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This popular and beloved film, produced by Tsui Hark anddirected by Ching Siu Tung, is a standout in the Hong Kong supernatural-action genre and spawned many sequels and copycats. A Chinese Ghost Story stars Leslie Cheung as Ning Tsei-Shen, a timid and likable tax collector. Looking for a place to stay the night, he comes upon a spooky abandoned temple occupied by a tough Taoist swordsman (Ma Wu).Despite hiswarnings, Tsei-Shen stays anyway.Later he encounters a beautiful maiden (JoeyWang) who he quickly falls in love with.Unfortunately, she is a ghost whois being forced to trap men for an evil spirit who feeds on their souls. A Chinese Ghost Story has been widely praised for infusing the genrewith humor, action, romance, and inventive special effects. Memorable images include an attacking mile-long tongue and a cloak opening to dozens of ghastly decapitated heads. The final battle in hell is said to have inspired scenes in Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness.And the filmhas its share of homage: A group of crusty zombies are reminiscent of the skeletons in special-effects guru Ray Harryhausen's 7th Voyage of Sinbad--and they are eliminated by Tsei-Shen in comedic slapstick fashion, not unlike the style of Charlie Chaplin. Cheung and Wang are a likeable romantic pair, and Ma Wu creates a hilarious character whobreaks out into song and a martial arts dance when drunk. The DVD transfer istopnotch, with the film's misty mood lighting and fluttering gowns appearing layered and crisp. It's a must-see for Hong Kong action film fans. --Shannon Gee ... Read more

Reviews (32)

1987 - great visuals, action, story, everything
This film started the "mortal meets ghost" trend in the late 80s, and as we all know, originals are the best.

The plot in a nutshell-a tax collector screws up during a collection run, and with nowhere to stay, decides he'll take his chances and stay in the deserted monastery on the outskirts of town. He meets a beautiful woman and a mad Taoist swordsman. When he discovers the woman is a ghost trapped by the Tree Demon he enlists the help of the Taoist in order to save her.

There are great performances from Leslie Cheung and Wu Ma-they both seemed to be born to play their roles. Joey Wong, thankfully, doesn't really have to act, so we don't have to cringe at her rather...limited...acting range This film is beautifully filmed, with some etheral scenes, such as the underwater kissing scene, and the special effects compliment, rather than detract, from the storyline. The characters are well-formed and I could definitely sympathize with the lover's plight. Well-written and highly recommended. - ew

A Love Stronger Than Death
Movie Summary: A young tax collector named Tsei-Shen is forced to stay in the old almost abandoned Lan Ro temple while making his rounds. There he meets a Taoist monk/master swordsman/ghost buster who is the only other human staying at the temple. He also meets a very beautiful young woman, Nieh Hsiao-Tsing, whom he falls in love with. Although she resists at first, the woman falls in love with Tsei-Shen as well. This complicates things because she is a ghost and has been ordered to delete Tsei-Shen and take his soul.

My Opinion: At first I had a hard time with the poor English subtitles and strange story. But then I was pulled into the love story and began to understand what was going on. Some of the small things that happen in the beginning are a bit confusing but I think this is mostly due to the cultural differences and poor subtitles. I ended up liking the movie very much. It has horror, action, and romance all very well mixed up into an entertaining package. The special effects are quite good. The plot is very filled out as well. The Taoist monk is a very cool character and you can’t help but fall in love with the maiden ghost Nieh Hsiao-Tsing.

DVD Quality: Non anamorphic, no English language sound track, poor English subtitles

What You Should Do: Rent it. Don’t buy this edition, wait for a new version that has an anamorphic transfer. This movie is what I would consider a fairly hard core Hong Kong film. You need to be into this type of film to enjoy it. If you are into this genre you should definitely see it and also check out The Bride With The White Hair.

