The first half is very confusing and jumps around all over the place in a sometimes irritating and jarring manner. But it's well worth sticking with. The main love scene occurs smack-bang in the middle, and is the place where the story very suddenly changes from disorienting to utterly magical. This is my favourite love scene in ANY Hong Kong film (even better than the climax of the wonderful Love_And_The_City), and is foregrounded by the best version of my all-time favourite HK love song ("Let the Dawn Never Come" by cantopop icon and actor Sally Yeh/Yip Sin-Man , this film also made me a big fan of both her and of the Er Hu, the featured instrument in the tune).

Memorably beautiful images and scenes flow past at an incredible rate. For instance, the scene where good ghost Sian (Joey Wong, never lovelier) protects poor scholar Ning (Leslie Cheung) from detection by her demon-enslaver, by hiding him in her bath, is pure cinematic poetry. There's also some great comic (and at times scarifying) horror, especially where the righteous guys go into hell to rescue Sian's soul.

Overall : I'd recommend you watch CGS II first, as it helps make a bit more sense of the first half, but definitely see this one !