Beyond the Grave

Dir/Scr: Doe Ching
Orig Story: Pu Songling
Prod Co: Shaw & Sons
Cast: Lucilla You Min, Chao Lei, Yang Zhiqing, Qiu Ping, He Bin, Weng Mulan
1954 / B&W / D Beta / Cantonese (Dubbed) / 116min

Based on Pu Songling's Lian Suo in his classical collection of stories on the supernatural, Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, this is the tale of a non-conforming young man who's sent to study in a deserted ancestral house, where he meets and falls in love with the beautiful ghost Lian Suo. Director-scriptwriter Doe Ching embellished the original with interesting details while animating the story with an expressive style of elegant mise-en-scène and flashy editing, resulting in memorable set pieces of drama and moments of evocative emotions. The film won the Best Art Direction Award at the second Southeast Asia Film Festival. This film also makes interesting comparison to Lady Jade Locket (1967), Shaws's adaption of Pu's Lian Suo, in which the great actress Li Lihua played the male lead! (This sole surviving copy is dubbed in Cantonese)