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A Chinese Ghost Story | 
 enlarge | Director: Andrew Chan
Actors: Don Brown, Sylvia Chang, Jordan Chan, Ronald Cheng, Kelly Chen
Studio: Geneon [Pioneer]
Category: Video
List Price: $19.98
Buy New: $4.94
You Save: $15.04 (75%)
New (5) Used (6) from $1.79
Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 1507
Format: Animated, Color, Dolby, Ntsc
Languages: English (Subtitled), English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: VHS Tape
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 84
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 4.2 x 1.1
UPC: 013023080935
EAN: 0013023080935
ASIN: B000021Y82
Theatrical Release Date: 1999
Release Date: November 23, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: ******BRAND NEW****** ** Over 1.5 million orders shipped worldwide and more than 500 000 items in stock, BUY FROM A TRUSTED SOURCE, ESTABLISHED SINCE 1998 - INETVIDEO ~~~
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Ten years after the live-action A Chinese Ghost Story was a hit on the international art-house circuit in 1987, producer Tsui Hark creates an animated version of his tale. The wildly imaginative film of a human who falls for an enchanting ghost contains many of the ingredients of most anime films: an odd, sometimes incomprehensible story, bizarre creatures, and great action sequences. Giant monsters follow our pair of lovers from hell to earth to heaven, with assorted samurai warriors helping along the way. While the content demands the comprehension of those at least 8 and up, this film fills an important section of anime for kids who have outgrown Pokemon but are still too young for the sometimes brutal world of adult anime. A film this creative deserves an audience. --Doug Thomas
Description
Based on the well-known, live-action films of the same name, A Chinese Ghost Story: The Tsui Hark Animation is the fantastic tale of strange demons, hungry ghosts, and timeless love. Tsui Hark is internationally well-known for his iconoclastic style, solid storytelling, and tightly maintained pace. Among his many famous Hong Kong films are A Better Tomorrow, A Chinese Ghost Story, as well as Once Upon a Time in China.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 Good old family fun... September 22, 2006
Despite the fact that A Chinese Ghost Story is actually a Chinese production (made in Hong Kong in fact), it's always being classified as an anime everywhere online. If you're still in doubt, you can check the DVD release and see that the only language tracks available are Mandarin, Cantonese, and English. Anyhow, I'll be joining the internet bandwagon by placing this review on the anime index.
The first thing I noticed about A Chinese Ghost Story is the youthful look of the characters. Our hero Ning looks like a 10-year old boy (although he's actually older than that) -- being the vertically-challenged and roundish-ly drawn character that he is. It's kind of hard to believe that he has a girlfriend and that they are of marrying age already (but then people did marry young in ancient China). The female characters look slightly older, maybe around their mid-teens. Ning is immediately attracted to the ghost Siu Seen, and Siu Seen in turn gradually falls for Ning... but theirs is a love that's not supposed to be -- and that becomes the main dilemma of this unique story.
Things happen in a frenzied pace, and get a little too chaotic for my taste. In many scenes, the characters run, scream, fight, and jump around all at once. The art and animation are good. Although the character designs are on the cutesy side, vibrantly rendered visuals abound. The Chinese countryside comes alive with backgrounds that are computer generated, reminiscent of video game FMV sequences. The theme songs and music also add a nice touch. They are unmistakably Chinese in style (performed by popular Chinese artists) and tempo, which suits the film perfectly. The English dubbing is pretty decent, albeit in this case the Mandarin track (if watching the DVD) would give you a more authentic experience. A Chinese Ghost Story gives you a brief glimpse of the intricate and interesting world of Chinese mythology. It's a fairly solid title which the whole family can enjoy.
Interesting plot January 29, 2006
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
It starts out extremely lame. that is compared to the rest of the story. This movie is for kids not adults for laughter and not too scary. the animation is good for a 1997 movie. This movie was not made in China but in Japan. I love seeing the ghostbusters having powers.
My cherished animation of Xiao Cian October 16, 2005
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
It is such a valueless gem produced by Pioneer and Tsui Hark and all the other excellent staff.
The tune companies every single step of the story and reveal the true feeling between the two lovers.
Ning is rare for his trueness and loyality and hard to find in reality, who is almost a perfect male for love. And Xiao Cian is just characterised as a super ghost, if more plots and stories added to enrich Xiao Cien that she sacraficed something for Ning, e.g. the scene she grabbing Ning out of "Black Mountian". This story will be perfect. However, this is just an animation for teenagers but not for adults, such a balance between male and female characters is necessary for girls.
the ending song "Evening Fly" is such a diamond to summarize the "silver-shining" story.
In all, it just tells you: True love can never be too far away.
 A little odd, but definitely worth peeking at! March 27, 2005
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I found this quirky little gem at a local video store that specializes in foreign, independent, and classic films. Having exhausted much of the anime and Far East categories, I decided to give this one a chance, even though I had looked over it dozens of times before.
I'm a huge fan of animation in all its forms, so when this piece began, I was bombarded by awkward, bulky CGI images playing as a background to the traditional 2-D approach to animation. Normally, I'd find that sort of thing appalling (hey, if the styles clash, they clash) but at the same time, the odd mixture seemed to work in a very surreal sense and heightened my dedication to the story, which, as it turns out, was about China, ghosts, and a bunch of mystical weirdness that really seemed to draw strength from its bizarre visual scizophrenia.
And then there was the story. Firstly, you've got your underdog who is dense as a rock, but ultimately a good guy, his love interest, who is kind of a retread of that old "bar girl with a heart of gold" character you'd see in old Western movies, three bumbling enemies who start out trying to destroy the underdog's ghost girlfriend but end up mainly fighting each other, and, of course, the vain villainess whose only goal in life (death?) is to hang on to her youth. What kid's flick would have been complete without her, after all? Apparently, kid vehicles in China work much as they do here, in that there was also a cute, anthropomorphic dog sidekick that would drop over or growl or bat his eyelashes comically whenever the situation demanded it. Despite the formula, I found his antics charming, and only ended up liking his character more after I learned that director Tsui Hark provided all his grunts, snarls, and whimpers!
There's definitely something about the idea of a living man and a dead woman being in love--it's that darned Romeo & Juliet star-crossed lovers thing, again!--that stirs the romantic in me, so I found myself really rooting for Ning and SiuSeen's cause when they decided that the best way for them to be together was for them to be reincarnated and try to find one another on earth after their births.
So basically what it comes down to is that it looks weird, feels weird, sounds weird, and that the weirdness is wonderful to experience. I could safely liken it to some of Tim Burton's films, if you really need an American equivalent to get a better idea of what you're in for. But it's still kind of a loose comparison; just check it out for yourself, and I'm sure you'll have more fun with it than you're expecting.
An Entertaining Movie February 3, 2003
2 out of 7 found this review helpful
This movie is for kids, and in that sense, it does a fine job. Not too scary, a little silly/funny, but a moving storyline. There are some oddities that probably resulted from translation, and it may be more compelling in its native language (some of the songs seemed particularly odd), but it was, all in all, an engaging and entertaining movie.
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