Movielogr

Rating: 6.5 stars

Tags

Hong Kong

All movies seen on 03/16/2013

View on: IMDb | TMDb

Painted Skin (2008)

Directed by Gordon Chan

Action | Fantasy | Eastern

Overview

Painted Skin is based on one of Pu Songling’s classic short stories in Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio. Zhou Xun stars as Xiao Wei, a fox spirit that feasts on human hearts in order to maintain her lovely, youthful appearance. When General Wang Sheng (Chen Kun) ‘rescues’ her from a band of bandits and brings her home, trouble brews as the demon falls in love with the general.

Length 103 minutes

Actors

Donnie Yen | Zhou Xun | Chen Kun | Zhao Wei | Sun Li | Qi Yuwu | Jin Song | David Liang Kai-Di | Xiao Cong | Liu Yan | Yeerjiang Mahepushen | Michael Tan An-Ye | Qi Yun-Peng | Wen Yang | Zhao Chang-Zhou | Li Qi-Long | Qu Da-Lei | Hon Jan-Wa | Jin Liang | Dai Xiao-Yi | Pengfei Qin | Fei Wang

Viewing History (seen 1 time)

Viewing Notes

Giving this a marginal half star bump b/c I think I would have enjoyed it more if not for the jenky subtitles and poor PQ. Really doesn’t help for the action sequences. But the film isn’t edited very well as it is. Feels more like a made-for-TV movie with big name stars. Seeing Xun Zhou stretch her chomps here made me want to see Cloud Atlas again.

The real stars are Vicki Zhao and Betty Sun. Yen is almost a non-factor as he almost seems to be on cruise control. Got the DVD from eBay since no domestic release is available but it’s a decent remake of the King Hu film that’s only slightly tonally odd (some humor mixed w/mostly melodrama fantasy action). The CG does not look good but could also be the poor PQ.

I’d like to see a better presentation of this someday.

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