I once heard the poet Trương Trần before reading a poem about Walt Whitman say something like, It’s
one thing to be in love with Walt Whitman; it’s another thing to want to fuck Walt Whitman. I fall just
short of being in love with Leslie Cheung. Like love love — the way you want someone to love love you
back and you’d be happy together. Like happy happy — the way young-love emotion plus aesthete
equals adventuring. Like in the first phase of A Chinese Ghost Story, when all the zombie things keep just
barely missing out on Leslie Cheung. Like clueless cute-cute Leslie Cheung.

—
In the opening scene, it’s night time and a lantern falls into a water bath,

then we’re outside, moving along the ground. Leaves blowing.

Up six steps.

Ghosts? Zombies? Monsters?

—
In the next scene,
it’s day time. Leslie Cheung wiping his brow with his sleeve
is trying to find his way.

He’s eating a chunk of bread. He bites down, and it hurts his teeth.
Slapstick Leslie is adorably hapless Leslie.

He splits a big rock with his bread. He punts the bread,
and it tears a hole in his shoe. We see his big toe.

But which direction is south?

—
Umbrellas.
No,
holes in an umbrella. Rain.

At least I haven’t run into thieves.

Heavy rain. Water waterfalls down his knapsack.

—
The movie is consistent. The order of appearances of the other-worldly beings makes the arc titular:

First the zombies,

then the monster,

then the ghost,
Joey Wong, who plays
the zither.
* * * * *
—
We’re dry again, in the daylight. There’s music around us, small, thin paper slips blowing around.
A festival? Which one?

—
The noise of people all around.

It’s hard not to read real life tragedy into this
film and see his death in every scene.

—
Someone in the dispersing crowd, yells out to him,

You! You’ve money for the dead stuck on you! Trying to take advantage of me?

Sir, you’ve got to be joking! I don’t spend this kind of money.

(You’ll be able to spend it sooner or later.)

—
He tells the people he has free lodging at the haunted temple, Lan Yeuk.

How brave

He’s going to die

Let him go

We shouldn’t let him go

—
It’s night again. Three wolves, eyes glowing green.

Leslie Cheung, cutely: Hey don’t eat me! If you eat me, then I’ll be dead.

—
cute
cute
tragic
cute
cute
tragicute

cute

cute
tragic
cute

I think that’s the ratio for this movie

—
so that she, Joey Wong, the beautiful woman in the painting, his love interest, can be mortal
again. . .

—
The first time they meet: Ivory White Transparent Curtains No Liner No Grommets Non-Textured Linen
Curtains for Living Room, 2 Panels,

flowing in the night breeze.

—
While he’s unconscious under her spell, she says to him,
You seem rather kind. It’s a shame you came to the wrong place,
or else you wouldn’t have to die such a wrongful death.

—
Her burial urn,
black, calabash gourd-shaped,
needs to be reburied somewhere safe.

—
Or else I won’t make it in time to reincarnate as a mortal.

—
The scene where we know they know they’re in love,
they’re writing a love poem together on a scroll.
They take turns writing the lines.

“Envious of mandarin ducks eternal love rather than, the immortality of the gods.”