Painted Skin: The Resurrection (2012)

Los Angeles Premiere! Special Halloween Screening!

Directed by Wuershan

Loosely inspired by the Qing Dynasty writer Pu Songling’s Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (c. 1679-1707) that has spawned countless cinematic adaptations and television series, Wuershan’s Painted Skin is a visually sumptuous, shamelessly romantic take on the paranormal question: Can humans and demons fall in love with each other? Produced by Taiwanese critic-director Chen Kuo-fu for the Huayi Brothers (one of China’s biggest studios), the film smashed box-office records this summer to become the highest-grossing Chinese domestic release of all time.

Five hundred years ago, the fox spirit Xiaowei (Zhou Xun of Suzhou River fame) was imprisoned under a frozen lake as a punishment for having saved a man. Bird spirit Qu’er (Mini Yang) breaks Xiaowei free with her beak, and the two beautiful women venture forth into a world where Xiaowei must devour men’s hearts to survive. Attacked by bandits on the road, Xiaowei is saved by a masked warrior, who turns out to be a woman in drag: Princess Jing (Vicky Zhao). Jing has been disfigured by a bear, and dares not confront her love for the young general Huo Xin (Chen Kun) while betrothed to a barbarian prince she has never met. Xiaowei attaches herself to the service of the princess, and the two women become tantalizingly close. If they exchange identities, Jing could be beautiful again, and Xiaowei could become a woman. Meanwhile, Qu’er has met a self-styled “demon hunter” (William Feng), and outside the fortress gates, the barbarians are clamoring for the Princess to be handed to them…

– Bérénice Reynaud

Producer: Chen Kuo-fu, Pang Hong, Wang Zhonglei. Screenwriter: Ran Ping, Ran Jia’nan. Cinematographer: Arthur Wong. Production Designer: Hao Yi. Editor: Xiao Yang. Cast: Zhou Xun, Vicki Zhao, Chen Kun, Mini Yang, William Feng.

Blu-ray, color, Putonghua w/ English s/t, 131 min. 

View the trailer below.