reviews: 3 published: "2026-09-26T01:29:38.966329+00:00" updated: "2026-09-26T01:29:50.272143+00:00" region: "CH" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # A Chinese Ghost Story (1987) Directed by Tony Ching Siu-Tung · 1h 35m · Fantasy, Action ## Identity A Chinese Ghost Story - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/a-chinese-ghost-story - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** a-chinese-ghost-story - **IMDb ID:** tt0093978 - **TMDB ID:** 30421 - **Wikidata ID:** Q300356 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093978/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/30421, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q300356 **Fi1m score: 82** · Critics: 3 of 6 reviews so far *In a sentence:* A tax collector, a ghost, a drunk swordsman and a tongue the length of a corridor, all in ninety-five minutes > Tony Ching Siu-Tung’s fantasy romance throws swordplay, slapstick, horror and a love story into the same fog-filled temple and keeps nearly all of it in the air. The last act is a scramble and the comedy is broad. We recommend it warmly anyway. ## Synopsis Imperial China, in an unnamed century. Ling Choi-san (Leslie Cheung), a timid debt collector, arrives in a mountain town with a ledger the rain has washed blank. Nobody will pay him and nobody will put him up, so he is pointed towards a ruined temple in the woods that the locals will not enter after dark. There he finds Yin Chek-ha (Wu Ma), a Taoist swordsman living among the fallen beams who wants no company, and a rival swordsman, Hsia Hou (Lam Wai), who wants a fight. At night Ling hears a zither and follows it to a pavilion where Lip Siu Sin (Joey Wong) is waiting. She is beautiful, alone and not alive. Ling, who has noticed none of this, falls in love. ## Review *A Chinese Ghost Story* runs 95 minutes and contains a ghost romance, a demon with a tongue that can go through a man’s chest, a rap about Taoism, three swordfights on wires and a wedding in hell. Tony Ching Siu-Tung directs, Tsui Hark produces, and Yuen Kai-Chi’s screenplay takes a tale from Pu Songling’s collection of strange stories and gives it a hero who faints at the sight of blood. It should not hold together. For most of its length it does, and the parts that do are among the loveliest things Hong Kong cinema made in the eighties. Leslie Cheung plays Ling Choi-san as a decent, damp young man who is frightened of everything and goes into the haunted temple anyway because he has nowhere else to sleep. Joey Wong’s Lip Siu Sin is the film’s stillness. She barely moves when the wind machines are throwing her sleeves about, and she looks at Cheung as if she has already decided how this ends. We were not expecting to be moved by a film in which a man is drained to a husk in the first twenty minutes, and then Wong turned from her zither, saw him standing in the doorway, and did not smile. That look is the film. Everything after it is decoration, and it is superb decoration. Four cinematographers are credited, Poon Hang-Sang, Tom Lau Moon-Tong, Horace Wong Wing-Hang and Sander Lee, and between them they build a night that never quite ends: blue moonlight, fog at knee height, white silk lit from behind so that Wong seems to be made of it. The temple is all broken tiles and leaning pillars, and Ching, who came up as an action choreographer, shoots the swordsmen skimming across water and tumbling through roofs with a speed that still looks fast. The Tree Demon’s tongue, when it comes, is a rubbery, glistening thing of no fixed length, and it is more frightening in the dark than any effect from that year with a bigger budget behind it. Wu Ma, as the swordsman Yin Chek-ha, is the film’s engine. He drinks, sulks, fights Lam Wai’s Hsia Hou across a bamboo grove for no reason either of them can name, and at one point sings a song about the Tao that is, without argument, a rap. We laughed, and then felt slightly ashamed of ourselves, because the film means it, and Wu Ma performs it as if he does too. Lam Wai gets less to do but does it with a good deal of hair. The music, by Romeo Diaz, James Wong and David Wu, mixes synthesisers, Cantonese ballads and a great deal of thunder, and the ballads are the ones that stay. Wu also edits the film and turns up on screen as Secretary Chiu, which tells you something about how it was made. The cutting is quick and clean in the temple scenes. It is less clean at the end, where a great many things are flying at once and it is not always clear which of them is winning. That last act is the caveat. The film leaves the temple for a place we will not describe, and once there it becomes a procession of effects, some of them thrilling and some of them plainly a man in a rubber suit under a red gel. The Tree Demon, so good as a voice and a tongue, is less