The Spooky Bunch

Quick and quirky, this follow-up to Ann Hui's debut feature, The Secret, juggles broad farce with guignol in an oddball yarn about a second-rate Cantonese Opera troupe bedevilled by an army of revenge-seeking ghosts. Exotic theatricals and their backstage rivalries, eccentric characterisations (which include a playfully vengeful spirit named 'Cat Shit'), and an energetic camera style jostle for attention a little too clamorously at times, but the deceptive aura of greasepaint tackiness and the slapstick horror are all of a uniquely entertaining piece.