General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

A Chinese Ghost Story III (倩女幽魂III：道道道)

A Chinese Ghost Story III (倩女幽魂III：道道道; also released as Sien lui yau wan III: Do do do) is a 1991 Hong Kong supernatural action-comedy film directed by Ching Siu-tung and produced by Tsui Hark, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Roy Szeto¹. It is the third and final entry in the A Chinese Ghost Story trilogy begun with the 1987 original and continued in A Chinese Ghost Story II (1990)². Set one hundred years after the first film, it retells much of that film's story with a new male lead, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, opposite the returning Joey Wong².

Key fact	Detail
Original title	倩女幽魂III：道道道 (Sien lui yau wan III: Do do do); alternate Chinese title 金佛喋血³
Release	July 18, 1991 (Hong Kong)⁴
Director / producer	Ching Siu-tung (director); Tsui Hark (producer, co-writer, credited by IMDb as uncredited co-director)¹
Lead cast	Tony Leung Chiu-wai (Fong), Joey Wong (Lotus), Jacky Cheung (Yin), Nina Li Chi (Butterfly)¹
Hong Kong box office	HK$15,018,584, 20th place for the year⁵
Recognition	Joey Wong, Best Actress, 1992 Sitges Film Festival; three Hong Kong Film Award nominations⁶^•⁷
Runtime	104 minutes per IMDb; other listings give 106 to 109 minutes¹^•⁸

Spoilers

Plot and cast

A century after the events of the first film, the Tree Devil (Lau Siu-ming) awakens at the ruined Orchid Temple and, with its harem of ghostly slaves, traps the souls of travelers¹⁰^•¹³. The Buddhist monk Bai Yun (Shun Lau) and his disciple Fong (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) pass through the area transporting a golden Buddha idol, and take shelter at the temple¹. Fong encounters two female demons, the seductive Lotus (Joey Wong) and her sister Butterfly (Nina Li Chi); Lotus is ordered to seduce him but falls in love with him instead¹³. When the Tree Devil captures Lotus, Fong vows to save her; the high priest transforms him into the golden Buddha, and with the swordsman Yin (Jacky Cheung) they defeat the Tree Devil¹³.

The recasting mirrors the first film's structure. Leslie Cheung's bumbling tax collector is replaced by Tony Leung as a bumbling novice monk, and Joey Wong returns as a different ghost character held captive by the same tree demon²^•¹¹. Jacky Cheung also returns in a new role, this time as a mercenary, money-grabbing swordsman¹⁴.

Place in the series

The 1987 original, directed by Ching Siu-tung and produced by Tsui Hark, was a major hit and one of the key works of the Hong Kong new wave, blending romantic melodrama with supernatural wuxia action; it drew loosely on the ghost stories of the Qing dynasty writer Pu Songling, whose Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (聊斋志异) also inspired King Hu's A Touch of Zen²^•⁹. A 1990 sequel raised the budget and the comedy, and the third installment followed a year later².

The British Film Institute describes the third film as "ostensibly set 100 years after the first film" yet "effectively a remake," comparing it to Evil Dead 2 (1987) as a series entry that retells its predecessor². Reviewers make the same observation: the film is "a virtual remake of the original, with only slight variations played on each of the characters," and "more of a spiritual remake than a direct sequel"¹⁰^•¹¹. A scholarly account of the franchise notes that the two sequels had departed entirely from the source story "Nie Xiaoqian," which is why they fall outside strict adaptation studies of Pu Songling's text¹².

Style and reception

Visual approach. The film leans harder on special effects than its predecessors, with wire work, fog-drenched gothic set design, and elaborate creature effects; the finale features Leung's transformation into a flying golden Buddha²^•⁸. Critics note an increased emphasis on slapstick comedy relative to the first film, with slightly less swordplay¹⁰.

Critical response. Reviews divide on the retread strategy. Time Out found the repetition tedious despite Tony Leung's performance, a comic opening scene of severed-limb gags, and a strong theme song¹⁵. Others judge it a fitting cap to the trilogy: Rotten Tomatoes records a Tomatometer of 58% from two reviews, and audience commentary praises the photography's use of color, light, and smoke and the score by James Wong and Romeo Díaz¹⁰. A 2025 festival review rated it 3.5 out of 5, calling it "a respectful echo that brings the saga full circle" while noting that it takes few risks¹¹. On aggregate sites it holds an IMDb rating of 6.6/10 and a Douban rating of 7.7¹^•¹⁶.

Awards. At the 11th Hong Kong Film Awards the film received nominations for Best Editing (Marco Mak), Best Action Design (Ching Siu-tung, Ma Yuk-sing, Cheung Yiu-sing), and Best Original Score (Romeo Díaz, James Wong)⁷. Joey Wong won Best Actress at the 1992 Sitges Film Festival in Spain⁶.

Music

The score is by Romeo Díaz and James Wong, who also scored the earlier entries; Jacky Cheung performs the theme song "Do Do Do" (道道道)¹⁰^•¹⁷.

Release and restoration

The film opened in Hong Kong on July 18, 1991⁴. It earned HK$15,018,584 at the Hong Kong box office, ranking 20th for the year, and opened in Japan on March 7, 1992⁵. Shout! Studios restored the film in 4K from the original camera negative in 2026 and released it on 4K UHD Blu-ray in a steelbook edition with a street date of October 20, 2026, including a new English subtitle translation and a commentary by the Hong Kong film critic James Mudge of easternKicks¹⁸. The restoration screened theatrically in 2025, including in IFC Center's Hong Kong Cinema Classics series⁸.

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026; Nov 11, 2026