Ghost of the Mirror

Dir: Sung Chuen-sau
Scr: Chang Yung-hsiang
Prod Co: First Organisation
Cast: Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia, Shih Chun, Ku Wen-chung, Chang Ping-yu, Tou Chung-hua, Chiang Wei-min
1974 / Colour / D Beta / Mandarin / Chi & Eng subtitles / 93min

Sung Tsun-shou is a protégé of Li Han-shiangand inherited Li's penchant for using orchestrated mise-en-scène to tell his stories in rich tapestry. Ghost of the Mirror is perhaps not a ghost film,the titled spectre is more a spiritual being, who ended her own life by plunging into a well clutching a bronze mirror. Played by the eternal Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia in her early career, her delicate, ephemeral beauty informs her character with mystical intelligence and sorrowful purity. Based on a Tang Dynasty work, this is the story of a scholar who fulfils his filial piety for his mother by withdrawing to a deserted house to copy Buddhist scriptures, only to meet a beautiful phantom who seems to have been killing people by luring them down a deep well...