Tsui Hark’s A Chinese Ghost Story in 1987 gave many Western viewers their first taste of supernatural thrills, Oriental style. Yet the film was a comparatively late entry in a well-established genre. From Sammo Hung’s Spooky Encounters to King Hu’s valedictory Painted Skin, the 1980s Hong Kong ghost film cycle produced a stylish and distinctive body of work that compares with the best of Universal and Hammer.

Spooky Encounters is the first book to provide a detailed specific critical overview of the Hong Kong ghost film cycle of the eighties.

[su_highlight]Gwailo, as used in the subtitle of the book, is the Chinese term for a white foreigner. Often translated as “foreign devil”, gwailo is more accurately rendered as “white ghost” or “ghost man”.[/su_highlight]

Very informative and well-researched… a breakthrough work on this underrated genre — Bey Logan, Hong Kong cinema expert & film producer