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GHOST
OF THE MIRROR
AKA:
Ghost In The Mirror
Year:
1974 Reviewer: Rob
Daniel
As
of 2004 this 1974 Taiwanese film is the earliest Brigitte Lin
movie available on DVD, and may actually be only her second
movie after the 1973 debut 'Outside the Window'.
Lin's
Taiwanese career leant towards romantic melodrama as much as
her Hong Kong career favoured action.
'Ghost of the Mirror', while incorporating supernatural
elements, is a bittersweet tale of forbidden love in a
heartless world.
'A
Touch of Zen's Shih Chien is an upright scholar retreating
to a secluded house in the mountains to work on 100 copies of
Buddhist scripture. Unfortunately,
his new abode is cursed, having a history of men falling to
their deaths in the garden well.
The scholar soon discovers the enticing sight in the
well is Su-Su (Lin), a young girl driven to suicide many years
earlier and now forced to entrap men to satiate her master, a
poisonous dragon. An
expedition into the well unearths an antique mirror that acts
as a portal for Su-su to visit the scholar.
Soon, they are kindling a gentle romance, but society's
conventions and Su-su's demonic master threaten their idyll.
'Ghost
of the Mirror' draws heavily from regional legend and features
elements that would reappear in 'A
Chinese Ghost Story' and 'Green Snake', and echoes two
stories from 'Kwaidan' (1965) with Buddhist scripture being
used as a shield from evil and a ghostly reflection
foretelling doom.
But,
director Sung Tsun-Shou and writer Chang Yung Hsiang's (who
would also scripted Lin's 'Run Lover Run') story of doomed
courtship favours gentle romance as much as spine-chilling
thrills. The
central characters' relationship is a chaste affair, there is
never suggestion on bedroom activity and Su-Su contentedly
cares for her man, yet forces of good and evil still persecute
them. There must
be a feminist reading in their somewhere!
For
those requiring shivers, an effectively murky score, utilizing
surreal sound effects reminiscent of '2001' creates an uneasy
mood and early sequences with the mysterious well are similar
in tone to Hideo Nakata's 'Ring'.
On a side note, producer Wong Chuek-Hon's career
embraced the macabre, including both Jimmy Wang's 'Master
of the Flying Guillotine' and King Hu's 'The Legend
of the Mountain'. 'Ghost
of the Mirror' unexpectedly climaxes as a creature
feature, with Su-Su's master revealing herself as an actual
dragon with a hungry eye on the scholar.
The creature effects are predictably 'Thunderbirds' like,
but it's still a lively denouement to a film that refuses to
embrace a one genre.
Lin
appears twenty-four minutes in and conveys the winning
charisma that would transform her into Hong Kong cinema's
favourite daughter. Sung
includes moments where Su-Su appears to display murderous
intent (complemented by eerie green lighting), but there is
never any real doubt her heart is pure.
Interestingly, in a difficult to follow subplot Su-Su
is revealed as being two spirits, allowing Lin to play
the character as both demure and sparkling.
Dual personality traits would of course become de
rigueur for Lin's characters during her Hong Kong golden
period.
Of
itself 'Ghost of the Mirror' is a slight, though enjoyable
fantasy romance. As
an early film from an actress who would become one of Asia's
legends, it is fascinating.
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