good when the film shows it whole. Ling’s cowardice, which is funny the first four times, is played a fifth and a sixth. And the plot rules of its afterlife change whenever a scene needs them to. Some critics have wondered how much of the film is Ching’s and how much is Tsui Hark’s, since Tsui produced it and the fog, the wires and the tumbling romance look like his. We do not think it matters much on a sofa. What is on screen is a director who knows how a body should move through the air and a producer who wanted a love story, and the two did not get in each other’s way. Set against the fantasy swordplay films around it, this one is warmer and sillier and better lit. Watch it late, with the lights off, and do not try to keep track of who is allowed to do what to whom in the underworld. The film has not kept track either, and it is happier for it. *Fi1m score 82, published 26 September 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is A Chinese Ghost Story worth watching?** *A Chinese Ghost Story* is worth watching for anyone who can take swordplay, slapstick, horror and a ghost romance in the same ninety-five minutes, and we scored it 82. Joey Wong's still, unsmiling Lip Siu Sin and the fog-filled temple are the reasons to see it. The last act is a scramble of effects and the comedy is broad, so it is not for viewers who want their fantasy tidy. **How long is A Chinese Ghost Story, and what is it rated?** *A Chinese Ghost Story* runs 1h 35m. It is a fantasy and action film. **Where can I watch A Chinese Ghost Story in Switzerland?** *A Chinese Ghost Story* is available to rent from Apple TV from CHF 4.50. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service. **How does A Chinese Ghost Story compare to Ugetsu?** *A Chinese Ghost Story* and [*Ugetsu*](https://film.one/film/ugetsu) are both ghost romances set in the same kind of mist, but Mizoguchi's film is slow, grave and unsettling where Ching's is fast, silly and warmly lit. *Ugetsu* is the more controlled and lasting film, and suits a patient evening. *A Chinese Ghost Story* is the one to watch late with the lights off, for wire-work swordfights and a love story that keeps nearly everything in the air. ### Reviews we read (3) - **Empire**, Justin Bowyer (80/100, inferred): The review finds the film a truly strange, genre-blending classic, if not an especially innovative one. It praises the energetic wire-fu action, striking imagery, and the romantic charm of Wong Tsu Hsien. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/chinese-ghost-story-review/) - **Radio Times**, Dick Fiddy (4/5): The critic calls it a marvellous treat and a classic of its kind. They praise its martial-arts sequences, lavish fantasy visuals and bravura set pieces. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-asuxyl/a-chinese-ghost-story/) - **Time Out**, TR (66/100, inferred): The review appears to frame the film as a hit whose creative identity may have been overtaken by producer Tsui. The available description singles out that suspected producer influence but offers no specific praise. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/a-chinese-ghost-story) ## Details - **Director:** Tony Ching Siu-Tung - **Director:** Tony Ching Siu-Tung - **Screenplay:** Yuen Kai-Chi - **Cinematography:** Poon Hang-Sang, Tom Lau Moon-Tong, Horace Wong Wing-Hang, Sander Lee - **Editor:** David Wu - **Music:** Romeo Diaz, James Wong, David Wu - **Producer:** Tsui Hark - **Cast:** Leslie Cheung as Ling Choi-san; Joey Wong as Lip Siu Sin; Wu Ma as Swordsman Yin Chek-ha; Lau Siu-Ming as Tree Demon; Lam Wai as Swordsman Hsia Hou; Fanny Sit Chi-Lun as Siu Ching; David Wu as Secretary Chiu; Wong Jing as Judge - **Runtime:** 1h 35m - **First release (CN):** 18 July 1987 - **Genres:** Fantasy, Action - **Budget:** $1 million - **Box office:** $19 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I1blOtGrck ## Where to watch in Switzerland - Apple TV: rent CHF 4.50, sd - Apple TV: buy CHF 14.00, hd *Checked 2026-09-26.* Also available in: AU, BE, BG, CA, CH, CZ, EE, FI, FR, GR, HK, ID, IE, IL, MY, NZ, PH, PT, SG, TH, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Ugetsu* (1953), Fi1m 89: The ghost romance done slow and grave; Mizoguchi’s mist is the same mist. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/ugetsu.md) - *Kuroneko* (1968): A bamboo grove, two women who are not what they seem, and colder blood. - *Mr. Vampire* (1985): Hong Kong’s other great Taoist-priest picture, with more jokes and hopping corpses. - *Rouge* (1988): Leslie Cheung again, in a quieter ghost story about a debt of love. - *Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain* (1983): Tsui Hark’s earlier flying-swordsman fantasy, with even more going on. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/a-chinese-ghost-story