Colorful, Original and Farout!!
This is such a cool film! The magic is felt when you watch it. The moves of the actors, the music, the sets, the storyline and especially the visuals. The effects are natural and unique in this film. There is a transexual tree monster who rules the beautiful dead ghost, who has to be a vampire in order to survive in the ghost world. They are all living in a temple with a possible ghost or warrior, wasn't quite clear. The warrior stood for good and fought the evil. When a young man who is naive and doesn't realize the temple is haunted stumbles in and falls in love with the bewitched beautiful vampire ghost. He does not know she is dead yet and they have a lovely romance sequence. Soon he finds out she is a ghost and wants to help her escape her karma and be reborn again. With the sanskrit words and the help of the good warrior, they take on the tree monster and even go to hell to fight for the spirit of the beautiful ghost finally making there way back to the world. A shimmering image filled feat! Just like the haunted mansion you always wanted to see. Highly Highly Recommended. It has subtitles and they are sometimes hard to follow. This is a movie definately for art lovers and whoever else that is open to something new and different.

Lisa Nary

A must-see if you want to fully enjoy Chinese Ghost Story II
I saw Chinese Ghosty Story II before Chinese Ghost Story, and there's a marked difference between the two. Unfortunately, there are several important plot points from the two movies that join them in a way that makes both better (including a song that takes on a whole new meaning when you realize it's sung by two different characters in each movie).

Chinese Ghost Story is not as wacky or enthralling as its sequel, with less special effects and a more uneven rhythm. The plot, in short, is about Ning Tsei-Shen, a tax collector, falling in love with a ghost, Nieh Hsiao-Tsing, who is kept by a, uh, "tree hag." The tree hag uses her to kill unwitting male mortals.

One particularly weird point is that the tree hag can transform into a gigantic tongue, which shoves itself down men's throats in Alien-esque fashion. Upon doing so, the victim's life force is sucked out. So in essence, the tree hag gives one serious French kiss.

I've since read elsewhere that Sam Raimi took inspiration from this film for Evil Dead, a connection I made on my own. The animated trees, the grasping tentacles, the perspective from the demon's point of view, and even the tree hag's shout that she'll "swallow your chi!" - yep, Sam saw this movie and loved it.

Ghost life is different than typical European ghost folklore. In Chinese Ghost Story, ghosts are more like faeries. They have lives, get married, argue, have relatives, etc. In this case, Nieh Hsiao-Tsing is torn by her role of luring men to their doom and her affection for the hapless tax collector. Worse, she is promised to some unspeakable evil guy in hell.

Our fearless protagonist stumbles into this plot because his tax records are rained on, thus leaving him without any means of getting paid for his hard work. Broke and desperate, Ning Tsei-Shen can only afford to stay in a haunted temple to stay out of the rain.

Chinese Ghost Story is like an Asian version of Romeo and Juliet, down to the help friar -- in this case, a crazy monk who happens to enjoy the presence of spirits more than living people. Although we don't get much perspective on Ning Tsei-Shen's life prior to the story, Nieh Hsiao-Tsing's back-story is fleshed out. She has sisters, all of whom were murdered and left without a proper burial ritual.

As ghosts, they serve a weird tree demon who is actually a man dressed in drag. This is an ongoing theme throughout both movies - demons always look like men, but dress and sound like women. It's strangely effective in making the demons seem immediately wrong, even in their supposedly mortal forms.

The struggle here is not to reunite the two lovers - that's understood to be an impossible task. Instead, it's a race to put Nieh Hsiao-Tsing to rest before she is married to the Unspeakable Evil. A final burial means the ghost also has a chance at being reincarnated as opposed to roaming the Earth or being married in hell. In comparison to the other two fates, reincarnation sounds a lot better.

Of course, things don't go that smoothly. Nieh Hsiao-Tsing is kidnapped, and the dynamic duo of bumbling tax collector and crotchety monk pursue her right into hell. The action propels itself along so quickly that things become confusing - I picked up a lot on second viewing because the characters shout or react so quickly to Hell, which is a murky place.

Between the three protagonists, they manage to defeat Hell's minions, an axe-wielding general, and the big bad himself.

Ning Tsei-Shen looks over his shoulder and his ghostly love is gone. Next we see him giving her a proper burial. Then Ning Tsei-Shen points - we can only assume at a rainbow in the distance that we see in the next scene - and the tax collector and the monk ride off into the distance.

POOF! The end.

To say the ending is jarring is an understatement. The director's style definitely matured in the second movie. This first movie is an excellent set up for the sequel, but on its own it seems like a pastiche of ideas and concepts that were never fully executed. A must-see if you want to fully enjoy Chinese Ghost Story II.

