If you love cool demon stories that deal with love and infatuation then Gordon Chan’s Painted Skin is a movie you should check out – if you are strong enough to stop staring at those big beautiful eyes of Zhou Wei that is (pitter patter goes my heart). Fans of Donnie Yen will recognize him as Pang Yong in the film, a demon fighting, legendary warrior. I was impressed by the way the tale worked itself out and loved the ending as I was expecting something cliche and was provided a nice surprise instead. The visuals are beautiful, making me wish that I were a powerful Chinese General in the Han Dynasty and the music was nice and complementary to the scenes as they played out. My only issues was with the shoddy wire work during most of the flying fight scenes and the CGI looked a bit second rate compared to where things were in 2008.
Painted Skin is a tale about a fox demon by the name of Xaowei (Zhou Xun) who falls in love with General Wang Sheng (Chen Kun) after he rescues her from some marauders… at least that’s how it seems. The demon is a beauty and she is the wont of every man in the General’s employ, with her pale, smooth skin, delicate manner and endearing, yet fun personality. It is he she wants however but the General is madly in love with his wife Peirong (Zhou Wei) – and who could blame him! Peirong gets suspicious of her adopted “little sister” when she cuts her on her hand it magically heals in front of her, at the same time many guards and soldiers begun showing up dead with their hearts missing. It seems that fox demons have to feast on hearts to maintain their illusion human appearance.
On the other side of things, a young female Demon Hunter named Xia Bing (Betty Sun) runs into Sheng’s brother in arms Pang Yong (Donnie Yen) and the two hit it off immediately. Pang Yong who is also in love with his brother’s wife Peirong (bear with me, there’s a ton of love triangles going on) is visited by she with concerns for the demon within her home. Yong and Bing head out to the home of Cheng and Peirong to meet the infamous Xaowei and an investigation is made on whether she is demon or human. Xaowei acting offended by the entire thing gets Cheng to sympathize with her and admits her love for him, asking if she could be his concubine as a way to love him without offending Peirong. While flattered by the concept, Cheng loves his wife alone and as any man would lust after sexy, young flesh walking about his gardens, he cannot deny the urge but is steadfast in his vows to his wife… of course this angers Xaowei.
This leads to a confrontation between Peirong and Xaowei for the love of Wang Cheng as Xaowei has been struk with human love for the General and is firm in her stance that she wants to not only be a concubine but be his wife. The complication with this however is that her pet demon who is running amok around the castle fetching her hearts to maintain her beauty is also himself in love with her and not too keen on the idea of her being with this human. Things take a turn for the fatal, as all of these stories tend to do and in the end true love prevails… in it’s own twisted way.
I found myself hating Xaowei at first and then upon understanding her a bit I actually felt sorry for her… go figure, me feeling sorry for a succubus. Zhou Yun’s performance as the fox demon was flawless, as she appeared both beautiful and ugly as this complex character. Donnie Yen was charming as usual but the movie could have used his martial arts prowess a lot better as we are treated to a crazy camera whenever they fought and strange, unbalanced wire jumps from rooftop to rooftop. I found the makeup on the ladies to be beautifully done and when the demon with the white hair appeared, it was pretty well done compared to the CGI version of the fox demon in her natural form.
Martial arts junkies may want to skip this one and don’t go popping it in because you see Donnie Yen’s name. This movie is about the story and the drama associated with complex love triangles so don’t go looking for the wrong thing if you decide to check it out. The cinematography above all else is one reason to pick up Painted Skin, as I said before it gives you envy of Wang Cheng’s glorious home and the architecture, trees and decor within it. Definitely a great movie to watch with your date, with the exception of the subtitles being blatantly wrong in some areas and up too short to read in others (this annoyed the hell out of me). But subtitles have little to do with the director’s vision, and if it were in my native English, I would say Painted Skin was spicy indeed. Check it out if you can.
Cinephile and opinion writer, Greg Dragon has been a fan of movies since the 80's when Kung Fu theater was all the rage and Roger Moore was James Bond. As an opinion writer that has reviewed Box Office releases on a number of prominent websites, Greg is the founder and lead critic of Spicy Movie Dogs.
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