A Wicked Ghost

A Wicked Ghost
A Wicked Ghost
	Film poster
Directed by	Tony Leung Hung-wah
Written by	Tony Leung Hung-wah
Produced by	Tony Leung Hung-wah
Starring	Francis Ng ; Gigi Lai ; Gabriel Harrison ; Edward Mok ; Nelson Ngai ; Celia Sze
Cinematography	Ally Wong
Edited by	Ng Wang-hung
Music by	Simon Leung
Production; company	Times Production Ltd.
Distributed by	Universe Films Distribution Co. Ltd.
Release date	November 4, 1999
Running time	85 minutes
Country	Hong Kong
Language	Cantonese

A Wicked Ghost is a 1999 Hong Kong horror film directed by Tony Leung Hung-wah, starring Francis Ng, Gigi Lai, Gabriel Harrison, Edward Mok, Nelson Ngai and Celia Sze. It was followed by the sequels A Wicked Ghost II: The Fear in 2000 and A Wicked Ghost III: The Possession in 2002.

Plot

Ming, his girlfriend Annie, and three other friends (Rubbish, Big-B, and Biggie) decide to play a game of contacting the supernatural at Rubbish's house, but Ming backs out before the game starts. The other four start playing - they mix their blood in a bowl of water and drink the mixture, form a circle by holding hands, and inhale fumes produced from the burning of oil secreted from a corpse. While they are playing, Ming, who has the ability to see spirits, suddenly sees a female ghost dressed in blue appearing near the group. He immediately stops his friends, much to everyone's dismay. Rubbish goes to the bathroom but a while later he dashes out in fear, claiming that he saw a ghost. The others cautiously enter the bathroom and are shocked to see Rubbish submerged inside the bathtub. They are shocked and confused when they notice a shadow approaching from outside, and when they glance back at the bathtub, it is empty. Just then, they hear Rubbish screaming and immediately rush out into the living room, only to find Rubbish lying dead on the floor, his face contorted into an expression of fear.

Ming's sister Cissy is a reporter and she is worried that something will happen to Ming after hearing about what happened to Rubbish. She seeks help from her friend, Fa-mo, a drama teacher who knows a lot about the supernatural. Fa-mo thinks that the problem lies with the oil, and that the ghost enters people's minds through the fumes. He asks Ming where the oil came from, but Ming says that only Rubbish knows, but since Rubbish is already dead, there is no way they can find out.

Ming meets up with Biggie and Annie later in a bar, and he sees Biggie wearing several layers of clothing even though the weather is quite warm. He asks her out of curiosity, and she tells him she keeps feeling very cold recently. When Biggie goes to the washroom, Ming sees the same female ghost dressed in blue following her.

Big-B has fallen sick since that day and has also been feeling very cold. One night, he hears someone calling his name and follows the voice to the rooftop, where he sees Biggie beckoning him towards her. He walks towards her and eventually falls off the rooftop and dies.

After Big-B's death, Fa-mo asks Ming to go to Rubbish's apartment and see if he can find Rubbish's ghost and ask him where the oil came from. Ming encounters Rubbish's ghost, but Rubbish appears to be in pain and he keeps telling Ming to go away. Before Ming can ask anything, he sees Rubbish's ghost being dragged away by an unseen force. Ming tells Fa-mo that he saw Rubbish's ghost being destroyed by another ghost, and he believes that the oil came from the other ghost.

Ming later visits Annie at her apartment and she tells him that she saw Biggie leaving in a car driven by an eerie-looking man. She is puzzled because she knows Biggie does not live in the same block as her. They sense that something is wrong and travel to Biggie's house but it is too late. Biggie had strangled her mother to death and then committed suicide. Annie sees a portrait of Biggie's deceased father on the wall and recognises him as the man who drove Biggie away.

Cissy's fiance Jack, who is skeptical about the supernatural, encounters the ghost of an old man in the washroom. When they ask Fa-mo about it, Fa-mo tells them he thinks that Ming and Rubbish both saw the ghost's true form (the female ghost dressed in blue) and Rubbish died from shock, while the "ghosts" the others saw were actually hallucinations. This all had nothing to do with the oil, and they had been following the wrong clue. After some research, Fa-mo discovers that Rubbish and Jack had something in common - they both lived in the same town. The town was located near a village called Yellow Hill Village, and a bizarre incident occurred there nearly 100 years ago - 66 people, about two thirds of the village's population, died mysteriously over three days.

The following day, Ming goes to Yellow Hill Village, now abandoned and ruined, and sees a spirit tablet in the temple, with the name "Cho Yan-may" inscribed on it. He also encounters the ghosts of the dead villagers and he runs away in fear. He meets up with Fa-mo in an eatery nearby and they overhear a mad old man rambling something about Cho Yan-may and a boy called Lee Keung. The old man said Cho Yan-may doted on Lee Keung and the boy survived with the help of a bracelet.

In the meantime, Annie has started behaving oddly and has locked herself inside her room. Her mother overhears her singing Cantonese opera songs inside, and feels that her daughter has been possessed by a spirit. She hires a priest to perform an exorcism, and the priest sticks Chinese paper talismans all over the house. Ming visits Annie and the possessed Annie tells him that Annie has three days to live.