Tale of a man and a ghost...
The debt collector, Tsai-Shen, arrives in a small town in order to collect a debt. However, during a massive rainfall the water has destroyed the records of the debt that Ning is suppose to collect. Penniless and friendless Tsai-Shenseeks shelter in the Lan Ro temple oblivious to the reputation of the temple, which is known for its ghosts as well as its deaths. During the night Tsai-Shen meets Hsiao-Tsing with whom he falls in love with, but he is unaware that she is a ghost. Chinese Ghost Story is a touching love story full of swashbuckling adventure and humor as Tsai-Shen ignorantly tumbles through an adventure with horrors around every corner. However, the comedy is not as well balanced with the horror, since the comedy removes the suspense as it often is slap-stick humor. In the end, the audience experiences a action comedy that will entertain and offer some hilarious moments as Tsai-Shen struggles through this adventure. ... Read more

Description

Ronny Yu (The Bride of Chucky, The Phantom Lover, Warriors Of Virtue) directs this highly operatic fable based on a well-known martial arts novel with LESLIE CHEUNG (Temptress Moon, Farewell, My Concubine) and BRIGITTE LIN (Dragon Inn, Deadful Melody) as doomed lovers caught in the crossfire of warring clans.With beautiful cinematography by PETER PAU (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and over-the-top action sequences, THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR is one of the best swordplay fantasy film ever made. ... Read more

Reviews (58)

DVD Version is a MUST for Fans of This Film!
"The Bride With White Hair" is the film that turned me on to Hong Kong cinema. If you are one of those Hong Kong aficionados who has enjoyed this movie on VHS, I highly recommend the DVD version because of its subtitles. Now---while I admittedly enjoy the awkwardly translated English subtitles in Hong Kong films, this is one film that I love enough that I've always wanted to see the grammar, spelling and sentence structure cleaned up! That is the wonderful surprise I found when I saw this flick on DVD! In addition, if you want to turn friends on to this film, and they're the crowd who just doesn't enjoy a flick with subtitles, then this DVD has an English dubbed version that is fairly good (especially compared to badly English dubbed jobs of great Hong Kong films like "A Better Tomorrow"). For those unfamiliar with this film, "Bride With White Hair" is one of those rare fantasy features that actually makes my eyes a bit misty. What initially strikes me about the movie is the way the story is set up; we see Leslie Cheung (who starred in "Farewell My Concubine"), having sat hunched in desolate state of guard over a healing plant for many years, wondering if "a woman" knows that he regards her as holding great importance, even greater than that of the emperor. A great and tragic story is then told as a recollection, beginning from his childhood when he firsts encounters the mystical girl who saves him from a pack of wolves by charming them with her song. They are drawn together again as adults (Bridgette Lin is both gorgeous and fantastic as The Bride!). The complexities come as both characters are torn by devotion to their clans, barters they have made with others, and by their vow of love to each other. This is beautiful and well told story, visually astounding, and the surreal nature of the film works. I highly recommend you treat yourself to this DVD!

Phenomenal Movie!
This movie completely took my breath away! I am rarely impressed by anything, but this film really moved me. Both the tragic plot and the fighting scenes had me completely engaged in the story and the characters from beginning to end. Both Leslie Cheung and Bridgitte Lin gave amazing performances. The climactic scene of ultimate betrayal at the end -- the slap, the sword, the look, the hair -- managed to do what Steel Magnolias, Terms of Endearment and even Titanic couldn't accomplish: make me CRY! (I was sobbing like an infant at that point...) This is a movie for everyone because it has so many elements to it: good cinemetography, a touch of folklore, romance, tragedy, action, swordfighting , etc. It's become one of my favorite movies of all time. The sequel is just as amazing, and ties up the story very well. There was no better way to end such a beautiful yet tragic love story.

Funky
What a weird film. Who thought of this? A girl raised in the mountains by wolves, possessing magical hair?

