Wa pei (2008)

User Rating:

6.4/10   

Director:

Gordon Chan

Writer:

Songling Pu (novel)

Release Date:

25 September 2008 (Hong Kong)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Thriller

Plot:

An action-thriller centered on a vampire-like woman who eats the skins and hearts of her lovers. |

Plot Keywords:

Skin | Husband Wife Relationship | Sacrifice | Male Female Relationship | Lizard

Awards:

3 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Donnie Yen	...	Yong
Xun Zhou	...	Xiaowei
Wei Zhao	...	Peirong
Kun Chen	...	Wang Sheng
Betty Sun	...	Xia-Bing
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
David Leong	...	Xia Hou Xiang
Yuwu Qi

Also Known As:

Hua pi (Hong Kong: Mandarin title)
Painted Skin (International: English title)

Runtime:

South Korea:103 min

Country:

Singapore | China | Hong Kong

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

Singapore:PG | Hong Kong:IIB | South Korea:15

Company:

Golden Sun Films

Trivia:

Hong Kong's 2009 Academy Awards official submission to Foreign-Language Film category.

Movie Connections:

Remake of Hua pi zhi: Yin yang fa wang (1993)

It is a horror movie...or is it?

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 arguable.

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