Synopsis
< Legend of the Mountain > was shot back-to-back with < Raining in the Mountain > in South Korea. It has the same feel of dislocation, with its characters gallivanting through unfathomable space. The picture retains interest for its references to < A Touch of Zen > and its textual links with the ghost story genre in Chinese literature and cinema. The plot deals with a group of unhappy spirits who seek a formula for true reincarnation contained in a sutra. A scholar, He Qingyun (Shi Jun), is commissioned to copy the sutra by the abbot of the monastery where the sutra has been placed for safekeeping. The scholar goes to the mountain to do his job and wanders into the abode of the spirits. He si seduced by two female spirits (played by Hsu Feng and Sylvia Chang) who do battle over him - their intent being to captivate his body in order to absorb his ssence as their first step towards becoming humans once more. The last-minute intervention of a Lamaist monk saves the scholar from transformation into the living dead. (Stephen Teo)