Painted Skin

After all the effort of building international reputation with films like "Heroes" and "Crouching Tiger", Chinese film has gone back to the starting point with this one. "Painted Skin" is nothing but an amateur attempt trying to imitate other ones, without sufficient skill or patient. The lines are simple AWFUL!!! I wonder whether they came up with the script in two days. The costumes and makeup is a joke, look like recycled from other movies. The acting....Donnie Yen's performance is probably OK for a HongKong TV show and nothing else, and all those supposedly emotional scenes are so badly handled, gave me goose bumps. The worst thing of this film is the directing, the editing and camera works. It is absolutely mind-blowing that such a horrible production, worse than an average video on Youtube, has spent so much money on advertising and publicity stunt, but nothing on making this movie worth seeing.

The movie painted skin is loosely based on a legendary Supranatural Chinese tale 'Hua Pi' about a disguised demon under a human skin(drawn skin exactly). Like many favorite ancient tales, despite the illogical and senseless aspect, always have some moral aspect to be dig or contemplated over. Painted skin in this case is not much different of. It digs a very deep portrait about the meaning of love and the willing of sacrificing for love. And believe it or not the movie want to show us that not only do human can sacrifice when it came to the matter of love.

Although stamped as a 'horror' movie but sorry to say, don't expect to see very much horror in it. It's nowhere near the horror like you saw in most Zombie movie or modern slasher horror. It's in a more mannerly and elegant way to level its emotion to human being and in my opinion the horror thing is just to dramatize the center love story and not really the main course in the first place. Some humor in the movie is driven well enough to at least force some smirk on audiences. And for those who're aware, with Donnie Yen as the main cast, one can expect less than some martial arts showdown. The rest of the cast is very eye catching especially the irresistible beauty of Zhou Xun.

And finally orchestrated by veteran director Gordon Chan who has experienced in so much genre since his existence in mid 80's, the movie is not disappointed at all except in my opinion if only the director did try boldly adapted a more tragic ending, it could really be better. Because in order to keep the movie running, when the plot seems finally reach an end path, the revealing of the demon's true identity in the end is way out of the blue and the motive is also very laudable.

I'll give it a fair 6/10. Not Special but Enjoyable.

Ever since his early "Dragon Inn" days, Donnie Yen has had a commanding screen presence. In his more recent movies, he always plays himself - strong, violent, a believer in rough justice - and he always delivers great action scenes. He's the only reason to watch this film to the end. He makes the most of his screen time, which regrettably is not anywhere near as much as one wishes.

The film is chugging along great when about halfway through, it just abruptly runs out of plot. In order to fill the remaining time, the actors suddenly start moving and talking incredibly slowly. I thought there was something wrong with my computer. It has to be seen to be believed. Donnie Yen is the only one immune to this strange infection, but sadly, he is not permitted to carry the film by himself.

This is not your average Donnie Yen movie. So is that a good or bad thing? Well, I found it to be a nice switch away from the usual stuff that we see from the Hong Kong martial arts star. So yes, I enjoyed "Painted Skin" (aka "Hua pi").

Directors Gordon Chan, Danny Ko and Andy Wing-Keung Chin managed to put together a good story that had a good amount of variation. "Painted Skin" is an enjoyable combination of love story, action and drama.

The talents were well-cast and it was nice to see a movie where Donnie Yen wasn't all-overshadowing over all other actors and actresses. You know what you will get from martial arts star Donnie Yen, of course. However, the two female leads Xun Zhou and Wei Zhao were really impressive in this 2008 movie.

"Painted Skin" has a lot to offer and chances are that you will find something in it too. I enjoyed the storytelling and the fact that the movie wasn't focusing on being a display of CGI effects.

The action and fight sequences were well-choreographed and equally so executed, which is a given when Donnie Yen is involved.

The costumes and sets were grand, with lots of details, and it helped bring the story to life quite well.

"Painted Skin" is a well-worthy addition to the collection of anyone who enjoys Asian cinema.

Based upon the classic literature of Liao Zai, Painted Skin is an adaptation of one of the stories that dwell on fox spirits. If you're someone expecting either a supernatural spook fest, or an amalgamation of ghosts and kung fu, you might be disappointed to find out that it's actually a romance through and through, with complicated relationships all around that you can weave a complex web of love and lust amongst the players involved.

Chen Kun plays Wang Sheng, a general whose army recently overrun the camp of a group of barbarians. In their battle, he rescues a beautiful girl from the grasp of the enemy, and brings her home out of pity and suggestive lust, given that she looks like Zhou Xun. OK, so Zhou Xun plays Xiao Wei, who unknowing to everyone else, is a fox spirit (touted always as beautiful beings in their human form) with an appetite for human hearts in order to maintain her beauty and youth.

Thus begins a tussle for General Wang's heart by both Xiao Wei and Vicky Zhao's Pei Rong, who is the dutiful and demure wife of Wang Sheng. Pei Rong is indeed wary and beginning to suspect Xiao Wei's supernatural abilities when a spate of killings surface with her arrival, but with no proof, Xiao Wei starts to sow discord between the man and wife in order to try and become the new Mrs Wang. It's quite an interesting attempt through the characters to tell of the varying degrees and types of love, one of possession in Xiao Wei's ruthless means to reach her objective, and one of sacrificing for the love and well being of the other half, as established through Pei Rong's selfless courage.

But that's not all. Throw in Donnie Yen as an ex-general Pang Yong, who also shares the hots for Pei Rong, and one time rival of Wang Sheng for her affections, a bumbling lowly ghostbuster Xia Bin (Sun Li) who is in possession of a fabled mythical weapon (opportunity to show off some special effects here, and quite a sight to behold too in its temporal usage) and denying her affections for Pang Yong, and Qi Yuwu as a lizard spirit whose infatuation with Xiao Wei ensures that she gets her fair share of food without the need to get her hands dirty. Connected the dots yet?

Fans of Donnie Yen will probably be a tad disappointed by his limited screen appearance, and for the most parts he's either playing the joker, where his jokes will likely be lost in translation, going by the English subtitles that didn't manage to truly capture the essence of his lines, and the remaining screen time having to see him execute some action, but nothing groundbreaking and not seen before. We know what Donnie Yen can do, and perhaps in seeking some form of redemption, the story has a flashback scene where he dons armor yet again (anyone remember the dismal result of An Empress And Her Warriors) and does battle in a scene which Jackie Chan has already stamped his authority on.

One could have expected the Gordon Chan is familiar with shooting decent action sequences, but you don't really get a lot of that in Painted Skin, save for some generic rooftop chase in the night, and a be all and end all finale where no punches got pulled, though it really got marred by all the tight shots that all you'd probably get to see is a blur. The narrative also got a little choppy in the mid section, and you do feel that a huge chunk of detail got summarized to keep it running generously under two hours, with subplots dropped that I suspect involved the growing affection and admiration between Pang Yong and Xia Bin, in order not to distract the audience from the main love triangle of Pang Yong, Xiao Wei and Pei Rong.

All in all, this is recommended for Zhou Xun's face off with Zhao Wei, especially with the former playing the temptress role to perfection. The last where we saw two prominent Chinese actresses square off was between Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li in Memoirs of a Geisha. Otherwise, Painted Skin held a lot of promise, but didn't deliver that level of oomph in its final product, lapsing into mediocrity throughout.