''The Mirror'' is a 1999 Hong Kong horror anthology film directed by Siu Wing, produced and written by Raymond Wong, and starring

Nicholas Tse Nicholas Tse Ting-fung (born 29 August 1980) is a Hong Kong actor, martial artist, singer, songwriter, entrepreneur and chef.EEGmusic.EEGmusic." ''Nicolas Tse profile.'' Retrieved on 22 April 2008. As multi talented celebrity, he became a TV ch ...

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, Lillian Ho,

Law Lan Law Lan () MHAwarded in her original name Lo Yin-ying (born Lo Yin-ying (); 13 November 1934), is a veteran Hong Kong actress in both the film and TV industry. Career She first started out in the film industry in 1939, cast in antagonistic roles ...

Jack Neo Jack Neo (born 24 January 1960) is a Singaporean actor, television host, comedian and film director. He was prominently a full-time Mediacorp artiste from 1983 to 2003. In the 1990s and early 2000s, he was best known for his cross-dressing roles ...

Xu Fan Xu Fan (, born 16 August 1967) is a Chinese actress and Asian Film Awards winner. She married film director Feng Xiaogang Feng Xiaogang (; born 18 March 1958 in Beijing) is a Chinese film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and politician ...

and Sherming Yiu.

Plot

The film is divided into five unrelated segments with the mirror on an antique

dressing table Dressing commonly refers to: * Dressing (knot), the process of arranging a knot * Dressing (medical), a medical covering for a wound, usually made of cloth * Dressing, putting on clothing Dressing may also refer to: Food * Salad dressing, a type ...

serving as the

plot device A plot device or plot mechanism is any narrative technique, technique in a narrative used to move the Plot (narrative), plot forward. A clichéd plot device may annoy the reader and a contrived or arbitrary device may confuse the reader, causing ...

. The first segment is set in a brothel in 16th-century China. A

courtesan Courtesan, in modern usage, is a euphemism for a "kept" mistress (lover), mistress or prostitute, particularly one with wealthy, powerful, or influential clients. The term historically referred to a courtier, a person who attended the Royal cour ...

is murdered and her blood spills onto the mirror on her dressing table. The second segment is set in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

in 1922. Mary, an heiress to a large mansion, receives an antique dressing table as a birthday gift. She notices that there is something strange about the mirror and starts receiving eerie phone calls reminding her about her dark secrets in the past. She had an affair with a professor who already had a family. In order to silence him and take over his mansion, she poisoned him to death. One night, her two servants confront her, tell her that they are actually the professor's daughters, and avenge their father. The third segment is set in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

in 1988 during the

Ghost Festival The Ghost Festival, also known as the Zhongyuan Festival (traditional Chinese: 中元節; simplified Chinese: ) in Taoism and Yulanpen Festival () in Buddhism, is a traditional Taoist and Buddhist festival held in certain East Asian countrie ...

. James, a lawyer, has a

one-night stand A one-night stand or one-night sex is a single sexual encounter in which there is an expectation that there shall be no further relations between the sexual participants. It draws its name from the common practice of a one-night stand, a single ...

with Lora and tries to get away in the morning but her burly Teochew-speaking brother Roman, stops him and forces him to marry Lora. Lora moves into James's house and brings along an antique dressing table that she inherited from her deceased parents. One day, a woman approaches James and offers him a million dollars to defend her son, who has been accused of raping a lady and murdering her boyfriend. Overcome by

greed Greed (or avarice) is an uncontrolled longing for increase in the acquisition or use of material gain (be it food, money, land, or animate/inanimate possessions); or social value, such as Social status, status, or Power (social and politica ...

, James ignores his conscience, defends the accused in court, and wins the case. James gets into a car accident later and his face is injured so badly that he has to undergo

reconstructive surgery Reconstructive surgery is surgery performed to restore normal appearance and function to body parts malformed by a disease or medical condition. Description Reconstructive surgery is a term with training, clinical, and reimbursement implica ...

. When the bandages are removed, James is horrified to see that he now looks exactly like the rape victim's deceased boyfriend. The fourth segment is set in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

in 1999. An old woman and her granddaughter Yu are waiting for the latter's cousin Ming to come home from his overseas studies. When Ming returns, he brings along his girlfriend, Judy, and announces his decision to marry her. Yu becomes very jealous because she is in love with Ming. One day, Ming and Judy purchase an antique dressing table from a shop and bring it home. Yu finds the mirror very weird and starts feeling uneasy. Judy's pet puppy also keeps barking at her. One night, the puppy is brutally killed, and Ming's grandmother goes missing on the following night. Ming's grandmother is eventually found dead with her body dismembered. Yu is blamed for the murder and gets arrested by the police. Later, Ming brings Judy to the mirror and tells her that he knows she murdered his grandmother so that she could inherit his grandmother's fortune. Judy reveals her true colours and tries to kill Ming but misses her step and ends up impaling herself on a pair of scissors stuck to the dressing table. The fifth segment is set in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

in 2000. A woman approaches the antique dressing table and sees her eyeballs falling out from their sockets in her reflection in the mirror.

Cast

: ''In order of appearance:'' * Sherming Yiu as courtesan *

as Mary * Li Zhirui as dumb girl * Chen Shasha as Mary's housekeeper *

as James * Lynn Poh as Lora *

John Cheng John Cheng Yeow Nam (also credited as Zhong Yao Nan; known in entertainment circle as Ah Nan or Ah Nam) (1961 – 22 January 2013) was a Singaporean actor and Getai compere who made his screen debut in ''Money No Enough'' and was most notable ...

as Roman * Karen Tong as rape victim * Lin Ruping as accused's mother * Raymond Wong as rape victim's boyfriend * Lillian Ho as Yu *

as Ming's grandmother *

as Ming *

as Judy

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mirror (1999 film), The 1999 films 1999 horror films Hong Kong supernatural horror films Horror anthology films Hong Kong ghost films 1990s Cantonese-language films Films set in 1922 Films set in 1988 Films set in 1999 Films set in 2000 Films set in Hong Kong Films shot in Hong Kong Films set in Singapore Films shot in Singapore Films set in Taiwan Films set in Shanghai 1990s Hong Kong films