To save Annie, Fa-mo and Ming start searching for Lee Keung to find clues and eventually locate him. Lee, a bearded old man, is a former opera actor, and he tells them to leave when they ask him about Cho Yan-may and Yellow Hill Village. Ming later sees Lee burning paper offerings and approaches him, and Lee reluctantly tells him the story. Cho Yan-may was a famous Cantonese opera actress in Yellow Hill Village, and she doted on Lee when he was a boy and gave him a bracelet. Lee affectionately called her "Aunt May". Cho's husband, Po Man-tin, a respectable teacher in the village, was addicted to opium and he owed people a lot of money. One day, the creditor came to Po's house and attempted to rape Cho, but was discovered. To protect her husband's reputation, Cho lied that she had an affair with the creditor, and the villagers had her put to death for infidelity. Cho was brutally beaten to death and her body was abandoned in the wilderness. In fact, the whole incident was a plot by Po Man-tin, because he wanted to marry a rich girl and he schemed to frame his wife for infidelity so he could get rid of her. Lee Keung, then a boy, knew the truth and witnessed Cho's death, and he went to her dead body and cried and said everything. Cho's arms suddenly shot up and reached towards the sky. Over the next three days, Cho's vengeful spirit caused 66 villagers, including Po Man-tin, to die unnatural deaths. Lee Keung came back to Cho's body and attached the bracelet she gave him onto her wrist, pleading with her to spare people's lives, and her arms fell back to the ground and she became peaceful.

Lee Keung brings Ming to Cho Yan-may's burial site but they see that the graves there have been excavated for the construction of a runway. Cho's remains were not properly buried so they were lost during the excavation. On the way back, Ming and Lee drink from a freshwater spring, and suddenly spot Cho's ghost in the pool. Ming believes that Cho's remains might have been accidentally dumped into the pool.

Later one night, the mad old man whom Fa-mo and Ming met in the eatery died inside an elevator. There are news reports that there are three deaths in a certain town and five more in another town nearby. At home, Jack is also suffering from chills and he has a frightful encounter with Cho Yan-may's ghost in the bathroom.

Ming receives a phone call from Annie's mother, who tells him that Annie is dying. Ming rushes to Annie's apartment but does not know that the phone cable is disconnected. At Annie's house, Ming sees Annie attempting suicide by overdosing on drugs but he calls for help in time and sends her to hospital. She lies on bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, and when he tries to comfort her, she turns hostile and screams at him. Just then, Ming receives a call from Fa-mo, who tells him that the water supply in Rubbish's house was cut on the day they played the "contacting ghosts" game, so the water his friends drank that day came from the freshwater spring. Fa-mo believes that Cho Yan-may's vengeful aura can be transmitted through water and she can cause people who drank from the spring (where her remains are) to experience hallucinations and kill themselves. Elsewhere, while walking along the streets, Lee Keung hears Cho Yan-may's voice calling him and he follows her voice to an alley, where a metal bar falls on him and kills him.

Ming and Fa-mo go to Jack's house and sees him attempting to force Cissy to drink a glass of water from the freshwater spring. Fa-mo tries to stop Jack, but Jack seems to be in a trance and he tries to kill Fa-mo but is knocked out by Ming. As Cissy and Jack have already drank the "polluted" water, Ming and Fa-mo tie them up to prevent themselves from hurting themselves or each other.

Ming and Fa-mo then go to the spring, and Ming dives into the pool to find Cho Yan-may's remains. Ming retrieves the bracelet and surfaces, and Fa-mo tells him to find Cho's body and attach the bracelet to it because the bracelet is a symbol of Cho's love for Lee Keung, and may help to appease her angry spirit. When Ming dives into the pool again, he is immediately transported into a spiritual realm - the wilderness where Cho's remains were abandoned. Ming sees a procession of ghostly figures walking past and is horrified to see that one of them is himself. He finds Cho's body and tries to attach the bracelet to her wrist in the same way Lee Keung did years ago, but her outstretched hands strangle him to death before he could do so.

Back at the pool, Fa-mo sees Ming's dead body surfacing and he starts weeping. He then rushes back to Jack's house and sees Cissy in fear. He tries to confront Cho Yan-may and drinks the "polluted" water as well. Fa-mo has actually all along been secretly in love with Cissy, and he hugs her closely. She suddenly transforms into Cho, but Fa-mo knows that this is an illusion so he embraces her. Fa-mo's act moves Cho deeply and she says "You really love her" before disappearing. By then, Jack has regained consciousness and he is unhappy to see Fa-mo embracing his fiancee. Cho Yan-may suddenly appears beside him and he screams. The end credits then start rolling against a background of a ghostly hand rising out of a water surface.

Cast

Francis Ng as Fa-mo
Gigi Lai as Cissy
Gabriel Harrison as Ming
Edward Mok as Jack
Chow Yan-yan as Cho Yan-may
Nelson Ngai as Po Man-tin
Celia Sze as Annie
Lui Tat as Lee Keung
- Cheung Yue-lee as Lee Keung (boy)
Lam Suk-yan as Biggie
Joseph Tang as Rubbish
Man Yeung as Big-B

External links