Hui Buh: Das Schlossgespenst (2006)

Hui Buh: Das Schlossgespenst: Directed by Sebastian Niemann. With Michael Herbig, Christoph Maria Herbst, Heike Makatsch, Ellenie Salvo González. Five hundred years ago, Hui Buh cheated in a card game, thus was turned into a ghost by thunder lighting. For all this time, he has lived in the castle alone without anyone to scare. Until when King Julius moves in for his wedding, Hui Buh knows he has to use every trick of his to keep the long-wasted ghost license.

“I must admit that my young daughter forced me to watch this movie and my expectations were pretty low, thus slightly bored and awkward I joined her after she had already watched about half of it…And what a surprise, I instantaneously fell in love with it.The sets are wonderfully old-fashioned and German, the thing German viewers would probably get annoyed at is that a lot of German clichés are made fun of, e.g. ghost soldiers wearing spiked helmets, a castle that is reminiscent of Neuschwanstein Castle – I felt like being way back in Texas in 1987 and being asked if Germany still was a kingdom – and if they had watched this movie beforehand, they would have definitely believed so -, especially because it is hard to tell which specific time this movie is actually set in. In a way I can imagine that this feature would be more appreciated in the countries outside Germany, I do not exactly know why but most Germans do have an exceedingly hard time laughing about themselves. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThough the movieu0026#39;s namesake the ghost Hui Buh may be a little bit over the top according to my taste, the acting is superb, especially Christoph Maria Herbst as König Julius,der 111.; his timing is absolutely brilliant (and this is probably the closest he will ever get to playing a romantic lead). The humour in this comedy is at times hilarious and silly,but never ever turns nasty.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBTW I immediately ventured to watch the entire movie… ;)”