What a bloody freak show.

there goes the bride....
iv'e heard a bit about this movie, but to be honest after watching bride, i was slightly disapointed, the story is dull and so is the pacing of the film. and i thought battle royale 2 was slow.
but the fight scenes were top notch. the lead actor leslie chung
gave a great performance. unfortunetly he passed away almost a year ago. (a sucide jump from a hotel balcony in hong kong)
i have yet to see the sequel but i doubt it'll surpass this one as most sequels fail to succeed their predescessors.
anyway yun has gone on to bigger if not better things like freddy vs jason, although sluggish on plotbut more entertaining than bride. IMHO

Mindy's Review
as a big Brigitte Lin Chin Hsia i would say this is one of the good movies she stars in out of her 100's movie she stars in...... well this movie is so romantic.... the forbidding love eh...... hahaha and ever since their childhood (wolf girl) well yeah this movie is great.....the kungfu in this movie is so and so a litte but, not that much compare to Dragon Inn......

++if your looking for a more like crouching tiger h.d movie then naww this is not the type for you..... you should check out Dragon Inn then.....

++if you don't like this part (1) then you souldn't get part 2 cause, part 2 just Su&^K ai ya but, worth siting through till the end......

++this movie is GREAT two TUMBS UP! ... Read more

Amazon.com

A Better Tomorrow is the John Woo gangster classic that started it all, a romantic, violent, swirlingly stylish melodrama about dueling brothers--with a mesmerizing lead performance by Hong Kong's favorite actor, Chow Yun-Fat. In repose, Chow's sleepy magnetism recalls the glory days of Robert Mitchum, Steve McQueen, and Takakura Ken; when he's stepping high, Chow has a unique, ebullient star presence, a man who embraces life so unselfconsciously that he becomes vulnerable to all kinds of suffering and heartache (he endures masochistic megadoses of violence here). The sequence in which Chow's Mark avenges his betrayed best friend---by blasting his way into, and then out of, a Chinese restaurant, twin .45s blazing---is a swashbuckling standout. Woo's film technique may have been more polished in later efforts, but Tomorrow has a direct emotional power that is still unique. Kung fu star of the 1970s, Ti Lung is also terrific here as the 40ish established mobster, relied upon by all, who allows conflicting loyalties toward Mark and toward his younger brother, now a cop, to undermine the stability of his position.

"I won't give you nothing, man; I give you shit," sneers charismatic superstar Chow Yun Fat, speaking English (with a De Niro accent) in his role as a New York restaurateur who won't knuckle under to the (Italian) mob in A Better Tomorrow II. Chow plays the twin brother of the character he played in the original, and the blatancy of that device is a fair indication of the sequel's shortcomings--and of its screwy charm: this is a film that knows no shame. The bond between the natural siblings played by Ti Lung (as a reformed mobster) and Leslie Cheung (as a hot shot cop) still resonate tellingly. As a good-guy ex-thug driven batty by the slaying of his only daughter, real-life Cinema City studio chief Dean Shek gets to play a garishly extended "mad scene," foaming at the mouth, chewing on soup bones. A later episode in which a dying man crawls to a phone booth to call his wife (and newborn daughter) in the hospital must also be some kind of lurid first in the soap sweepstakes. The final 15 minutes could be the bloodiest single shoot-out sequence ever committed to celluloid. The story line hasn't been shaped to any particular purpose here, but the images have a golden Godfather-like glow, and this faintly anachronistic, all-stops-out wish-fulfillment approach to moviemaking still has a lot of power. --David Chute ... Read more

Amazon.com

The expressionistic, stylized visual brilliance (courtesy ofAustralian cinematographer Christopher Doyle) of Happy Together is sobreathtaking and enveloping it nearly detracts from this startling, queasy, despairing glimpse at a gay relationship gone amok. Director Wong Kar-Wai(Chungking Express, Fallen Angels) won the Best Director Prize at Cannesin 1997--surprising many--but on viewing the film it's easy to see why. The subjectmatter may not be the easiest to swallow--any relationship on the rockssometimes gets dirty and pathetically disturbing--but there is auniversality to Happy Together that rings true and real and less like anedition of The Honeymooners than isolation tinged with the embarrassment ofintimacy. Ho (Leslie Cheung) and Lai (Tony Leung) have left Hong Kong forBuenos Aires. The journey is another in Ho's attempts to "start over." Buttheir initial optimism is short-lived, and once they become dislocatedstrangers in this strange land it only further thrusts the two into their already codependent, caretaking dark love affair. But like all crazylove, the trip through masochistic hell--from violence to apathy--leads toself-enlightenment, and Wong Kar-Wai's gorgeous, grasping film is true,tricky, difficult, and emotionally wrought, aided by Hong Kong superstarsCheung and Leung, who contribute greatly to creating a work that isexceptional--and lump-in-throat brutal--in image, story, and performance. --Paula Nechak ... Read more

