A CHINESE GHOST STORY II (1990)
Directed by: Ching Siu-tung
Starring: Leslie Cheung, Joey Wong, Jacky Cheung, Wu Ma, Waise Lee, Michelle Reis, Lau Shunn
The first Chinese Ghost Story was a massive hit, spawning a million imitators and launching a new horror wave in Hong Kong, and so investors demanded a sequel. Tsui wanted a sequel, too, but he didn’t want to be tied to the same cast and he wanted to tell more stories in the same universe, switching casts where necessary, and working his way through Pu Songling’s Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. But after writing a script for the next installment, it took two years to raise money and the only people willing to put up the cash insisted that he bring back the exact same cast (Wu Ma included), so the entire thing had to be re-written at the last minute, and Tsui wound up traveling a million miles only to wind up right back where he started.
Made as the Tiananmen Square Massacre was sending shock waves through Hong Kong, ACGS2 is Tsui’s most political movie to date, and it oozes symbolism from the first frame to the last. Before you start thinking it’s a dry and dusty political statement, rest assured, it also oozes ectoplasm and a couple of hundred gallons of supernatural goop, as well. Leslie Cheung shows back up as a hapless tax collector, only now he’s mourning the loss of Hsiao-ting, his ghostly lady love from ACGS1. But his broken heart hasn’t rendered him any more fit for human company and once again he’s about as welcome in the village as a bad smell. The peaceful, albeit back-stabbing, village of the first movie has fallen on hard times as a famine sweeps the country and it’s gone cannibal. In the first indication that something more than just ghosty romance is on Tsui’s mind, Chinese eat Chinese and Leslie is falsely accused of being a criminal and thrown into an absurdist prison.
Imprisoned for months, the first good meal he gets comes on the eve of his execution. Even the thought of being reunited with Hsiao-ting can’t lift his spirits, and sensing that he’s bummed out by being scheduled to die for a crime he didn’t commit, his cell mate offers him access to his secret escape tunnel. WTF?!? Leslie can’t believe this guy has a way out of prison and doesn’t use it. Enh, his cell mate responds, what’s the point? The world is a terrible place. It’s safer to stay in prison. Leslie feels differently, and squirms his way to freedom, then goes to ground at the one place where no one will ever look for him: the haunted grounds of the ruined Orchid Temple. Also using it as a hiding place are a gang of revolutionaries who mistake Leslie for their incarcerated leader. Leslie resists at first, but then plays along once he sees that one of the revolutionaries, Windy (played by Joey Wong), is an exact lookalike for his beloved Hsiao-ting (who was also played by Joey Wong). Before you can say “Bad idea,” Leslie is in love again.
Just when the audience is getting used to a love triangle between Leslie, Windy, and her little sister, a giant monster shows up. Close on its heels comes Jacky Cheung, replacing Wu Ma as the hyperkinetic Taoist ghostbuster, a maniacal grin on his face, a far-too-effective freeze spell on his lips. And just when the audience is getting used to the revolutionaries taking on the monster, Tsui drops in his final twist: Waise Lee as a righteous officer of the Imperial court, brandishing a mean spear and determined to bust these revolutionary elements (plus monsters) and haul them off to be tortured to death in prison. Unfortunately, he doesn’t realize that the eunuch he serves is a possessed demonic creep from hell who is determined to brainwash the entire country with his weaponized Buddhist chanting.
A Chinese Ghost Story II ups the production stakes, putting more actors, more backlit smoke-filled blue forests, and more giant monsters onscreen. An American special effects team was supposed to build the main monster and the giant centipede that show up late in the movie, but Tsui thought their work wasn’t acceptable and ditched them, turning to his very own special effects shop, Cinefex, to build his monster instead. The final result is little more than a giant, warty puppet on the end of a stick, but it’s got more personality than a million CGI nightmare creations, and the giant centipede they whip up for the climax is a hell of a lot of fun.
Far more than part 1, part 2 moves at the speed of light, constantly commenting on itself. Leslie is so lovestruck that he could care less about the revolution and the fate of the country means absolutely zero to him in the face of his own giant-sized emotions. Everyone is lost in their love affairs, missing cues, overlooking hints, misreading situations, and the movie seems to ask that if these revolutionaries can’t handle a little bit of puppy love then how can they possibly deal with political reform?
But the movie’s got no time to get hung up on romantic languors — it doesn’t slow down to take a breath until the 40 minute mark. Even then, that’s just a brief pause before it’s off to the races again as we witness one of cinema’s most amazing screen kisses as Leslie exchanges “yang energy” with a possessed, levitating Windy. Then we get treated to religion as a literal opiate of the masses, and finally a last minute appearance by a flying golden Buddha with laser beam eyes.
“We don’t even know each other. Why are we fighting?” one character asks another, and it gives an idea of the frantic, post-Tiananmen Square chaos that gripped Chinese cinema as everyone wondered why Chinese were killing Chinese, and they all feared that far worse was yet to come. Even the ending of this romance redefines melancholy. “Now I understand why you stay away from our mortal world,” Leslie says at the end to Jacky Cheung. “Should we even have hopes?”