The movie is structured around six story segments connected by the main storyline of Pu Songling exploring Lanruo Temple at night. These segments include '井下故事' (The Story Under the Well), '崂山道士' (The Taoist of Laoshan), '莲花公主' (Princess Lotus), '聂小倩' (Nie Xiaoqian), '画皮' (Painted Skin), and '鲁公女' (Daughter of Lu Gong). Each segment presents different styles ranging from humor and innocence to tragic beauty and youthful romance, reflecting the emotional and temporal changes in Pu Songling's world of strange tales.

Lanruo Temple serves as a mystical and fixed arena for storytelling in the film. The protagonist, Pu Songling, is trapped in an ancient well beneath the temple by two spirits--a toad and a turtle--who force him to judge the quality of various stories they tell. This setting acts as a temporal and spatial link that layers multiple stories, blending past, present, and future events, and creating a unique narrative structure that departs from traditional linear storytelling.

The film explores a wide range of emotional tones and themes including humor, innocence, tragic beauty, youthful romance, greed, true feelings, chaotic times, marital love, and life and death. These themes are woven through the six story segments, reflecting the human condition and the changing world as seen through Pu Songling's supernatural tales.

The movie maintains a strong connection to the original structure and plotlines of Pu Songling's stories, though it adapts them into a new narrative framework centered on Lanruo Temple. The film preserves the essence of the original tales and their characters, while using the temple and the storytelling competition as a fresh way to present these classic stories. This approach allows the film to honor the source material while offering a novel cinematic experience.

The film uses a frame narrative technique where Pu Songling is the central figure who listens to and judges stories told by two spirits trapped with him. This storytelling competition format allows the film to present multiple stories with varying narrative styles and emotional tones. The use of a fixed location--the ancient well under Lanruo Temple--as a storytelling arena creates a layered, non-linear narrative that connects different tales across time and space.