I actually had some high hopes for this, because it is based on the same set of short stories written by Pu Songling that begat both A CHINESE GHOST STORY and the Chinese Soap Opera Strange Tales of Liaozhai, which I also greatly enjoyed, and I was hoping for more of the same fun here, but instead got a muddled mess, that underused it’s starts, especially Donnie Yen, and seemed more intent on showing off it’s sets and costumes than making a rip roaring Chinese Ghost tale. This tale has more love triangle stuff going on than action, and unfortunately most of the love triangle stuff seems forced, because the emotion isn’t really shown to be there, and some possible love stories aren’t even explored, and this all made the pacing seem rather slow and boring in fact. Not only that but the Blu-Ray disc was not all that impressive, with some motion artifacting in the dark action scenes that I did not expect to see. I would pass this one over, it is a waste of time.

A local militia officer named Wang Shen (Aloys Chen) saves a fox demon named Xiaowei (Zhou Xun) thinking she is an innocent girl, and takes her home to his town and into his house, though his wife Peirong (Vicki Zhao Wei) is not happy, and instantly realizes something is wrong. And the town becomes beset by a serial killer who is taking hearts, this is a demon (Qi Yuwu) who is devoted to Peirong, and loves her, and brings her hearts so she can stay looking beautiful and human, but she does not love him, she loves Wang Shen and wants to make him love only her. In this atmosphere Yong (Donnie Yen Ji Dan) shows up. He was the old militia leader, and the lover of Peirong, but when she left him for Wang Shen (we never know why) he gave up fighting them and became a lone drifter, but he comes to town, and is going to help with the serial killer. Yong ends up getting help from a self proclaimed demon buster named Zia Bing (Betty Sun Li who played the blind girl in Fearless). So we have multiple lover triangles going on here.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

Wang Sheng is constantly having erotic dreams about Xiaowei, but stays loyal to his wife in form at least, not making advances to the girl he saved, though she keeps trying.

Peirong gets help from Yong, and he brings along Zia Bing who has a demon rod from her father to slay demons, but can’t seem to figure out how to use it. They try to prove that Xiaowei is a demon, but are unable too, because they trick them, and Yong ends up getting framed as the serial killer, so has to go on the run.

Xiaowei tries to get Wang Sheng to at least make her his concubine, though he does not, though he wants to.

Xiaowei then takes a different tact, and shows Peirong that she is a demon. She says she will kill everyone unless Peirong admits to being the demon, and Xiaowei gets to become the wife. Peirong says she will do it if Xiaowei will stop killing and takes a poison that turns her hair and skin white, and she is about to be killed when Yong and Zia Bing save her and take her to the graveyard.

Wang Shen shows up with his men, as does Xiaowei.

Wang Shen is going to kill his wife, but he can’t and instead she kills herself to save him, and he goes to kill himself for having betrayed his wife, and wanting Xiaowei. Xiaowei reveals herself as the demon, and is going to give up her life to save Wang Shen and Peirong for the one she loves, but her demon shows up and takes the escence and Yong must fight him, but gets badly hurt, until Zia Bing starts using her blood, which is the key to killing demons, and when her blood gets on the Demon Baton, it opens, and she uses it to kill the demon, but also badly hurts Yong.

Xiaowei’s essence is used to save both Wang Sheng and Peirong, and even the badly hurt Yong ends up being alive, and leaves happily with Zia Bing who is now dressed as a girl instead of as a tom boy.

••••

Such potential but so slow, and borring overall, and Zhou Xun just didn’t sell it for me like Joey Young did in the original Chinese Ghost Story, and Wang Sheng and his men were such idiots to believe in her, that it was painful!

Really a waste of time!