A Wicked Ghost

A Wicked Ghost

Film poster
Traditional 山村老屍
Simplified 山村老尸
Mandarin Shān Cūn Lǎo Shī
Cantonese Saan1 Cyun1 Lou5 Si1
Directed by Leung Hung-wah
Produced by Leung Hung-wah
Written by Leung Hung-wah
Starring Francis Ng
Gigi Lai
Gabriel Harrison
Edward Mok
Nelson Ngai
Celia Sze
Music by Simon Leung
Cinematography Ally Wong
Edited by Ng Wang-hung
Production
company
Times Production Ltd.
Distributed by Universe Films Distribution Co. Ltd.
Release dates
  • 4 November 1999
Running time
 85 minutes
Country Hong Kong
Language Cantonese

A Wicked Ghost is a 1999 Hong Kong horror film directed by Leung Hung-wah, starring Francis Ng, Gigi Lai, Gabriel Harrison, Edward Mok, Nelson Ngai and Celia Sze. It was followed by A Wicked Ghost II: The Fear in 2000 and A Wicked Ghost III: The Possession in 2002.

Plot

Ming, Annie (Ming's girlfriend), and three other friends (Rubbish, Big-B, and Biggie) play a game of "contacting ghosts"—they mix their blood with water and drink from the mixture, form a circle by holding hands, and inhale fumes from the burning of oil secreted from a corpse. Ming backs out before the game starts. While the others are playing, Ming sees a long-haired female ghost in a blue dress appearing near them. He immediately stops them. The three friends meet their ends not long later: Rubbish dies of a heart attack in the bathroom; Big-B falls to his death from a rooftop; Biggie strangles her mother to death and then commits suicide.

Ming's elder sister, Cissy, who is a reporter, is worried that something will happen to her brother after learning about the incident. They seek help from Fa-mo, a drama teacher who knows a lot about the supernatural, and he suggests that there is something wrong with the corpse oil. They cannot trace the origin of the oil because Rubbish, the only person who knows where it came from, is already dead. In the meantime, Annie has been possessed by a spirit, who tells Ming that Annie has three days to live. Cissy's fiancé, Jack, who is sceptical about the supernatural, has an encounter with a ghostly old man in the washroom. After doing some research, Fa-mo discovers that Rubbish and Jack both lived in the same town, which is situated near a certain Yellow Hill Village. Nearly a century ago, a bizarre incident occurred in the village—66 villagers died mysteriously over three days.

Ming and Fa-mo start hunting for information related to the village and eventually find Lee Keung, a bearded old man who used to live there in his childhood. Lee reluctantly tells them the story: There was a Cantonese opera singer called Cho Yan-may in the village. She doted on Lee, who was still a boy then, and gave him a bracelet. Cho's husband, Po Man-tin, a respectable teacher, framed his wife for adultery so that he could get rid of her and marry another woman. Cho was brutally beaten to death by the villagers and her body was abandoned in the wilderness. Lee approached her dead body, cried and told her the truth, after which Cho's hands suddenly sprang up and stretched towards the sky. Over the following three days, Cho's vengeful ghost caused 66 villagers (including her evil husband) to die unnatural deaths. On the third day, Lee came back to Cho's body and pleaded with her to spare everyone. After he attached the bracelet to her wrist, her outstretched arms fell back to the ground and she became peaceful once more.

After relating the story, Lee brings Ming to Cho's burial site but they cannot find her remains because the graves there had been excavated to make way for a construction site. On the way back, they drink from a freshwater pool and spot Cho's ghost in the water. Ming believes that Cho's remains might have been accidentally dumped into the pool. Later, while walking along the streets, Lee hears Cho's voice calling him and he follows it to an alley, where a metal bar falls on him and kills him. One night, Jack has a frightful encounter with Cho's ghost at home. In the meantime, the possessed Annie tries to kill herself by overdosing on drugs but is stopped by Ming in time and taken to hospital.

By then, Fa-mo has figured out that the problem actually lies with the water from the freshwater pool: Cho's vengeful aura is transmitted through the water and she can cause people who drank from the pool to experience hallucinations and die unnatural deaths. Ming and Fa-mo go to Jack's house and see Jack attempting to force Cissy to drink a glass of the "polluted" water. They try to stop him but he seems to be in a trance. They manage to knock him out. Ming and Fa-mo tie up Jack and Cissy to prevent them from hurting themselves or each other, and then they go to the pool. Ming dives into the pool, retrieves the bracelet, and dives in again to search for Cho's remains. On the second time, he is immediately transported to Cho's burial site as soon as he dived into the pool. He sees his doppelgänger among a procession of ghostly figures. He tries to attach the bracelet to Cho's wrist in the same manner as Lee Keung did before him, but her outstretched hands strangle him to death before he could do so. Fa-mo rushes back to Jack's house and drinks the "polluted" water so that he can see Cho and confront her. When he is hugging Cissy, whom he has secretly been in love with, she transforms into Cho, but he knows that this is an illusion and embraces her even more tightly. Cho is touched by their love and spares them. By then, Jack has regained consciousness and he is unhappy to see Fa-mo embracing his fiancée. Cho suddenly appears beside him and he screams. The end credits start rolling against a background of a ghostly hand rising out of a water surface.

Cast

External links