Just perfect...

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

"Painted Skin" draws you in with it's recognizable list of performers (Vicki Zhao, Xun Zhao, Donnie Yen) and gives off an air of mystique with its movie posters and unique storyline. Loosely based on the classic Chinese short story "Strange Stories From A Chinese Studio, "Painted Skin" revolves around a female demon that feeds off of human hearts to retain its human like skin. The movie takes liberty to add several of its own plot twists, the major one being a Gothic love triangle of sorts with the demon's desire to win the heart of General Wang and take the place of his wife. Ending gets pretty emotional. There is no vampires in the movie and it isn't a gory horror flick. It's one of the best Asian flicks I seen! In other words, "Painted Skin" is light years better than "An Empress and the Warriors" and proudly untypical from the flood of Chinese epic period pieces we have seen this year. One of China's most versatile actresses, Zhou is good at switching between Xiao Wei's evil and goody-goody sides. The characters are quite engaging, the acting is solid, and the action is exciting. Better yet, the fighting scenes doesn't go on and on for a million light years as with most Asian films. The mood shifts, dancing around between drama, fantasy, demonic, and melodramatic romance. Very entertaining and mesmerizing! I couldn't get enough and started to watch it again and again. I'm glad I ignored bad reviews and took a chance on this! It's definitely not one to be missed by lovers of Asian films!

I recently saw this at the 2009 Palm Springs International Film Festival. I didn't know quite what to expect of it but being Hong Kong's official entry to the 81st Acadmy Awards I thought it may be of some value. This film is adapted from the 300 year old classic ghost story of Song Ling Pu and is a combination of historical romance, supernatural and martial arts from director Gordon Chan who also wrote the screenplay along with Abe Kwong and Lau Ho Leung with action scenes directed by Wei Tung. Yong (Donnie Yen) is China's best warrior. His former love Peirong (Wei Zhao) is now married to Wang Sheng (Ken Chen) the commander of the armies. In a raid on desert bandits the beautiful Xiao Wei is taken into the armies custody and she takes a liking to Wang Sheng but Peirong stands in her way. Mysterious grizzly deaths start happening and soon Xia-Bing (Betty Sun) a tough female hunter of demons shows up. Xiao Yi (David Leong) is the mysterious supernatural companion to the beautiful but deadly Xiao Wei. This is an entertaining story and makes for a great debut film for director Chan. Great cinematography from Arthur Wong and a great visual setting from the art department of art director bill Liv and production designer Chung Man Yee. A co-production of Hong Kong with China and Singapore it's a little drawn out but worth seeing. I would give it a 7.5 and recommend it.

despite the star-studded cast, and the elaborate costumes, special effects, and big budget, this movie sinks like titanic. zhou xun is not beautiful enough to convince me that she is a fox spirit. they should cast someone as beautiful (or at least sexy) like gong Li. furthermore, zhou xun's infamous tough voice is not in the least alluring. Vicki zhao acts as the stupid wife of a stupid man. they dying for each other is so lame. if they truly love each other, he will believe her when she say zhou xun is a demon, won't he? this movie makes no sense whatsoever. besides lamenting the absurdity, i absolutely have no feelings toward any character. Wang sheng is your typical good-looking hormonal guy who fall in love with the pretty girl, idiotic as ever. Donnie yen is ugly, but at least he has sense. qi yu Wu is funny, but i don't see any special effects. can't he use his tongue to kill, like toad from x-men? why must he fight using swords like normal people? he is also redundant, as i don't think the original tale includes him. why would he wanna follow zhou xun, if there are many demons around? Betty sun can't fight. AT ALL. it is a marvel she can even stab anything without taking out her own finger. she is a joke to martial arts. she only managed to kill qi yu Wu by accident. (like he fell on top of her sword). all in all, this shows how Chinese literature has deteriorated today. since Jackie Chan's 'kongfu' and exploits of Chinese 'legends' by Hollywood, this is another hollow, empty, eye bubblegum that will lose flavor in ten seconds.

The movie painted skin is loosely based on a legendary Supranatural Chinese tale 'Hua Pi' about a disguised demon under a human skin(drawn skin exactly). Like many favorite ancient tales, despite the illogical and senseless aspect, always have some moral aspect to be dig or contemplated over. Painted skin in this case is not much different of. It digs a very deep portrait about the meaning of love and the willing of sacrificing for love. And believe it or not the movie want to show us that not only do human can sacrifice when it came to the matter of love.Although stamped as a 'horror' movie but sorry to say, don't expect to see very much horror in it. It's nowhere near the horror like you saw in most Zombie movie or modern slasher horror. It's in a more mannerly and elegant way to level its emotion to human being and in my opinion the horror thing is just to dramatize the center love story and not really the main course in the first place. Some humor in the movie is driven well enough to at least force some smirk on audiences. And for those who're aware, with Donnie Yen as the main cast, one can expect less than some martial arts showdown. The rest of the cast is very eye catching especially the irresistible beauty of Zhou Xun.And finally orchestrated by veteran director Gordon Chan who has experienced in so much genre since his existence in mid 80's, the movie is not disappointed at all except in my opinion if only the director did try boldly adapted a more tragic ending, it could really be better. Because in order to keep the movie running, when the plot seems finally reach an end path, the revealing of the demon's true identity in the end is way out of the blue and the motive is also very laudable.I'll give it a fair 6/10. Not Special but Enjoyable.