Reviews (47)

I love this movie
The first time i saw this movie, I have to admit, I fell asleep. And the second time I saw "HAPPY TOGETHER", I fell asleep again. But each time, I just wanted to slap myself because I had been told and knew deep down inside, it was a great movie. And finally, the third time I saw it, the movie just captured my heart.

"HAPPY TOGETHER" is a love story in it's most darkest and bittersweet form. Two gay lovers venture out to Argentina from Hong Kong and the idea of them being happy together is seriously tested. One lover (I can't remember the name) is stable, diligent, and so giving while the other one is just simply a selfish gay slut. They try several times to start over, but each time, the selfish lover wants to eat his cake too.

Like all of Wong Kar-wai's films, this one has little dialogue and the story is told mainly through visuals. The waterfall is a major theme running through the movie. The beginning opens up in black and white and later on, when the lovers start over again, color (in a very Wong Kar-wai-esque cinematic sense of it) comes in. And the soundtrack (mostly Astor Piazola) is just an unforgetable part of the movie.

I heard that before making this film, Wong Kar-wai was reading a lot of Manuel Puig (gay Argentine writer of "KISS OF THE SPIDERWOMAN"). Puig dealt with mainly the themes of unrequited love, impossible love, the love that hurts you more than gives you pleasure. And often, his characters where pretty much society's castoffs, whether because they were gay, revolutionaries, or just plain freaks. You can see a lot of these same themes in many of Wong Kar-wai films, but it hits the hardest in this one.

The plot is rather simple, but Wong Kar-wai seems to be the master of capturing those feelings people don't talk about-- those feelings that show up only on our faces. In the end, I cried. Not because I had my heart broken in the same fashion, or because I'm one of those people uncapable of attaining love. I cried because the movie just eats away at your heart little by little and anywhere within the last 15 minutes of the film, the tears come and you don't know if you're crying because you're sad or you're happy.

Changing perspectives...
Happy Together, by Chinese director Wong Kar-Wai, is one of my all-time favourite movies, and - along with The Tango Lesson - one of the movies that has effected me the most. To me, HT is one of those (rare) art products that manage to combine formal beauty, intellectual sharpness and emotional depth all into one.

I have watched HT many times, and each time I felt that it had a new meaning to convey. My impressions about this movie have therefore shifted with time, leading me not to a definite interpretation but to the knowledge that art - as life itself - can be looked at from different points of view.

The story line is quite simple: two lovers leave Hong Kong and go to Argentina; once there, they argue so much they decide to break up; one of them (Ho Po-Wing) prostitutes himself, while the other (Lai-Yiu Fai) works in a tango-bar and virtuously puts money aside to return home; one day, chance unites them and for a short while they live happily together; inevitably, however, the friskier one becomes dissatisfied with their conjugal life; they separate again, and this time it's really the end. Needless to say, the movie's title - as light-hearted as it sounds - is actually quite deceiving: the two men's relationship turns out to be a rather "unhappy" one.

The first few times I watched HT I couldn't help feeling disgusted by Ho Po-Wing's moral hideousness - I thought of him as the negative-model the movie meant to point the finger against. I thought the movie proved that although there are no "real heroes" some people do behave better than others, and that by self-discipline one could "redeem" one's soul... I thought the movie was about Aesthetics as a means of purification, as if Beauty could protect one from squalor. I admired Lai-Yiu Fai and mercilessly condemned Ho Po-Wing.

I still admire Lai-Yiu Fai, of course, but I now feel I was too superficial in judging Ho Po-Wing. I see he's not the monster I made him out to be in the past: he's a victim of his own temperament, a person misfortunate to the point of being unable to grasp the good life offers him. In this, I feel he well portrays many homosexuals, who, I'm afraid, often let happiness slip out of their hands, perhaps because a sick environment has taught them not to "love" but to "want." In my opinion, not only are we "all the same when we feel lonely," as Lai-Yiu Fai puts it - that is: inclined to promiscuous sex - we're also "all the same" in that we are all constantly on the verge of self-inflicted unhappiness.

