It all seems to be a simple case of rape and murder when Ah Ying (Joey
Wong) is found unconscious and her husband Feng Yu Yu tied up and stabbed
to death, and the only witness, Xiao Jie (Anthony Wong Yiu-Ming)
corroborates this story - which does not make the investigating judge, Ah
Ying's father no less, nor the local cop Huo (Chieh Kao) who's secretly in love
with Ah Ying, too happy, as it would suggest she's no longer pure. When Ah
Ying herself is questioned though, she claims she fended off her would-be
rapist by stabbing him in the neck with her comb, and this version of the
story rings true when soon afterwards, the key suspect in the case, Xian Yan (Sha
Li-Wen) is found with an injury caused by Ah Ying's comb in his
neck. He however admits to having tied up Feng Yu Yu and having had sex
with his wife, but he claims she offered himself to him, and he didn't
kill her husband but was chased away when stabbed by the comb by a person
unknown. Ah Ying's
father and Kuo no longer know whom to believe, and before they know it,
both Xiao Jie and Xian Yan are killed (by Ah Ying, but neither dad nor
lover know that yet), and to finally solve the case, the judge turns to a
spiritualist - who has to admit to being a fraud, but nevertheless the
spirits of the dead show up and tell an even worse version of what has
happened than previously envisioned: Actually, Ah Ying has not only
offered herself to Xian Yan but also to Xiao Jie (who had actually stabbed
Xian Yan with Ah Ying's comb), and it was Ah Ying herself who killed her husband, because he
could never show her the love these two rapists showed to her. Overcome
by shame, her father the judge wants to punish and humiliate her, just
like he did with her mother after she had cheated on him ... but the last
joke is on him, because it now turns out Ah Ying is no longer among the
living but already a demon, stabbed during her rape (or rather non-rape)
by accident, but she has come back to the world of the living to make her
father repent for what he had done to her mother. An almost other-worldly movie: Done in the
tradition of costume dramas of decades ago, relying heavily on stylized
tableaus, fixed camera setups, mask-like heavy makeup, very basic special
effects, a deliberately slow
pace and intentionally stagey sequences, this film however tells a
decidedly fresh, original story with many an intereting twist and turn,
and not for a minute it seems as old-fashioned as the almost antiquated
directorial techniques would suggest, rather like something that stands
completely on its own without anything really comparable to it. Recommended.
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