THE PHANTOM LOVER is sadly not a documentary about me and how much I love the movie THE PHANTOM, but it’s the next best thing – a 1995 Hong Kong romantic melodrama. It has no martial arts, but it’s director Ronny Yu and cinematographer Peter Pau doing another lush, operatic fantasy about forbidden, doomed lovers, like THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR. And like THE OCCUPANT it has a set of young characters learning about and having their lives influenced by the tragedy when they visit the site years later.
In this case the location is not an apartment building, but a magnificent Beijing theater. In 1936 it’s fire-damaged and cob-webbed enough that the broke-ass fledgling Sprout Troupe think they can afford to rent it for their musical Flaming Blood.
Ten years earlier the theater was known from here to Tianjin, Shanghai as the home of the great Song Danping (played by the groom of the Bride With White Hair, Leslie Cheung), brilliant actor, beautiful singer, dreamy heartthrob, definitive essayer of Romeo (cheesy musical version). Hungry up-and-comer Wei Qing (Huang Lei, CJ7) bribes the caretaker with chocolates to tell the story, and it takes up the first half of the movie. Danping was in love with Du Yunyan (Chien-lien Wu, EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN), daughter of one of the local rich dudes (Wong Bing, THE FOUNDING OF A REPUBLIC), and she would meet him in the theater after hours for romantic interludes. (read the rest of this shit…)
I can’t explain this, and it’s embarrassing to admit, but somehow I had never seen ONCE A THIEF (1991) until now. How the hell did I not watch the movie that John Woo and Chow Yun Fat did between their two greatest home runs? Especially since I even watched the North American TV pilot he made based on it five years later! I knew this was gonna be more light-hearted and comedic than 
A BETTER TOMORROW II is a crazy fuckin sequel. The story is incredibly convoluted, the plot (or plots) divided between Hong Kong and New York, continuing the story of Ho, Kit and Jackie, but also following a new character called Uncle Lung (Dean Shek) in conflict with the police and with two unrelated crime syndicates. The weirdest (and best) part is that they actually used the gimmick that’s always joked about but almost never actually done: Chow Yun Fat plays Ken, the never-mentioned-before-twin-brother of his deceased part 1 character Mark. I probly don’t have to say any more than that to convince you this movie is stupid. I liked it though. 
If you look for pictures from John Woo’s 1986 breakthrough A BETTER TOMORROW you’ll mostly find Chow Yun Fat lighting a cigar with a burning counterfeit American $100 bill, or wearing a real nice suit holding two guns. That’s from the beginning of the movie when his character Mark is a big shot in a Hong Kong syndicate. That’s not a better tomorrow, that’s a more financially stable yesterday. Most of the movie takes place years later, when Mark has been shot in the leg and has to wear a metal brace, so he’s now just an errand boy instead of a Big Brother. 
