Ren xia ren

A spin-off from Samo Hung's Spooky Encounters series, this remarkable movie alternates between farcical comedy and genuinely touching pathos, achieving an unexpected complexity of mood and nuance along the way. Director Wu Ma dons a bizarre false nose to play 'Lucho', a sexual impotent who feigns his own death in an attempt to lay hands on an inheritance - only to die (and become a ghost) while trying to discourage his best friend from looking too closely into his earlier fake demise. Producer/writer Samo Hung plays the best friend 'Fatboy', who is conned, baffled, put-upon and finally inhabited by his friend's wandering spirit. The numerous highpoints include Fatboy's detailed investigation of the supposed corpse's genitals and anus for signs of foul play - a sequence unthinkable in an equivalent film from another culture. A minor classic of its genre. Tony Rayns