PICTURE OF A NYMPH – 88 Films Review: Wu Ma’s Classic Haunts With Spectral Delight
I’m a Tony Ching Siu-Tung fan, so I’m a little more inclined to dive into supernatural horror fantasies like A Chinese Ghost Story soon as I can. To this, I credit the late Wu Ma who stands as one of the finest character actors I’ve ever seen on screen. I’ve discussed his work before, and with his 1988 xianxia horror flick, Picture Of A Nymph, I’m happy to circle back.
Picture Of A Nymph is the story of Tsui (Lawrence Ng), a Taoist scholar who crosses paths with Shih Erh (Yuen Biao), a silent monk trained by Master Wu (Wu Ma) to battle ghosts. One such battle winds up with Tsui’s home burning to the ground, forcing him to take refuge with the superstitious Shih Erh, until the young apprentice reunites with Wu who’d been searching for him by then.
Meanwhile, a wayward bride named Mo Chiu (Joey Wang) ends up on the run when a horde of evil spirits force her off a cliff and killing her before she could get married, rendering her to spectral form. Indeed, the King Ghost (Elizabeth Lee) is on the hunt and will stop at nothing until it finds and consumes Mo Chiu.
It’s not long thereafter until Tsui and the ghostly Mo Chiu meet at a distance. Finding safe haven in one of Tsui’s drawings, it’s not long before the two come face-to-face with matters of the heart, and the potential consequences of falling in love as two inverse beings. As the unstoppable King Ghost advances, it’s up to Shih Erh and Master Wu to help save Tsui and Mo Chiu from a fate worse than death.
Honestly, the biggest selling point for me with Picture Of A Nymph before seeing the film was Yuen Biao. I didn’t do any research prior as I went in completely blind, so to see this was a Sammo Hung production was pretty reassuring given the cinema history Yuen and Hung share. We also get some terrific standout performances and sequences, with genre stalwart Yuen Wah making a brief entry as a ghost that Shih Erh battles early on in the film.
Themes of love and forbidden romance run high in Picture Of A Nymph which bolsters with stunning imagery and a largely palatable timbre as a mostly family-friendly watch. Wu Ma, taking up both sides of the lens, is central to this aspect of the film as an old-fashioned master, conditioned to see all ghosts as a threat, whereas Shih Erh, once taken in by the master as an orphan, comes to realize how antiquated Master’s rigid approach is.
Wu and Biao are terrific on screen, and the former is especially prominent in a few sequences of his own, host to spells of his own brand of comedy in one, and a touch of action in the other, courtesy of none other than Hung’s own stunt team. Wu’s residential curmudgeon in the film is especially relatable in delivery, with character development assuring his evolution leading up to the film’s spectacular finale.
88 Films is making this one available to Hong Kong action fans and collectors this week with in an amazing deluxe limited edition bundle. The movie is restored in 2K on 1080p High Definition Blu-Ray per the notes, and is presented in Cantonese 2.0 mono with English subtitles. Two commentary tracks feature film experts Frank Djeng and David West, respectively, and you also get an official trailer and a nifty image gallery to sweeten things up.
The disc itself comes in an O-card slipcase containing a box that includes both a case for the disc with double-sided jacket, as well as a double-sided lettercard for the film’s Chinese and Thai marketing. Customers also receive a requisite booklet – 40 pages containing two essays, firstly from Paul Bramhall who talks about the film as a transitionary point for 90s new wave wuxia, as well as the succeeding career phase for Yuen in the years that followed his last “three brothers” reunion on Dragons Forever, citing Lam Ngai-Choi’s Saga Of The Phoenix as one of several examples; and Fraser Elliott who chimes in with a profile of 18th century author Pu Songling, reflecting on the lasting legacy of his work centuries before the birth of cinema.
I’m more of a Hong Kong fan with an eye for Yuen’s old-school fisticuffs in kung fu and modern action. To this, I like seeing a film like Picture Of A Nymph that gives me an idea as to where he was as an actor at the time, and the various points of transition he made in the years since he, Chan and Hung ruled action cinema with a seemingly unbreakable bond at the time.
At any rate, this is me putting a pin in here to remind myself to watch A Chinese Ghost Story at some point. As for Picture Of A Nymph, you can find your copy at the MVD Shop.
Native New Yorker. Been writing for a long time now, and I enjoy what I do. Be nice to me!
