The Phantom Lover

This is Leslie Cheung’s debut as co-producer. The film was adapted from Ma-Xu Weibang’s film Song at Midnight (1937). The original story can be traced back to French novel The Phantom of the Opera. It is Shanghai, 1926. Song Danping (Leslie Cheung), star of the musical stage, is passionately in love with Du Yunyan (Jacklyn Wu). Du’s father opposes the relationship because Song is an actor. A fire destroys the entire theatre. Song survives but is disfigured. He transforms himself into a phantom. Ten years later, actor Wei Qing (Huang Lei) arrives at the theatre with his troupe, reigniting Song’s desire to see Du again. But Wei almost repeats Song’s experience from before, nearly plummeting into the same abyss of destiny. This film was directed by Ronny Yu, who excels in creating haunting atmospheres; with Pater Pau as cinematographer, Eddie Ma as production designer, Willian Chang and Yeung Sin-ling on Costume Design: which made the film visually very beautiful, but the romantic tragedy between the ill-fated lovers all the more poignant. The three songs in the film were all composed and performed by Leslie Cheung, out of which ‘The Phantom Lover’ was nominated for Best Original Song at the 1995 Golden Horse Awards. The film also won the 15th Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Art Direction, and Best Costume and Makeup Design.

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