Mo hua qing

This is yet another romance between a man and a female ghost. I usually enjoy these movies, except this one does everything wrong: Wrong focus, wrong time period, wrong story, bad acting, no action. Instead of focusing on the lovely Joey Wong and her relationship with Tony Leung, the film wastes a lot of time on the supposedly comic Hijinx of Leung and Chu, during several unfunny episodes with very bad acting. The action is transposed to the present, losing the usual charm and beauty of this type of movie. The story is uninteresting and confusing, mixing unsuccessfully several strands for no other reason than to move the plot. Tony Leung's performance is badly overdone, his character is unlikable and plain stupid. I cannot believe this is the same actor featured in Hardboiled or In The Mood of Love. Even bad Hong Kong movies can be redeemed by some action scenes, but this movie doesn't have them either. Only one short sequence, which seems like a parody of "A Chinese Gost Story", a much better film.

So what's left? Joey Wong is as charming and cute as ever, in one of her many female ghost roles. The animation scene at the end is interesting if cheaply executed. That's about it. Not enough even for Joey Wong fans to make this movie watchable.