Yuan yue wan dao

This film follows Ting Ping as he attempts to climb through a martial arts ladder of opponents in an attempt to bring himself out of poverty. While he is an underdog, he has a secret technique his father taught him that is thus far unbeatable. When he is eventually defeated through treachery, he attempts to commit suicide but is instead transported to the world of ghosts while still remaining mortal. He meets Chin Ching a young ghost girl who he quickly falls in love with. The rest of the movie is part romance, part revenge, part morale tale, and sort of boring.

While the film has supernatural elements to the plot, don't expect for that to bleed over into the fights (ala BUDDHA's PALM (1982)). Nor should you expect a martial art movie with crazy weapons or completely ridiculous techniques. The closest you get here is a dual bladed scimitar (think Darth Maul's dual bladed light saber in THE PHANTOM MENACE (1999)) which can be used to trip or disarm opponents. In addition to that most of the characters are rather forgettable as they don't come off as anything other then generic. This all results in a series of fights that you will likely forget about soon after the movie ends. I watched the English dub and found it to be adequate but lacking in both exceptional performances as well as amusing dialog. The best line happened after a character stabbed an opponent and leans down to taste some the blood ("It tastes terrible"). Not a flick I'd strongly recommend but you could certainly do worse.