This is a typical fast-paced opening from the always reliable Steve Cheng that segues into the introduction of the romantic sub-plot, one of the film's many lighter moments. In fact, the film veers between comedy and horror in typical Hong Kong fashion, and it is a testament to Cheng's talent as a director and the masterful playing of a marvelous ensemble cast that the comedy never diminishes the power of the film's more horrific scenes but is skillfully woven into the cinematic fabric without seeming heavy-handed or out of place.

Jojo, played by Athena Chu Yun, is a psychology student who moonlights as a volunteer worker in her spare time. She pays regular visits to Aunt Szeto, the wonderful Helena Law Lan, a psychic, whose home happens to overlook the burned out apartment in which the Pinky Cheung character and her son had died two years previously. Jojo sees the ghost of the dead child waving to her from the window across the street and Aunt Szeto informs her that because of her birth date she too is fated to see spirits, an unwelcome talent for Jojo in that one of the ghosts that comes to her is the spirit of her dead daughter, aborted five years previously. One of these sightings occurs after a bout of mediumistic rice throwing and table rapping when Jojo and Aunt Szeto pay a cleverly filmed visit to Hell, a trip which reveals that, especially in Hong Kong, the dead are never very far away from the living, but exist a hair's breadth away in a plane that intersects with our own. The Hell of the title seems to be used in this film as a general term for the afterlife rather than to describe the familiar Christian purgatory, and is a place presided over by the Grim Reapers, two dead but hip kids whose job it is to escort spirits to the next world.

A suicidal gangster, Crazy Mo, played by Wan Tin Chiu, also visits Aunt Szeto in the hope that she will contact his wife and child and thereby help assuage the guilt he feels over their deaths. The old woman refuses his request and strongly advises him against making contact as summoning a murdered spirit inevitably leads to possession.

And possession is what follows. On the anniversary of the deaths of Mo's wife and child, their spirits go on a possession spree, variously utilizing the bodies of Jojo and her aunt and uncle in an attempt to exact revenge on Mo, despite Aunt Szeto having given Jojo a drink to seal the holes in her body to deny access to the invading spirit of Ching. The whole thing finally leads to redemption from the burden of guilt for Mo and Jojo and a surprisingly sentimental ending that is nonetheless totally satisfactory.

This is a particularly well scripted film with well developed characters that occasionally teeter on the verge of caricature--especially the lovelorn traffic cop (Chin Kar-lok) who pursues Jojo throughout the movie--but who are carried along by the conviction of the actors involved. Particularly good is Helena Law Lan as the asthmatic psychic who manages to cheat death with the aid of a frog and at one point indulges in a spot of wild kung-fu kicking during an episode of possession, a major scene stealing moment that veers from hilarity to poignancy when the high kicking ghost gives way to the spirit of Jojo's daughter. Also memorable is Jojo's Alzheimer's afflicted grandfather (Spencer Lam), who has one of the best scenes in the film when he gets to resuscitate Aunt Szeto with a post-mortem clinch! Fans of Pinky Cheung will probably be disappointed that she does not have more screen-time, but she certainly looks the part of the vengeful spirit during her fleeting appearances, all green spectral light, wind-tossed hair and scabrous complexion. In terms of eye-candy, the presence of Athena Chu goes a long way to compensate for the lack of Pinky in the film. Her acting is pretty good too!