During a session to find a proper story for the next Troublesome
Night-movie, two of the series' regulars, Bud Gay (Tong Ka Fai) and
Bud Yan (Cheung Ho Lung), are thrown back in time into historical China
during the times of the Heroes of Leung Shan. There, they are quick
to befriend food merchant Wu Tai Long (Lau Shek Yin), his cheating wife
Lin (Lam Kit Ying) and his brother Chung (Ken Chung). Lin has an affair
with local shoemaker and overall baddie Simon Hing (Simon Lui), and
everybody but Wu Tai Long and Chung seem to know about it. Eventually,
Bud Gay meets a ghost, lovely Sandy (Chan Sze-Wai), who scares everybody
but him shitless. Turns out she only wants to have revenge on Simon Hing,
who has raped and killed her. Being from the future though, Bud Gay has
some hindsight into history, and he knows Simon Hing will have been killed
by Chung, who becomes one of the heroes of Leung Shan for this, so he
tells Sandy to not spoil her chances for reincarnation by killing Simon
Hing but leave it to him. Now it's up to Bud Gay and Bud Yan to get
Chung to fulfill his destiny and kill Simon Hing, something they almost
bungle up royally, and in the end, both Wu Tai Long and Lin have to die in
order to provoke Chung enough to take on, defeat and kill Simon Hing -
which indeed makes him one of the heroes. Sandy though expresses her
gratitude before passing on to the next world ... All the other Troublesome
Night-regulars - Law Lan, Kwai Chung, Kau Man Lung - are seen as
their past incarnations in Bud Gay and Bud Yan's trip to yesteryear's
China. The premise of this entry into the Troublesome
Night-series sounds much more interesing than anything the past
few episodes had to offer: A ghost story in period settings with the
regulars in different roles. This unfortunately sounds good only in
writing, because once the period setting is established, it's back to
business as usual, and the same lame humour is employed to carry a skeletal
story for the umpteenth time. And as for the horror aspects of the plot:
They don't even kick in until the last 20 minutes and are anything but
creepy (especially since the ghost girl isn't allowed to do anything much
anyways). Waste of time.
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