Shot in Beijing with Singapore financing as a showcase for Hong Kong movie and pop music star Leslie Cheung in 1995, "The Phantom Lover" reunited the makers of the two 1993 "The Bride with the White Hair" movies. In addition to Cheung and director Ronny Yu, those working together again on "Phantom Lover" included cinematographer Peter (Tak-Hei) Pau , production designer Eddie (Poon-Chiu) Ma, and editor David (Tai-Wai) Wu.

It is the third (at least) Chinese adaptation of "Phantom of the Opera," with unfortunate influence in the insipid music from Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Phantom." Since the present-day of the movie seems to be the mid-1930s, the back-story (which fills the middle of the movie) has to be some time during the 1920s. Then Song Danping (Leslie Cheung) was the toast of the (unspecified town), the star of his own theater in which he was making women swoon playing a musical version of "Romeo and Juliet."

Danping was carrying on a torrid affair with Du Yuyan (Jacklyn Wu), the daughter of a very prosperous merchant family eager to gain favor with a local official by marrying her to the far-from-bright and corrupt scion of the family Zhao Jum (Roy Szeto, co-scenarist). The senior Zhao arranges to have local thugs torch the theater after throwing acid on the pretty face of Danping. The townsfolk presume Danping died in the blaze. Yuyan, who has lost her sanity, goes to the theater the night of every full moon to recall her idol. That she hears him sing the love song he was composing for her at the time of the fire is dismissed as part of her craziness.

That the once beloved star is who is haunting the remnants of his theater does not seem to be plot-spoiling to me, given the title, the many versions of "Phantom of the Opera," etc. However, the movie begins with a troupe having rented the theater to put on a patriotic (Kuomintang) propaganda piece. It fails with the public, and an earnest wannabe star Wei Qing (Huang Li, the soulful blind musician from Chen Kaige's Life on a String, and, later, the cellist/lover in "Fleeing by Night") is coached by the very scarred Danping to revive Danping's great hit. This succeeds (with a touch borrowed from "Singing in the Rain"), and things are on a path toward history repeating itself in the Zhao family's striking out at the new Romeo (in order for Zhao Jum to have the Juliet of the new production).

The movie is considerably less of a horror movie than the Lon Chaney "Phantom of the Opera," the phantom considerably less psychotic (though more than a little narcissistic), and the love stories are somewhat less tragic. The acting is less stylized (more naturalistic) than one might expect (this is facilitated by the muting of horror film gimmicks). The worst aspect is the songs (mostly variants on one) written and performed by Leslie Cheung. They are very sugary. And they are delivered by Leslie Cheung so softly that I doubt anyone in the orchestra pit could hear, let alone the audience in the quite immense theater in which the musical tragedies are performed. (I know that it is peculiar to look for verisimilitude in a horror movie!) Not least in remembering Leslie Cheung as a Peking Opera star in "Farewell, My Concubine," I wish that this movie had had a phantom of a Chinese-style opera, rather than a phantom of a international pop musical theater.

Unlike most Hong Kong and Chinese films, the dialogue was recorded (in Mandarin; there is Cantonese dubbing).

Many movies have washed-out (sepia-tinted) flashbacks. For "Phantom" in which almost three-quarters of the movie is flashback, it is the (1930s) present that has washed out colors, while the glamorous glory days of Danping are in very vivid colors, particularly red. (Cinematographer Peter Pau's varied palette was recognized in the many awards he received for shooting Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon).




Recommended:
Yes

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