A Chinese Ghost Story Trilogy Is Getting the 4K Treatment From Arrow Video This October

One of the great supernatural fantasy trilogies of Hong Kong cinema is getting a rather spectacular new home-video release this autumn, with Arrow Video bringing A Chinese Ghost Story Trilogy to 4K UHD and Blu-ray on 26 October 2026 exclusive to the UK, but it features cross-continental availability due to region-free formatting for its 4K release.

The three-film collection brings together Tsui Hark’s legendary A Chinese Ghost Story series, combining supernatural horror, romance, martial arts, fantasy and comedy in one of the most recognisable Hong Kong genre franchises of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and Arrow isn’t simply recycling the old transfers.

Three Films, One Very Strange Ghost Story

The original A Chinese Ghost Story (1987)** is the film that started everything – directed by Ching Siu-tung and produced by Tsui Hark, it stars Leslie Cheung as Ning Choi-san, a timid tax collector who ends up spending the night at the supposedly abandoned Lan Ro Temple, but unfortunately for Ning, the temple isn’t abandoned.

He encounters Nie Xiaoqian, played by Joey Wong, a beautiful ghost trapped under the control of a sinister supernatural entity, so what initially looks like a straightforward ghost story soon explodes into swordplay, demons, romance, elaborate special effects and increasingly bonkers supernatural action – it is one of those films that manages to be genuinely eerie one minute and completely fucking ridiculous the next.

The sequel, A Chinese Ghost Story II (1990), expands the mythology while introducing new characters and another supernatural adventure, while *A Chinese Ghost Story III (1991) continues the series with another variation on the ghostly romance and martial-arts formula – together, they demonstrate exactly why Hong Kong cinema of this period was so difficult to categorise, because these are horror films, fantasy films, martial-arts films, romances and comedies, all rolled into one.

A Major Restoration

The big attraction of Arrow’s new release is obviously the restoration.

The trilogy has been restored from 4K scans of the original camera negatives, giving all three films a substantial upgrade for modern home cinema, and the 4K UHD edition presents the films in 2160p with Dolby Vision and HDR10, while the accompanying Blu-ray edition provides a standard 1080p presentation – the audio has also received attention, with the release including the original Cantonese mono tracks in lossless form, alongside DTS-HD Master Audio Cantonese 5.1 and English 5.1 options.

Leslie Cheung at the Centre of It All

One of the most appealing extras in the collection is Hong Kong’s Eternal Icon, a brand-new feature-length documentary focusing on Leslie Cheung.

Cheung’s subsequent career would make him one of Hong Kong cinema’s most celebrated performers, and the documentary provides an opportunity to look back at his career and cultural impact beyond the A Chinese Ghost Story films.

Arrow has also gone considerably beyond simply putting three restored films into a box, because the Limited Edition comes with new artwork, reversible sleeve packaging, a double-sided foldout poster and a collector’s booklet featuring essays from Asian cinema experts.

There are also multiple expert audio commentaries, deleted and extended scenes, archival material and interviews with Tsui Hark, but the documentary on Leslie Cheung is arguably the biggest new extra, but the combination makes this look like a genuinely substantial archival release rather than a bare-bones UHD upgrade.

For collectors, it’s exactly the sort of substantial extra that makes a new edition worthwhile rather than simply another transfer upgrade.

One of Hong Kong Cinema’s Essential Supernatural Franchises

There’s a reason A Chinese Ghost Story has survived for nearly forty years, and it isn’t simply because the first film is a good ghost story – it’s because the series represents something that Hong Kong genre cinema was particularly brilliant at — completely ignoring the idea that a film has to belong to one genre.

You can have a genuinely creepy ghost story followed immediately by slapstick comedy, then a sword fight, then a tragic romance, then a supernatural monster that looks like it has escaped from a fever dream, and rather than feeling like a tonal mess, it becomes the film’s identity.

That makes the trilogy particularly relevant for horror fans, because if you approach Asian horror expecting everything to look like The Ring or The Grudge, you’re going to be surprised – A Chinese Ghost Story represents a very different tradition of supernatural cinema — one where ghosts, demons, romance, mythology, comedy and martial arts can happily coexist.

You can order this new release from Arrow Video.

More Asian horror movie news.

Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Pinterest WhatsApp Telegram Email Reddit Tumblr Messenger TikTok Discord Instagram Threads Mastodon Bluesky Flipboard Digg Copy Link SMS

About The Author

I am a fan of movies in general and watch quite a few every week, but my love for Asian horror started in the 90’s during the J-horror boom – you know the ones – and ever since then I’ve been hooked on discovering horror from across Asia, from the classics everyone knows to the hidden gems that deserve a much bigger audience.

On this site I explore Asian horror movies from across Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, Cambodia, Malaysia, and beyond, since the big entertainment sites tend to focus only on the biggest releases.