Starring: Renee Liu Ruo-ying, Leon Lai Ming, Fan Bingbing
Director: Teng Huatao
Category: IIA (Putonghua)
This vapid ghost story is one of the first overtly superstitious tales to be passed by censors on the mainland. The third feature by Beijing Film Academy graduate Teng Huatao, The Matrimony is loaded with surface glitter (aided immeasurably by Mark Lee Ping-bing's atmospheric cinematography), but is woefully deficient in bringing together the elements necessary for a credible foray into the world beyond.
The screenplay, by Zhang Jialu and Yang Qianling, is adequate in its broad outline, but crumbles when it comes to riveting drama or edge-of-your-seat thrills. Set in a generic pre-Communist-era Shanghai, the tragic love triangle of filmmaker Shen Junchu (Leon Lai), his dead fiancee Xu Manli (Fan Bingbing, right) and present wife Sansan (Rene Liu) is an insipid collection of cliches from the horror-romance genre.
The film begins with the death of radio broadcaster Manli and the marriage, a year later, of Junchu and Sansan. It's not long before the bride feels there's another presence in their cavernous mansion, situated in the middle of a forest, yet seemingly seconds from central Shanghai. Manli is back, and the only question is whether she's a kind-hearted spook or a horribly evil spirit.