Sha zhi lian

Leslie Cheung picks up a girl while driving his car in a remote location and offers her a ride back home. The girl introduces herself as 'Cecilia' who is played by Cherie Chung. Leslie Cheung's character can't forget her and visits her again at her apartment only to find out that it's empty and the old lady who lives there says no one has lived there in a while. His friends say that he gave ghost a ride, but shortly after he sees Cecilia walking in the city. He tries to catch up to her but fails. He eventually tracks her down but finds out that she's a girlfriend of a gangster Sam Tsao. Story starts out as a mystery and intrigue and ends as a bittersweet romance with plenty of action and good plot.

I stumbled upon the 1988 Hong Kong movie "Sha Zhi Lian" (aka "Fatal Love") here in 2022 by random chance. And it being an Asian movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to sit down and watch it. However, I wasn't sure what to expect here, aside from the movie having Leslie Cheung on the cast list.

Writers Dai-Chi Lau, Kong-Wah Lee, Mo Li, Zevia Tong and Raymond Pak-Ming Wong somehow collectively managed to churn out a movie that proved to be rather mundane and somewhat boring actually. I guess there is a thing as too many writers defile a script.

I wasn't impressed with the storyline one bit, and actually found it rather boring and bland. There just simply wasn't anything happened of any interest, and the characters in the storyline seemed very one-dimensional, which didn't help to improve the overall fell of the movie.

Of the entire cast ensemble that participated in "Sha Zhi Lian", then I was only familiar with Leslie Cheung. The actors and actresses in the movie literally had nothing worthwhile to work with in terms of script, storyline, characters or dialogue.

This particular 1988 movie was not an enjoyable one for me, so it is not one that I would recommend for fans of the Hong Kong cinema. Nor is it a movie that I will ever be returning to watch a second time.

My rating of "Sha Zhi Lian" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.