Review | Hell Bank Presents: Running Ghost movie review – fantasy comedy with great potential spoiled with corny storytelling
- This story about a loser who dies and enters a variety show in the afterworld fails to live up to its premise
- It concentrates too much on the characters’ backstories, leaving the comedy to fall flat
2.5/5 stars
In this fantasy comedy-drama directed by Singaporean comedian Mark Lee Kok-huang, a recently deceased Hong Kong slacker is given a second chance at life after he is chosen to compete in the titular corporate-sponsored variety show hosted by the afterworld. Despite the inventive horror parody this premise hints at, Hell Bank Presents: Running Ghost turns out to be far more interested in its protagonists’ corny backstories than it should probably be.
Three weeks after he died in mysterious circumstances, good-for-nothing computer nerd Wong Hiu-kwai (played by Wong You-nam, Wong Ka Yan ) finds himself a reluctant participant in a “scaring contest”, where wandering ghosts scare the lives out of humans to try and win the grand prize of a chance at resurrection. The brief opening scene recapping last year’s winner offers a decent slice of horror comedy that the film never fully returns to.
Once he is sent back among the living, Wong, an orphan, realises he has little to care for except his high-school crush Bo-yee (Venus Wong Man-yik), who is apparently dating a property agent (Adam Pak Tin-nam) behind his back. A loser, even in his spectral form, Wong is helpless at scaring anyone until he receives the help of Chiu Ling-kay (Cecilia So Lai-shan, Napping Kid ), a young woman who can communicate with the dead.
Orphaned as a child when her single dad (Ben Yuen Fu-wah) died in an accident that she feels responsible for, Chiu offers to help Wong in exchange for information about her late father’s whereabouts in the afterlife. In a development that may remind So’s fans of the plot of her 2017 romantic comedy Never Too Late – the major difference being that she has swapped the dead character for the living here – Wong and Chiu soon grow rather fond of each other.
Unsurprisingly, Running Ghost is at its funniest when it follows Wong’s efforts at haunting and possession in the few intriguing scenes packaged as competition footage. After elaborating on the fun details of its fantasy set-up, it’s beyond me as to why Lee and his trio of screenwriters think it’s somehow a good idea to spend much of the film’s 81-minute running time charting the sappy stories of Wong and Chiu instead.
A diverting supernatural drama let down by banal plot turns, Running Ghost comes across as a missed opportunity to fashion a captivating horror comedy gem infused with insights into Cantonese superstitions and traditions. In fact, the less said about the character design for the ghosts in the film – what with their embarrassingly cheesy Halloween make-up and costumes – the better.
Want more articles like this? Follow SCMP Film on Facebook
