| Happy Ghost III | |||||||||||
| Native Name: |
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| Director: | Johnnie To | ||||||||||
| Producer: | Raymond Wong[1] | ||||||||||
| Starring: |
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| Cinematography: | Bob Thompson | ||||||||||
| Editing: | David Wu | ||||||||||
| Music: | Joseph Koo | ||||||||||
| Studio: | Cinema City | ||||||||||
| Distributor: | Golden Princess | ||||||||||
| Runtime: | 96 minutes | ||||||||||
| Country: | Hong Kong | ||||||||||
| Language: | Cantonese | ||||||||||
| Gross: | HK$ 15,339,277 | ||||||||||
Happy Ghost III is a 1986 Hong Kong comedy film directed by Johnnie To. Produced and written by Raymond Wong, the film stars Wong and Maggie Cheung. This is the third installment in the "Happy Ghost" series, the film is far more frenetically paced than the first two and its much more a film for adults.
The film is about a spirit of the late female singer Tsui Pan Han (Maggie Cheung) waits in the afterlife for a chance to be reincarnated. She meets the Godfather (Tsui Hark) who has found an appropriate musical family for her to be reincarnated with. Her opportunity to be born into the new family is ruined when Sam Kwai (Raymond Wong) takes the pregnant wife to the wrong hospital. Pan Han is given one month to find a new body to assume her reincarnation in, and decides in the meantime to harass Sam Kwai. Kwai eventually summons the Happy Ghost to help him out.
Happy Ghost III was the first film director Johnnie To had worked for Cinema City and his first film since The Enigmatic Case (1980).[3] To had previously been working in television after the box office failure of The Enigmatic Case.[4] To found the film easy to approach as he did not have to write the script and was told he was not allowed to change it by Cinema City's rules.[5] Tsui Hark appears in the film as the Godfather and also provides the film with the special effects.[6]
Happy Ghost III was a hit for Cinema City and grossed a total of HK$15,339,277 and was the 11th-highest-grossing film of the year in Hong Kong.[7] The film grossed less than its two prequels Happy Ghost and Happy Ghost II, which earned a total of HK$17.4 and HK$16.6 respectively.[8] The film was followed by Happy Ghost 4, which was directed by Clifton Ko.