Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

J_Charles It's not a horror movie although the concepts of having a demon that requires a steady diet of human hearts in order to keep it's fake skin looking fresh could be horrific if filmed the right way.It could be a love triangle story as it shows the internal conflict of a man who loves his wife dearly but is intrigued by the new young lady who's entered into his life.There's some interesting characters - Donnie Yen who's unrequited love comes back to request his assistance in solving the murder mysteries to which she has a prime suspect.There's the wife who's torn between fear of the demon, jealousy of her husband's attraction to the new lady in the house, and her complicated respect but not quite love for Donnie's character.In the end, it's not about the mystery of the killings as it is all readily shown on screen who is the demon, who is not. It's more an interesting play between characters and how they interact with each other and what the real meaning of love and sacrifice is. And yet, with the horror elements in play, you cannot really take the 'love-story' part of it all that seriously and in the end you're left confused over just what it is you watched.Undeniably the costumes, settings, and direction are all very well done. And at the end of it I was entertained, albeit a little confused.7/10

Dan Starkey Ever since his early "Dragon Inn" days, Donnie Yen has had a commanding screen presence. In his more recent movies, he always plays himself - strong, violent, a believer in rough justice - and he always delivers great action scenes. He's the only reason to watch this film to the end. He makes the most of his screen time, which regrettably is not anywhere near as much as one wishes.The film is chugging along great when about halfway through, it just abruptly runs out of plot. In order to fill the remaining time, the actors suddenly start moving and talking incredibly slowly. I thought there was something wrong with my computer. It has to be seen to be believed. Donnie Yen is the only one immune to this strange infection, but sadly, he is not permitted to carry the film by himself.

muikkukala This movie is not a horror, monster or romance movie. It reflects very well social panic today in China: third leg in marriage. Almost all Chinese females start to discuss about this fiercely online after watching the movie. There wasn't much horror at least in my opinion, but mainly complicated relationships.Background: Traditionally Chinese men could have one wife and several concubines (with lower social position than the wife). Communist government made up law of one-wife-only since 1949. However, when China started to get rich, underground lovers start to emerge again and this trend is growing stronger each day since the last 15 years.Story and implication: The movie almost directly indicates this social phenomenon: The General indicates a powerful and rich man, his wife represents the Chinese traditional image of wife (she lives for her husband and is very tolerant until the last moment, but still would sacrifice herself for the husband's good). The fox woman and the lizard man are at lower social positions because they are monsters (just how the rich and powerful Chinese see the lower social class). They are highly skilled people though (we can consider them as freshly graduated university students). Just like many Chinese women struggling in the lower social class (in reality can be a nightclub waitress, erotic massager and so on), the fox woman met the General and gave him a "beautiful, weak, needs protection" impression. On the other hand, the lizard man was ignored by society (he was invisible sometimes in the movie), just as many male in the lower social level.The General let the fox woman into his private life, giving her many privileges that only wife can enjoy (having maids, managing daily stuff at home, can even take over the wife's order, see the dinner scene when the wife was late). The only thing that he has not given her is sex-of course in reality the powerful man must have had sex with this third leg in marriage. The fox woman, given so many indications, believed that she could take over the position of wife (social position up-climb), rather than just becoming concubine.However, ex-lover of the wife, and social order keeper (the joker-alike woman) showed up. In reality, there would not be ex-lover, but family and other supporters of the wife (possibly also powerful, like indicated in the movie), and social order keeper can be the public, mass media etc. Social order keeper seemed useless at the beginning in front of the General, which clearly shows today's society power in China. Supporter of the wife could not help much because the wife's own decision determines all.Lizard man's existence was considered redundant by many who could not read the social background of China. Lizard man is skilled but still helpless, struggles alone and loyal to the woman he loves, who only look up to power and money. This indicates a serious social problem in China: imbalanced male-female ratio causes many men with lower social-position to be left out in marriage, while richer and more powerful men can enjoy several women at the same time.It is a good movie after all, though if audience is non-Chinese it can be hard to enjoy: not much visual effect, not much fighting.

DICK STEEL Based upon the classic literature of Liao Zai, Painted Skin is an adaptation of one of the stories that dwell on fox spirits. If you're someone expecting either a supernatural spook fest, or an amalgamation of ghosts and kung fu, you might be disappointed to find out that it's actually a romance through and through, with complicated relationships all around that you can weave a complex web of love and lust amongst the players involved.Chen Kun plays Wang Sheng, a general whose army recently overrun the camp of a group of barbarians. In their battle, he rescues a beautiful girl from the grasp of the enemy, and brings her home out of pity and suggestive lust, given that she looks like Zhou Xun. OK, so Zhou Xun plays Xiao Wei, who unknowing to everyone else, is a fox spirit (touted always as beautiful beings in their human form) with an appetite for human hearts in order to maintain her beauty and youth.Thus begins a tussle for General Wang's heart by both Xiao Wei and Vicky Zhao's Pei Rong, who is the dutiful and demure wife of Wang Sheng. Pei Rong is indeed wary and beginning to suspect Xiao Wei's supernatural abilities when a spate of killings surface with her arrival, but with no proof, Xiao Wei starts to sow discord between the man and wife in order to try and become the new Mrs Wang. It's quite an interesting attempt through the characters to tell of the varying degrees and types of love, one of possession in Xiao Wei's ruthless means to reach her objective, and one of sacrificing for the love and well being of the other half, as established through Pei Rong's selfless courage.But that's not all. Throw in Donnie Yen as an ex-general Pang Yong, who also shares the hots for Pei Rong, and one time rival of Wang Sheng for her affections, a bumbling lowly ghostbuster Xia Bin (Sun Li) who is in possession of a fabled mythical weapon (opportunity to show off some special effects here, and quite a sight to behold too in its temporal usage) and denying her affections for Pang Yong, and Qi Yuwu as a lizard spirit whose infatuation with Xiao Wei ensures that she gets her fair share of food without the need to get her hands dirty. Connected the dots yet?Fans of Donnie Yen will probably be a tad disappointed by his limited screen appearance, and for the most parts he's either playing the joker, where his jokes will likely be lost in translation, going by the English subtitles that didn't manage to truly capture the essence of his lines, and the remaining screen time having to see him execute some action, but nothing groundbreaking and not seen before. We know what Donnie Yen can do, and perhaps in seeking some form of redemption, the story has a flashback scene where he dons armor yet again (anyone remember the dismal result of An Empress And Her Warriors) and does battle in a scene which Jackie Chan has already stamped his authority on.One could have expected the Gordon Chan is familiar with shooting decent action sequences, but you don't really get a lot of that in Painted Skin, save for some generic rooftop chase in the night, and a be all and end all finale where no punches got pulled, though it really got marred by all the tight shots that all you'd probably get to see is a blur. The narrative also got a little choppy in the mid section, and you do feel that a huge chunk of detail got summarized to keep it running generously under two hours, with subplots dropped that I suspect involved the growing affection and admiration between Pang Yong and Xia Bin, in order not to distract the audience from the main love triangle of Pang Yong, Xiao Wei and Pei Rong.All in all, this is recommended for Zhou Xun's face off with Zhao Wei, especially with the former playing the temptress role to perfection. The last where we saw two prominent Chinese actresses square off was between Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li in Memoirs of a Geisha. Otherwise, Painted Skin held a lot of promise, but didn't deliver that level of oomph in its final product, lapsing into mediocrity throughout.