Painted Skin is a 1993

Hong Kong films of 1993

A list of films produced in Hong Kong in 1993:.-1993:-External links:**Hong Kong films of 1993 at...

 Hong Kong

Cinema of Hong Kong

The cinema of Hong Kong is one of the three major threads in the history of Chinese language cinema, alongside the cinema of China, and the cinema of Taiwan...

 supernatural horror film starring Adam Cheng

Adam Cheng

Adam Cheng Siu-chow is a Hong Kong TVB actor and Cantopop singer.-Career:Cheng started his career in the 1970s, where he gained a reputation for playing the lead roles in TVB Wuxia drama series based on the works of Louis Cha and Gu Long, such as The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber and Chor Lau Heung...

, Joey Wong

Joey Wong

Joey Wong is a Hong Kong based Taiwanese-born actress.-Biography:Wong was born on January 31, 1967 and raised in Taipei and also received a secondary school education there. She was enrolled in the drama course of Kuo Kwan Arts School...

, Sammo Hung

Sammo Hung

Sammo Hung is a Hong Kong actor, martial artist, film producer and director, known for his work in many martial arts films and Hong Kong action cinema...

, Lam Ching Ying

Lam Ching Ying

Lam Ching Ying was a Hong Kong actor, action director and director. A physically talented and graceful martial artist, Lam was best known for playing the stoic Taoist priest in Mr. Vampire...

, and Wu Ma

Wu Ma

Wu Ma is a Chinese actor, director, producer and writer. Wu Ma made his screen debut in 1963, and with over 180 appearances to his name , Wu Ma is one of the most familiar faces in the history of Hong Kong Cinema...

. It was directed by King Hu

King Hu

King Hu was a Hong Kong- and Taiwan-based Chinese film director whose Wuxia films brought Chinese cinema to new technical and artistic heights. His films Come Drink with Me , Dragon Gate Inn and A Touch of Zen inaugurated a new generation of wuxia films in the late 1960s...

.

It is based, very loosely, on a famous story in Pu Songling

Pu Songling

Pu Songling was a Qing Dynasty Chinese writer, best known as the author of Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio.-Biography:Pu was born into a poor landlord-merchant family from Zichuan...

's classic short story collection, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio

Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio

Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio or Liaozhai Zhiyi is a collection of nearly five hundred mostly supernatural tales written by Pu Songling in Classical Chinese during the early Qing Dynasty.Pu borrows from a folk tradition of oral storytelling to put to paper a series of captivating,...

.

Story

A scholar (Adam Cheng) encounters a beautiful maiden (Joey Wong) in an alley on his way home and leads her to his house, where he tries to marry her as a concubine. By chance, his wife and he discover that she is in fact a ghost, who must "paint" and graft a facial skin mask over her face to look human. Terrified, the scholar enlists the help of two Taoist

Taoism

Taoism refers to a philosophical or religious tradition in which the basic concept is to establish harmony with the Tao , which is the mechanism of everything that exists...

 priests, who give him a magic whisk to keep the ghost at bay. However, it appears that the ghost is benign – she merely wants to escape the clutches of an evil Yin-Yang King, a faceless, powerful spirit-king who shuttles at ease between the mortal world and the spirit, and who seems to be controlling the destinies of some recently-deceased souls.

The two Taoist priests battle the King to release the ghost, but realize their magical prowess is not sufficient. Instead, they use the ghost to track down a highly skilled Taoist Master (Sammo Hung) in the countryside. Meanwhile, the Yin-Yang King possesses the scholar and is wreaking havoc in the mortal plane. The priests finally discover and convince the Taoist Master, who decides to destroy the evil spirit-king so as to guide the ghost back to Hades.

External links

• Painted Skin Homepage at Sohu.com