Mok Ming moves into Po Tak-yan’s old mansion. Po's mistress, the songstress Tsi Law-heung, has died in it. Her spirit haunts the mansion as she is unburied. Mok sees her ghost and notes that she resembles his late wife Kit-ching. Mok dreams that his wife has possessed Tsi's body in return. Mok asks Uncle Tak to take him to the coffin. Tsi resurrects as Kit-ching. Mok accepts that his wife has returned from death, but he is suspicious. He brings her to a nightclub, where they chance upon Po and his mistress, Chan Mei-chu. Po is suspicious. Mok explained that his wife has returned through Tsi's body. Two reporters are there and the news is reported in the papers. To resolve his suspicions, Po goes to the old mansion. He meets Mok, his “wife,” and Uncle Tak. The wife denies that she is Tsi. Po retrieves a pistol and goes to confront the woman. Mok intervenes. In the struggle, Po falls down the railing to his death, but Tsi is shot. Now it is time for her to tell Mok of her past.
A boy is obsessed with the comic book hero Zhong Kui, an eccentric ghost catcher armed with a magic sword and sack. When his mother and younger sister are abducted by demons, the boy decides to seek help from Zhong to fight against vampires and revenants, zombies and goblins. Taking advantage of such special effects as freeze-frame and step-printing, The Ghost Catcher is a spectacular visual adventure.
The movie is a horror movie with a deep moral. A number of ghosts appear in the movie, including a ghost that escaped from the Ghost Gate, an unjust ghost released from the City of Wasted Death, a sleazy ghost trapped in the Beauty Gate and a living hangman's neck.
It was assisted by the Qing army and some traitors (Fan Cheng-En), who captured Guangzhou and massacred the civilians for three days until Sun Yat-Sen established the Republic of China and Chiang Kai-Shek succeeded in the Northern Expedition.