Last time I watched HT, about a week ago, I got extremely sad, because I realised how easy it is for anyone to fall, and because through experience I've come to understand that so many of us are like Ho Po-Wing, damned to suffer the pains of degradation and solitude because of our "insatiability." We are taught that since we aren't attracted to someone of the opposite sex we are "bad" and have no values. Of course the effect of this is that we end up believing they are right. Thus, monogamy and fidelity become accessories, as tenderness and mutual support.

To me, Happy Together is about all this.

watchable travalogue, love story, human portrayal of gay men
My wife and I got different things from this movie, but we both
enjoyed it enough to be worth the time.

What struck me most vividly was the idea of just bravely taking
off to another country on little enough of a plan that running
out of money and being forced to survive like they do is even a
possibility. I don't know if that speaks more for the main
characters' love of life, or just their incompetence, but for me
it was a vividly portrayed and compelling case for the value of
the former. This might not have been a focus of the movie, and
I'm sure that for many people the grim conditions if anything
make the opposite case, but it really made me want to seize the
day, take off on a motorcycle and so on.

I think my wife was more affected by the love story. She grew up
in China with a moderately negative but mostly non-existent
awareness of homosexuality. Her reaction at the end of this
movie was that now she could much better understand the idea of
two men actually being in love with each other, just like anybody
else. I figure I got my money's worth just for that.

Now, as her husband, I do find it a little bit disturbing that
she finds such a screwed-up relationship so easy to relate to,
but it speaks well for the movie as tolerance propaganda.

The visual style didn't particularly speak to me. It was
occasionally intrusive, occasionally neat to look at, every once
in a while participated in the story-telling, and mostly I just
ignored it.

I spent much of the first half of the movie complaining to
myself that the director gives us no clue at all why these two
would want to be together, let alone as obsessively as they are.
Eventually, I accepted that the director's not incompetent, so if
he's not letting us know it's because he doesn't want to. Okay,
Kar-wai, whatever, man. I got along much better after I gave up
on that.

Not in the Mood
This movie tries to present deep, complex and intriguing characters but that pretension ends up delivering a flat, tedious and emotionally empty story. The plot focuses the relationship of two gay men, their co-dependence and the everyday struggles they must face, most of them with each other.
It coul be interesting if the characters weren`t so distant and devoid of any life or worthwile qualities. Instead, they turn into shallow, selfish people that only add to a slow and lifeless movie. Director Wong Kar-Wai ("Fallen Angels", "In The Mood For Love") delivers some stylish, beautiful images with creative camera angles and an engaging use of lightning, but it doesn`t help much since the story itself drags on and on and fails to captivate one`s attention. Some pretty and original details aside, "Happy Together" is a long, boring and useless waste of film. Disposable.

murky disappointment
Having seen three of Wong Kar-Wai's films (Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, In the Mood for Love), I have become a big fan, and was eagerly looking forward to this one, the last available in my video store.

It turned out to be a big letdown -- indeed, before I checked the actual date, I thought it was an early precursor of his unique style (combined with seemingly extreme low budget).

What I could distinguish of the plot and characters was at least mildly interesting, but that's the catch, "what I could distinguish" -- the film style and (VHS) print combined to make it very hard to figure out what was happening on the screen. The subtitles were especially hard (or impossible) to read.

A lot can be blamed on the print, and I envy those reviewers who saw it in theaters, but even trying to look through that, the film seemed to have only touches of the trademark WKW style. It was interesting to see so much shot not just exterior but outdoors, under wide skies. [The WKW films I've seen were almost entirely interior, or at least enclosed (with the exception of the Cambodian scene in Mood for Love) -- even a motorcycle is ridden at night in a tunnel.] And WKW doesn't seem to do well with the wide open spaces. Maybe it is his not being on the familiar territory of Hong Kong (or Asia). But the style here did not develop the interest and momentum for me that it did in the other films mentioned.

