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The Phantom Lover (1995)
Director: Ronny Yu
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
This grandiose vehicle for Leslie Cheung was intended to launch his comeback from a few years of 'retirement' as a singer, but neither the movie nor the soundtrack CD impressed the justifiably cynical HK public. Shot in China and based on a much more interesting 1937 melodrama made in Shanghai, it's a thinly plotted riff on the Phantom of the Opera story: Cheung plays the acid-scarred tenor who's reduced to warbling to his true love from behind a curtain while a surrogate beau mimes his words on stage. Awesomely insincere, the film piles on the romantic imagery and hopes the anachronistic score will glutinise the viewer's natural resistance.Author: TR
Cast & crew
Director: Ronny Yu
Producer: Michael Ng
Cast: Leslie Cheung, Wu Qian Lian, Huang Lei, Liu Lin full cast
Duration: 102 mins
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