"Phantom Love" ?
This is the second feature film after a lapse of 7 years by the post-70s director Zhou Guanwei. When it was released in July this year during the epidemic, it won more than 15 million box office in Hong Kong, becoming one of the few in recent years that has profited from the local market alone. Of Hong Kong-produced films.
has a score of 7.5 on Douban, and it has remained above 7 to this day.
In recent years, there are not many Hong Kong films that tell a love story simply and well, so it seems particularly special and lonely.
Maybe, it may be the best Hong Kong romance film in recent years.
"Phantom Love" is not like a "Hong Kong film".
The so-called "Hong Kong-made films" that are full of Hong Kong flavor in the past are always full of symbols of various local colors, such as tea restaurants, busy streets and alleys of Yau Tsim Mong crowded with tourists, and various "twisted" Cantonese.
"Phantom Love" deliberately avoids these.
The urban scene and the characters it describes are full of alienation, and it seems to be established in any modern metropolis.
even, in addition to the supporting role Bao Qijing in the film is familiar, the leading actors and actresses Liu Junqian and Cai Siyun are both very new rookies.
In other words, you must be psychologically prepared. This is a Hong Kong film that is "unlike a Hong Kong film."
"Phantom Love" movie poster
opened in the downtown at night.
A female mentally ill suffered a sudden attack. She stripped off her clothes in the street and squatted on the street like a frightened animal. There were more and more people watching
, but there was no one to help. Everyone habitually raised their phones to take pictures of this sudden scene.
The indifference of the current society towards mental patients is evident.
indifferent onlookers (stills of "Phantom Love", from Douban Album)
, a young man passing by at this time, Li Zhile found out about this situation and immediately took care of him. He took off his clothes and put on the poor woman.
His actions aroused everyone's attention. At this time, another young girl in the crowd stood up and helped the woman with Li Zhile.
They called the police and soon the police arrived and took the woman away.
In the midst of the chaos, one of the girl’s clothes was left in Li Zhile’s hands.
Li Zhile (played by Liu Junqian)
Li Zhile is a kindergarten teacher who lives in a typical Hong Kong housing estate. Buildings like
are surrounded by houses in a pattern of "Hui" with a patio in the middle.
People walking on the corridors are very small. From a distance, the houses are like small grids. When the corridors are empty, they look closed and gloomy.
is a typical residence in Hong Kong. It was built in the 1950s. It is also a frequent location for Hong Kong films. For example, you can see them in "Zombies" and "Made in Hong Kong".
Stills of "Phantom Love"
One day, when Li Zhile returned home, he discovered that the girl who was with him to rescue mental patients on the streets of Mong Kok lived upstairs.
Her name is Xinxin , and she lives with her father who has been drinking all the time.
Li Zhile often hears Xinxin’s father fisting because of drunkenness.
These two young people who are equally kind and who have also suffered social violence, naturally developed a good impression and walked together.
Li Zhile likes Xinxin very much, because in his eyes, Xinxin is upright and simple, and is only good to him.
didn't need to struggle more, he decided to tell Xinxin his secret.
He is a mentally ill patient. Every month, he regularly goes to the community relief committee for review and treatment.
XinxinzhiAfter the road, I don't mind.
only, when Xinxin's father learned that they were together, he was furious.
He can't accept that his daughter is with a "funny guy".
He beat Xinxin violently in front of Li Zhile, threatened them to break up, and gave Li Zhile a fist.
Six months later, Li Zhile's condition worsened.
He met a girl who looked exactly like Xinxin in the treatment center, Ye Lan .
Ye Lan is a graduate student studying psychopathology and is worrying about her graduation thesis.
The topic of her research is "love delusion", which is one of the symptoms of "thinking disorder". Patients with
will fall in love with someone they imagined. She struggled to find a case.
The Li Zhile in front of her, after hearing his statement of her condition, made her look bright, he was so suitable.
Ye Lan (Cai Siyun played
For Li Zhile, these two girls, Xinxin and Ye Lan, sometimes merge into one. Z3z
doesn't understand which one is real and which one comes out of his mind.
In other words, is this world real, or is it a fantasy?
said that "Phantom Love" is not like a typical Hong Kong film, because the scene, social atmosphere, and themes it focuses on are somewhat Rare.
's past Hong Kong-produced films also focused on the subject of mental illness, such as "Why Me?" and "The Epilogue", which created a precedent for focusing on vulnerable groups.
