NIE XIAOQIAN — Feature Film Adaptation Package

Logline:

In Ming-dynasty China, a ghost girl forced to seduce and murder travelers for the tree demon who owns her bones discovers the one thing her mistress can never take: her name. When a righteous, penniless scholar buries her bones and calls her by it, she must choose — between the safety of obedience and the mortal danger of becoming a person again.

Ghost by way of A Chinese Ghost Story — a love story where the haunting is not a mystery to be solved but a system to be survived, and the climax turns on a single spoken sentence.

What's inside

1. Complete English treatment — logline, synopsis, full three-act treatment, character breakdowns, themes, the nine supernatural rules, and production notes.
2. Opening 12 pages of screenplay in industry-standard format — the full cold open, so you can hear the film's voice from page one.
3. Chain-of-title summary — the underlying story, Pu Songling's "Nie Xiaoqian" (Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, 1740), is in the public domain in China and the United States. No rights to clear, no estate to negotiate.

Why this IP

• Fresh to Western screens. The most beloved ghost romance in Chinese literature, never developed as an English-language feature from the original tale's own terms.
• Horror as institution, not jump scares. Ghost marriages with blank spirit tablets, an inventory of nameless girls, murder as quota — dread built from production design, not effects.
• Minimal VFX by design. Four effects beats in the entire film (translucency, roots, sword-light, one dissolution); everything else practical. Five locations.
• A climax no one can steal. The demon is defeated not by a bigger weapon but by a girl speaking her own name — twice — while nailing the demon's hand to her own with a hairpin.

Who it's for

Independent producers, development executives, and streamers seeking female-driven, rights-clean IP with festival and arthouse upside.

Terms

This purchase covers the development materials (non-exclusive). Exclusive option and purchase of adaptation rights are negotiated separately — contact us to discuss.

Launch offer: first 3 buyers get US$100 off with code NXQ100 (3 uses only).