A Chinese Ghost Story; 倩女幽魂

If you have a morbid fear towards ghost stories like I do, let me assure you that A Chinese Ghost Story will make you laugh! Few movies are the perfect blend of comedy, romance, action, period drama, and yes, ghosts.
A branch of the Chinese culture has always been dominated by ghosts, reincarnation, Yin-Yang divide and the after-world as they are important themes in both Buddhism and Taoism. Ghost stories as a movie genre have flourished as well.
The story was adapted from a short story out of a collection of 491, all ghost-themed, called 聊斋志异. So well-known is this book that in China it would be almost impossible to locate a person who has never heard of it. You will run into plenty of Chinese movies based on stories out of this book. Unfortunately the original author was prolific but highly unsuccessful during his lifetime in Qing dynasty.
Here's the gist of the movie: A lovely bookworm (宁采臣) took a nasty job as a debt collector. While seeking shelter in a deserted thousand-year old temple, he ran into whom he thought was an otherworldly beautiful girl. She was in fact, from another world: a ghost spirit in the "Yin" domain waiting to gather enough "Yang" essence by trapping and sapping healthy young males, in order to reincarnate back into physical existence. The bookworm, clueless of her scheme, foolhardily tried to rescue her out of the temple and her controlling grandma, a hermaphrodite ghost sort of, and a monster tree ghost, running a quasi female ghost brothels so that a cut of the "Yang" essence the girls sapped can be supplied to support her own transformation away from the afterworld.
If you are interested in ancient Chinese culture, I highly recommend this movie. The dialogues, choreographed actions, costume design, special effects and acting are all superior. Some even said that this movie reinvigorated the Hong Kong film industry, in a doldrum at the time, with a newly charged form of period drama.
This movie, made nearly 30 years ago, remains a classic.
The male lead was played by the one-and-only Leslie Cheung (张国荣). Cheung, before his untimely 2003 death due to severe depression, had achieved almost every highest honor in every possible field an Asian entertainer could've attempted. I will introduce more of his films in the near future. 

Chinese subtitles. Enjoy the movie.