Hua pi

After all the effort of building international reputation with films like "Heroes" and "Crouching Tiger", Chinese film has gone back to the starting point with this one. "Painted Skin" is nothing but an amateur attempt trying to imitate other ones, without sufficient skill or patient. The lines are simple AWFUL!!! I wonder whether they came up with the script in two days. The costumes and makeup is a joke, look like recycled from other movies. The acting....Donnie Yen's performance is probably OK for a HongKong TV show and nothing else, and all those supposedly emotional scenes are so badly handled, gave me goose bumps. The worst thing of this film is the directing, the editing and camera works. It is absolutely mind-blowing that such a horrible production, worse than an average video on Youtube, has spent so much money on advertising and publicity stunt, but nothing on making this movie worth seeing.

Ever since his early "Dragon Inn" days, Donnie Yen has had a commanding screen presence. In his more recent movies, he always plays himself - strong, violent, a believer in rough justice - and he always delivers great action scenes. He's the only reason to watch this film to the end. He makes the most of his screen time, which regrettably is not anywhere near as much as one wishes.

The film is chugging along great when about halfway through, it just abruptly runs out of plot. In order to fill the remaining time, the actors suddenly start moving and talking incredibly slowly. I thought there was something wrong with my computer. It has to be seen to be believed. Donnie Yen is the only one immune to this strange infection, but sadly, he is not permitted to carry the film by himself.

I recently saw this at the 2009 Palm Springs International Film Festival. I didn't know quite what to expect of it but being Hong Kong's official entry to the 81st Acadmy Awards I thought it may be of some value. This film is adapted from the 300 year old classic ghost story of Song Ling Pu and is a combination of historical romance, supernatural and martial arts from director Gordon Chan who also wrote the screenplay along with Abe Kwong and Lau Ho Leung with action scenes directed by Wei Tung. Yong (Donnie Yen) is China's best warrior. His former love Peirong (Wei Zhao) is now married to Wang Sheng (Ken Chen) the commander of the armies. In a raid on desert bandits the beautiful Xiao Wei is taken into the armies custody and she takes a liking to Wang Sheng but Peirong stands in her way. Mysterious grizzly deaths start happening and soon Xia-Bing (Betty Sun) a tough female hunter of demons shows up. Xiao Yi (David Leong) is the mysterious supernatural companion to the beautiful but deadly Xiao Wei. This is an entertaining story and makes for a great debut film for director Chan. Great cinematography from Arthur Wong and a great visual setting from the art department of art director bill Liv and production designer Chung Man Yee. A co-production of Hong Kong with China and Singapore it's a little drawn out but worth seeing. I would give it a 7.5 and recommend it.

This is not your average Donnie Yen movie. So is that a good or bad thing? Well, I found it to be a nice switch away from the usual stuff that we see from the Hong Kong martial arts star. So yes, I enjoyed "Painted Skin" (aka "Hua pi").

Directors Gordon Chan, Danny Ko and Andy Wing-Keung Chin managed to put together a good story that had a good amount of variation. "Painted Skin" is an enjoyable combination of love story, action and drama.

The talents were well-cast and it was nice to see a movie where Donnie Yen wasn't all-overshadowing over all other actors and actresses. You know what you will get from martial arts star Donnie Yen, of course. However, the two female leads Xun Zhou and Wei Zhao were really impressive in this 2008 movie.

"Painted Skin" has a lot to offer and chances are that you will find something in it too. I enjoyed the storytelling and the fact that the movie wasn't focusing on being a display of CGI effects.

The action and fight sequences were well-choreographed and equally so executed, which is a given when Donnie Yen is involved.

The costumes and sets were grand, with lots of details, and it helped bring the story to life quite well.

"Painted Skin" is a well-worthy addition to the collection of anyone who enjoys Asian cinema.

The movie painted skin is loosely based on a legendary Supranatural Chinese tale 'Hua Pi' about a disguised demon under a human skin(drawn skin exactly). Like many favorite ancient tales, despite the illogical and senseless aspect, always have some moral aspect to be dig or contemplated over. Painted skin in this case is not much different of. It digs a very deep portrait about the meaning of love and the willing of sacrificing for love. And believe it or not the movie want to show us that not only do human can sacrifice when it came to the matter of love.

Although stamped as a 'horror' movie but sorry to say, don't expect to see very much horror in it. It's nowhere near the horror like you saw in most Zombie movie or modern slasher horror. It's in a more mannerly and elegant way to level its emotion to human being and in my opinion the horror thing is just to dramatize the center love story and not really the main course in the first place. Some humor in the movie is driven well enough to at least force some smirk on audiences. And for those who're aware, with Donnie Yen as the main cast, one can expect less than some martial arts showdown. The rest of the cast is very eye catching especially the irresistible beauty of Zhou Xun.

And finally orchestrated by veteran director Gordon Chan who has experienced in so much genre since his existence in mid 80's, the movie is not disappointed at all except in my opinion if only the director did try boldly adapted a more tragic ending, it could really be better. Because in order to keep the movie running, when the plot seems finally reach an end path, the revealing of the demon's true identity in the end is way out of the blue and the motive is also very laudable.

I'll give it a fair 6/10. Not Special but Enjoyable.