Cantonese: Ye boon goh sing
Mandarin: Ye ban ge sheng
English: Midnight Song

Several key personnel from THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR (including star Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing, director Ronny Yu Yan-tai, cinematographer Peter Pau Tak-hei, production designer Eddie Ma Poon-chiu, and editor David Wu Tai-wai) were reunited for this resplendent HK/Singapore co-production, lensed in Beijing. A remake of Ye ban ge sheng, first produced in the 1930's and, then, again in 1961 by Shaw Brothers, THE PHANTOM LOVER is a variation on PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, inserting the primary elements from Gaston Leroux's creation into the framework of an archetypal Chinese romantic tragedy. In execution, it engenders both intoxicating grandeur and poignant emotion: a near-perfect merger of classical narrative and state-of-the-art production techniques. In 1936, an impoverished theatre troupe sets itself up in the burned-out remains of a once opulent opera house, to stage their new production. The young lead singer, Wei Qing (Huang Lei, from Chen Kaige's LIFE ON A STRING), learns that the site had previously been the toast of the 1920's dramatic circuit, thanks to the magnetism of its architect and star, Song Danping (Cheung), who had accrued tremendous fame performing the lead in a Mandarin musical adaptation of "Romeo and Juliet." Danping fell deeply in love with Du Yuyan (Jacklyn Wu Chien-lien), the daughter of an industrialist who had already promised her hand in marriage to the wealthy Zhao family, in order to build a factory. When Yuyan rebelled against her parents' wishes and tried to elope with Danping, her father (Pau Fong) had his servants (including the film's action choreographer, Phillip Kwok Tsui) disfigure him with acid and set the theatre ablaze. With Danping presumed dead, Yuyan was then forced to wed Zhao's sadistic son (co-writer Szeto Wai-cheuk), a punishment which eventually drove her insane. During every full moon, she returns to the crumbling auditorium to hear Danping perform the love song that he had composed especially for her. While investigating the theatre's rickety catwalks, Qing discovers that Danping survived the conflagration and his hooded spectre is soon giving the lad vocal coaching, so that he can perform the part of Romeo. However, Danping's motives are not wholly altruistic: he utilizes the youth as his substitute, in order to placate the deluded Yuyan by comforting her anguish, while also shielding her from his grotesque visage. When the Zhao family becomes aware of the phantom's presence, they set about to eliminate both him and Yuyan once and for all.

Although BRIDE proved him an adept technician, director Ronny Yu never allowed the project's action and special effects to overshadow his star-crossed protagonists. He has successfully repeated this approach here and is aided, as before, by strong central performances. Leslie Cheung makes an ideal Danping, narcissistic but compassionate enough, during his romantic interludes with Yuyan, to retain viewer sympathy. While a suitably menacing phantom, Cheung is less psychotic than his cinematic predecessors, threatening but never intentionally killing anyone (no chandelier sequence here) and the actor is let down somewhat by a substandard make-up job. Considering Cheung's much-praised turn as the troubled, female-playing vocalist in FAREWELL, MY CONCUBINE (1993), it would have been a real innovation to stage the musical drama as a traditional Peking Opera, but his singing here is very good. Since her debut in A MOMENT OF ROMANCE (1990), Jacklyn (formerly Jacqueline) Wu has often played women whose idealistic outlooks on love and humanity are out of touch with the worlds they inhabit, invariably contributing to their ruin. Her ability to inhabit such roles, without falling victim to their inherent melodramatic pitfalls, engenders audience empathy, and that quality (further accentuated by her delicate beauty) makes Wu the perfect leading lady for this sort of romantic tragedy. The pair make an affecting couple and, if their destiny is not entirely satisfying in a logical sense, it is an emotionally pleasing one. The 1936 sequences (about 70% of the running time) were shot on color stock, but printed down to near monochrome. Intermittent applications of color appear, ranging from a lantern's subtle, incandescent glow to the pale red of lipstick, growing more plentiful and pronounced as the film progresses. In a simple but impressive take on the norm, the flashbacks unfold in full, lustrous hues and the effect is stunning, particularly the deep scarlet of Yuyan's bridal chamber, the myriad fabrics and floral bouquets on display in the opera house, and the crimson glow that heralds the towers of orange flame engulfing the theatre. The film is also noteworthy as the first Chinese production to be mixed in the DTS Stereo process. THE PHANTOM LOVER was shot with sync sound, and the performers delivering their lines in Mandarin, and that is certainly the best version to see.