THE ENCHANTING GHOST (1970, original title Gui wu li ren) is a Shaw Brothers ghost story that sits as a midway point between Shaw's 1960s-era huangmei operas and their full-blooded horror offerings of the second half of the 1970s. The storyline involves a scholar who finds himself evicted from his home by an unscrupulous landlord. He moves into an abandoned house with a haunted reputation and there falls in love with a mysterious young woman.
There's going to be a lot here that'll make modern audiences scratch their heads, such as the male protagonist being played by an actress (a convention from Shaw's opera days). The pacing is glacial and the supernatural elements kept few and far between, aside from some familiar tropes in the last ten minutes or so. For the most part, this is a romance combined with minor tragedy and revenge elements. The film has interesting things to say about gender and class, but you do wonder why Waddell picked it as part of his Shaw package for 88 Films as there are a lot more vibrant Shaw horror films out there, notably their work from a decade later.
