Wonderful Movie

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

This listing is confusing. Amazon has merged reviews for two separate films. Some reviews are not for this film but another special effects film by the same name. The film this review is for is the New Zealand film.Jason (Yoson An) is a young Chinese immigrant raised in New Zealand. His father has passed on and his mother (Catheryn Wu) clings to the old ways. His mother arranges a marriage with a match maker/fortune teller (Geeling Ng- David Bowe's "Little China Girl" in video). She matches him up with May-Ling (Fiona Feng) who looks like a porcelain doll. The problem is that Jason has a Barbie Doll girlfriend in Skye (Rebekah Palmer).The theme is stated that a woman who dies unwed, doesn't have a husband in the afterlife which is a bad thing. You quickly discover that May-Ling isn't exactly alive, although her ghost can interact like a live person from time to time.The film is refreshing that it breaks from the normal film formula. While I praise the film for its differences, the horror aspect was light. IMDB list the film as a fantasy/thriller which is more accurate.Parental Guidance: No bad language. No sex. Shower butt nudity (Rebekah Palmer).

If you are an horror movie addict and searching for some horror movie to spend your night then this movie is OK. As it got some horror , mystery and thrill. But all these ingredients are at only reasonable level not good or exceptional at all. Acting , direction and even the tone of the movie is a bit dull. still a good time passer or i would say a time killer. And in case if you are new to horror movies or you are not an horror movie addict then you will definitely be shivering with fear many times during the movie. All the caste is non English apart from a couple of them . heroine seems fresh and acted quite well in the movie.

Contrary to the 9/10 score by another reviewer who seemed intent on blowing smoke up the director's rear (mainly because it probably was the director himself that wrote the review), this movie is a below par and tame horror and I use the term 'horror' very loosely. This is a movie that moves along slowly but is really non-scary and doesn't engage me at all when it does actually get going in places. The script is strange and illogical and the actors show their inexperience on quite a few occasions with some wooden performances reciting it. This movie could have been more if a better writer wrote the script and understood the premise of what a supernatural horror entails. To sum the Ghost Bride up I'd say it was slow, amateurish, poorly executed and lacking in any quality at all for the genre and audience it is supposed to be aimed at.

I do enjoy Asian cinema quite a lot, but of course not everything Asian is top notch and super great. "Ghost Bride" can be somewhat of a challenge to get through if you are unfamiliar with Asian traditions and superstitions, especially because the movie was very slow paced and detail-minded. And for those in the audience unfamiliar with Asian superstitions, then "Ghost Bride" will be unfathomably boring to sit through.Luckily I am fairly familiar with Asian culture, superstitions and traditions, but even so, I found this movie to be slow and fairly uneventful.That being said, I am not saying that the movie is all bad. It is actually nicely directed and filmed, and there is a good coherency throughout the movie, despite it lacking pace and captivation. And for a thriller, then "Ghost Bride" was fairly devoid of thrills and scares.The acting in the movie was adequate, and oddly enough the one carrying the movie was Fiona Feng who played May-Ling, who was the only one with almost no speaking parts in the entire movie.Whereas Asian horrors tend to be more spooky and eerie in their usage of the traditional ghost in a white gown with long black hair covering the face, "Ghost Bride" makes use of a more colorful and 'cheerful'-looking ghost, which was a nice pace of change.The movie is very predictable, and doesn't once throw the audience off the track, which is a shame, because you see things coming a mile away.There are nice things to the movie, but if you are looking for a proper Asian scary movie, then your money is better spent elsewhere.