Chinese Ghost Story: The Tsui Hark Animation

A Chinese Ghost Story: The Tsui Hark Animation would not only be the first (And possibly still the only one) Chinese Ghost Story animation adaptation, but would also be the first Chinese animated feature film from Hong Kong. 

Released in 1997, it was written and produced by Tsui Hark (A major figure in the Golden Age of Hong Kong cinema, from roughly early 1980s to mid 1990s) and his company, Film Workshop. The animated was produced by Japanese animation studio, Triangle Staff (That has unfortunately gone into defunct).

Loosely based on the short story Nie Xiaoqian from the ancient chinese literary work Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling (1640-1715), the film centers around a rather dopey but lovable Tax Collecter named Ning, whom had recently lost his love to another man and is still grieving over it. One day however while traveling to a town to collect a debt, he instead finds himself in the ghost city, where his life takes a huge turn from then on, especially when his eyes fall upon a beautiful spirit named Shine.

There was a heavy amount of CGI used in this film (Which I hadn't really noticed as a child since I was more focused on the anime-styled characters and pretty songs), while certain scenes do look more breathtaking because of it, some scenes come off quite awkward, but it was apparent that they depended heavily on CGI for graphical enhancements, more so than they did on their hand drawn animation, that at times the latter was practically overshadowed by all the CGI that they threw in there.

Still for Hong Kong's first animated film, I believe they did a fantastic job, the CGI honestly didn't deter me all that much, in fact, I still enjoy this film as much as I did back when I was 5, I just have a chance now to properly notice details I hadn't before, such as how hilariously modern the ghost civilization was as compared to the living's (Traffic lights, mobile phones, etc.). I am also feeling pretty depressed that I lost the OST, because the film had a number of really catchy chinese songs that I had tried to learn back then but failed (I will find it dammit!).

There is a really detailed review on the film here:

http://teleport-city.com/2013/03/01/chinese-ghost-story-the-animation/