Starring: Charlene Choi Cheuk-yin, Wu Chun
Director: Jingle Ma Chor-sing
Category: IIB (Cantonese)
Reincarnation, particularly of the celluloid variety, is often a case of diminishing returns.
The latest film adaptation of the legendary tragic love between Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai is unremarkable, and the liberties taken by director-writer Jingle Ma and his co-writers not imaginative or memorable. The scenario they've concocted is not without novel features, with the action taking place several reincarnations after the original tale and placing the young lovers in the world of martial arts.
The young lady is now known as Zhu Yanzhi (Charlene Choi) and is once again a well-born maiden who dons men's garb to get an education. In this lifetime, however, she learns kung fu and swordplay at a mountainous retreat presided over by an offbeat herbalist (Harlem Yu Cheng-ching) and a stern fight master (Hung Yan-yan). It is also there that this Chinese Juliet becomes enamoured again with the Romeo of her past lives, who now goes by the name of Liang Zhongshan (Wu Chun, in an unmemorable film debut).