Xiaoqian
"Little 'Pretty'"
Chinese Ghost Story
From ???@??? Mon May 03 11:31:08 1999
To: anime
From: Kiki
Subject: THURSDAY!! "Chinese Ghost Story" at UC Theatre
I should've sent this out a while back...
http://bayarea.citysearch.com/E/V/SFOCA/0010/85/13/cs1.html
"Chinese Ghost Story" is playing at the UC Theatre at 7:15 thursday. ["Wings of Honniamise" is playing at 5pm and 9pm.] I really been wanting to see Chinese Ghost Story!
Let's meet out front of the theatre at 7pm. [We'll feast big after the show.]
****** Misc. info about the movie! ******
From a review of the DVD:
---
Tsui Hark's latest is a dazzling Anime version of the classic film
"A Chinese Ghost Story." When starving student Line and his faithful dog
accidentally step into the otherworld, he falls in love with a beautiful
ghost. After discovering her true identity, Lin vows to take her as his
bride, but they first have to catch the ever-moving Reincarnation Train,
as well as dodge the attacks of an exorcist and his flying robot! Filled
with Tsui's trademark imagination, lightning fast pace, and state-of-the-art
computer animation, "A Chinese Ghost Story: The Tsui Hark Animation" is
a landmark in Hong Kong cinema history, as well as a visual feast for the
entire family!
Aesthetic Ratings:
Overall Score A+ Story
A
Artwork A+
Voice Acting A
---
An interesting comment:
It's a mixture of 2D and 3D animation and it's more of a roller-coaster
ride than the [1987/1990/1991, 3-part, live action] originals. With non-stop
colourful action set pieces, you can tell that the medium has set Tsui
Hark's imagination free and has given him a chance to rework some of the
scenes that didn't come out right in his live-action pics. Also, watch
those lips. The way they don't synch (or don't even bother to move) is
very much a Tsui Hark tradition that has amused us for years. Animation
has finally given him a license for doing it.
---
My own condensed version of these two pages:
http://www.houseofhorrors.com/harkbio.htm
http://www.houseofhorrors.com/tsuihark.htm
Tsui Hark [say "Choy Hok"] was sent to college in Texas to study film, but when he returned, his films -- of American influence -- were lost on the Asian audiences. Not until 1983, with "Zu, Warriors of Magic Mountain" that he found a good mix of Asian and American. Generally, he's a horror director, but he's more "interested in the cerebral aspects of horror" and felt horror didn't need monsters and gore to make it's point. So he decided to make a horror/love-story, first as three live-action films, then he wrote and produced this animated film.
Note also that Tsui Hark does the voice of the dog in the original --
I wonder if they left his [non-speaking, doggy] voice in??
---
Chinese Ghost Story website:
<http://imsp008.netvigator.com/chineseghoststory/eng/treasure/>
Official website in Chinese: <http://www.netvigator.com/chineseghoststory/main/main.html>
The Viz website:
<http://www.viz.com/products/series/cgs/>
Some reviews:
[DVD review -- spoilers in the first two paragraphs!]
http://www.dvdresource.com/reviews/chineseghoststory.shtml
[layman's review of the DVD]
http://smr-home-theatre.org/dvd/reviews/Chinese_Ghost_Story.html
[spoilers!]
http://www.mediacity.com.sg/e-buzz/bscreen/reviews/11063.htm
[misc user reviews. A number of them critical.]
http://filmcritics.org.hk/chineseghoststory/review.html
The other three live-action films:
<http://st21.yahoo.com/cgi-bin/nsearch?catalog=asianxpress&query=%22Chinese+Ghost+Story%22>
****** end info! ******
So, let's meet at 7pm at the theatre for Ghost Story. Afterwards, let's eat at Hot Pot City across the street -- come with a big apetite! It's an all-you-can-stand buffet!
Kiki
PS I'll probably show Wings again, but if you want to see it, let me know and I'll go with you to the 5pm showing. It's a *great* film! I highly recommend it, if you haven't seen it! This was last year's announcement for it:
http://www.kiki.org/anime/descriptions/misc/wings.html
PPS Also, I'm almost certainly going to buy Chinese Ghost Story myself -- so I'll show it too! :)