Film Name: 鬼新娘 / The Bride from Hell
This film is adapted from “Liao Zhai Zhi Yi – Gui Qi,” the original text of which reads as follows: Nie Pengyun of Tai’an lived in perfect harmony with his wife. When she fell ill and passed away, Nie was overcome with grief, sitting and lying in a daze, as if he had lost something precious. One night, as he sat alone, his wife suddenly pushed open the door and entered. Startled, Nie asked, “Where have you come from?” She smiled and said, “I have become a ghost. Moved by your mourning, I pleaded with the Lord of the Underworld to grant us this secret meeting.” Overjoyed, Nie took her to bed, and all was as it had been before. Thus they met secretly under the stars and moon for over a year. Nie never spoke of remarrying. His uncles and brothers, fearing the family line would die out, secretly plotted within the clan and persuaded Nie to take a new wife. Nie agreed and betrothed himself to a woman from a respectable family. Yet, fearing his wife would be unhappy, he kept it secret. Soon the wedding date approached. The ghost, learning of this, rebuked him: “I endured the wrath of the underworld for your sake. Now you break your vow? Is this how one who swears eternal love behaves?” Nie explained his clan’s wishes, but the ghost remained displeased and departed. Though Nie pitied her, his plan had succeeded.
On the night of the wedding feast, as the couple lay in bed, the ghost suddenly appeared. It seized the bride and shouted, “How dare you occupy my bed!” The bride rose to resist. Nie, terrified, crouched motionless, unable to intervene. Soon, the cock crowed, and the ghost departed. Suspecting Nie’s wife was still alive and had tricked her, the bride attempted suicide by hanging. Nie explained the truth, and she finally understood it was a ghost. The ghost returned night after night, and the bride fled in terror. The ghost no longer shared the bed with Nie but pinched his flesh with its fingers. Then, glaring at him silently by candlelight, it stared without a word. This went on for several nights, tormenting Nie. Nearby lived a man skilled in the occult arts. He carved peach wood into talismans and nailed them to the grave’s four corners. The apparition vanished.
Zhou Xujiang directed two ghost films for Shaw Brothers; the other was The Enchanting Ghost, adapted from Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio: The Story of Shu Chi. This film feels superior to the former. The plot is straightforward: the female lead was murdered by bandits twenty years prior and returned as a vengeful ghost. Overall, the film is fairly conventional. The leads don’t suit period costumes, and the words spoken by the deity Erlang Shen after his apparition seem downright misleading by modern standards. Taiyi Shanren comes across as a reincarnation of Fahai—fully aware the ghost was murdered, yet stubbornly clinging to the doctrine that ghosts are inherently evil. Whether by coincidence or fate, the real-life actors faced tragic paths afterward. Both developed mental health issues: one killed someone in a psychotic episode, while the other was committed to a psychiatric hospital. They passed away in 2006 and 2007 respectively, leaving behind a deeply saddening legacy.
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