But "Phantom Love" obviously does not aim for this.
is lonely Walking subway. In fact, this city is generally no different from other cities
. It carefully reproduces the world of patients with mental disorders and allows the audience to substitute it. In the
film, Li Zhile can’t distinguish between reality and illusion. Outside the film, the audience needs to watch carefully to recognize in the details which part is "real" and which part is "fake". In other words, the movie makes the audience a participant and a patient The film’s photography of
has used symmetrical composition many times, which actually implies that the boundaries between the real and the fiction, the "sound" and the "mentally ill", are actually very blurred.
In our age, who can be confident Say, there’s nothing wrong with my own psychology? Z3z
, instead of being an indifferent onlooker, might as well enter their world. The love of
in "Phantom Love" is quite like Li Cangdong’s "Burning", Li Zhongxiu played by Liu Yaren, for the mysterious Shen Huimei (Jeon Jong Sook), it’s also uncertain. Who can tell whether that cat exists or not?
"Burning" (2018)
"Phantom Love", the evidence of having love is a passage from the iPhone Recording.
But sometimes, even those recordings don’t sound so real.
This is the love story in "Phantom Love", blurred, real, and sometimes cruel.
As long as you are immersed in it, you can feel the story, for The confusion of reality and the future is uncertain. The emotion of
is lingering in the whole movie. Z3z
, these are also real in the present. Z3z
is also the reason why it can move people. Z3z
is called "Phantom Love" "The Three Treasures of Gao Xian", namely The three films released this year by Golden Scene (Golden Scene), the other two are "Golden City" and "Uncle Uncle".
"The Three Treasures of Gao Xian" have already released these three Blu-ray films
, which are also the three best Hong Kong films this year.
Director Zhou Guanwei graduated from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and made short films after graduation.Filmed the first feature film "A Complex Story" and won the Rookie Award from the Art Development Bureau that year.
The story of "Phantom Love" was brewed in 2006, when he was teaching at the Academy of Performing Arts, and he received a proposal from a student about the murder of a mentally ill person.
"I think it's over when I hear it. I myself don't want to shoot because I have no passion for this subject and can't create it. And not many people around me are troubled by this problem."
is just a story about mental patients. , Took root in his mind.
has been collecting this information silently for more than ten years, and he has also begun to pay attention to this group.
Until one day, he saw a piece of news in the humble corner of the newspaper that touched him.
A mentally ill patient suddenly became ill in Mong Kok, took off his clothes and urinated on the street. This scene was filmed by passersby and uploaded to the Internet.
"It made me feel that I have something to do with this matter, and I want to know more about it."
Later, this real event became the opening scene of the movie "Phantom Love".
"What "Phantom Love" wants to talk about is their inner world, more than how the environment sees him, or how he contends with the society. What is more important is their own contend with themselves, whether he thinks he is worth it. Deserving to be loved, whether he can love someone or not, this may not have much connection with the environment, but it is more important to the character."
The indifference, domestic violence, and urban development magnified by social networks The neglected people, these are the social observations behind "Phantom Love". Liu Junqian, the protagonist of
, is one of the few new faces in Hong Kong-produced films in recent years. In 2012, he graduated from the School of Drama, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, majoring in acting. After graduation, he has been active in Hong Kong's drama stage.
He is most familiar with playing David in the TV series "Margaret and David" on ViuTV. "Phantom Love" is his first movie.
In "Phantom Love", Liu Junqian has many inner scenes. How to convince the audience that he is a "normal" looking "abnormal" is a test of acting skills.
This time his performance in "Phantom Love" has also been nominated for best actor including the Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards and the Golden Horse Awards. With his good appearance, it can be said that the future is unlimited.
Like Liu Junqian, the heroine Cai Siyun is also a new face.
Cai Siyun studied in Taiwan after graduating from high school in Hong Kong and studied in the Department of Drama at Taipei University of the Arts. After graduating, she became a model and actor, and once appeared in the viuTV TV series "Short Marriage".
In "Phantom Love" this time, Cai Siyun is divided into two roles: one is Xinxin, who is pure and kind, and the other is Ye Lan, a female graduate student with a little caution and complicated background. For this newcomer, it is a big challenge. .
This year, Cai Siyun also nominated for Best Actress in the Academy Awards with "Phantom Love". Although
was finally defeated by Dongyu Zhou, for the already old-fashioned Hong Kong film and television industry, the crisis of poverty and poverty for newcomers has been in danger for a long time. This face that does not look very "Hong Kong women" is also a pleasant surprise.
In "The Three Treasures of Gao Xian", if you like "Golden Capital" and "Uncle Uncle", then "Phantom Love", an atypical Hong Kong film, is worth two hours to watch.
This article is first published in the adventure movie: cinematik
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