As to the plot, it was the usual theme of obsessive love, impossible love, and sad reflection on lost possibility. Yet their story doesn't grab me the way the others' do, I think because they are brought down by their own disfunction (and such extreme, almost clownish, disfunction)with little relation to events or societal expectation. It's like watching a habitual drunk driver wrap his car around a tree. ... Read more

Description

The BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR saga continues with the bloody massacre of the followers of the Eight Clans.Powerful, insane and obsessed with hatred, The Bride (Brigitte Lin) has gone on a killing rampage, and can only be stopped by the one person she loves (Leslie Cheung). ... Read more

Reviews (17)

a victim of sequalitis
this movie was a pretty good sequel to the first one. but it should have been better. i think that if it werent for the acting ability of brigitte lin this movie would have been a flop. dont get me wrong its a good movie but when you compare it to the first one you can tell it falls short and carries all the symptoms of sequalitis. the best part of the whole movie, which about 90 min. in length, is the end scenes. even though i give it a lower rating i would recommend getting this one, or you will never know how the story ends.

What was this
Bride with the white hair had hardly any action and really disappointed me. I like the story line and everything and it's pretty sad, but I wanted to see more fight scenes. Don't get this movie is you are expecting action.

Mindy's Review
well as a Brigitte Lin Chin Hsia Fan, i would say that part 2 wasen't all that cause part 2 can't even compare with part 1 but, the story line is kinda dull but, this movie is sooo dam worth siting and staring at the screen just to see the end. where Brigitte and Leslie comes back together as Brigitte white hair turn back to black (cause they forgave each other and kiss while i guess they died while makine out haha) so worth sit through all them exta stuff just to see the end! but, if you haven't seen part 1 then i really suggest that you should see part 1. well if you didn't like part 1 then you souldn't get part 2 just think of it as leslie died in the moutain waiting for the rose! haha And of course you should see Brigitte Lin other movies such as Peking Opera Blues......etc

Mindy Yang

Great Movie..but watch Part 2 first..
This is a great movie and well done. The only bad thing here is that, Part 2 was suppose to come out before part 1. Becuz after watching part 1, you get the feeling you want to watch part 2 with hopes of the characters continuing just like that.. Trust me, this is one of the great movies ever, watch 2 first, you would be craving to watch part 1.. And there ya go, you would watch it over again.. Well Done..

Not as bad as everyone makes it out to be
While it certainly isn't up to par with its predecessor, Bride with White Hair 2 is not an awful movie. I admit that I bought the movie because of the sheer beauty of the first; and it did try its best to rectify the open ending that the original had.

The fighting scenes were bizarre and interesting to say the least, with Brigitte Lin's white hair strangling and piercing bodies all over the place, and the story was, while not terribly engaging, was not tepid enough to be utterly uninteresting. While the relationship between Sunny Chan and Joey Maan is not as interesting as that of Leslie Cheung and Brigitte Lin (hence the four stars, though I wish I could give 4.5 stars..), the young couple were somewhat convincing. Veterans, Brigitte Lin and Leslie Cheung electrifies in their wondrous renditions of the two doomed lovers. Too bad there's only a few minutes of screen time for the pair ;-(

Bride with White Hair 2 certainly is not a bad movie; living up to the original Bride with White Hair's greatness was not an easy task mind you, so the sequal did a decent job. Comparing BWWH2 with other HK wuxia flicks, this one is solid. If you want BWWH2 to give you the same, mind-numbing experience that the original delivers, you're going to be in for a disappointment. Watch the movie on its own, without comparing it to the magnificence of the original. ... Read more

Description

The late Leslie Cheung (The Bride With White Hair, Farewell My Concubine) stars in this Hong Kong remake of Blake Edwards' Victor/Victoria. Tomboy Lam (Anita Yuen in a performance that won her the Best Actress award at the 1995 Hong Kong Film Awards) is so obsessed with pop music diva Rose (Carina Lau) that she decides to disguise as a man to meet her idol at a singing audition. There, Lam meets Sam (Cheung), Rose's producer-boyfriend who signs the talentless "boy" to a recording contract to spite his moody girlfriend. It doesn't take long before Rose--and Sam--find themselves both falling for Lam! ... Read more