Beyond The Dream (幻愛) is a 2019 Hong Kong romantic drama film directed by Kiwi Chow and written by Felix Tsang, starring Cecilia Choi and Terrance Lau.
When a crowd begins to gather around Ling, Lok rushes to comfort her and attempts to stop the pedestrians from taking pictures of her.
As they grow closer, Lok and Yan share their first kiss at a pedestrian tunnel on their way back to their homes.
One day at the Give Grace centre, Lok surprisingly finds ‘Yan’ sitting with the therapy group.
Fearful of his return of schizophrenia, Lok rises cautiously to greet ‘Yan’, before holding her hand tightly to make sure she is not his imagination.
Joe, a social worker at the Give Grace Charity, leads a nervous Lok away from the group.
Nam wishes to use a patient suffering from erotomania (hallucinations involving love) as the subject of her research.
Worried about her thesis falling apart, Nam initiates a sexual relationship with the married Dr. Simon, the vice director of the same department, who can help her recruit potential research subjects.
Nam starts volunteering at Give Grace Charity, offering free psychological counseling to scout for erotomania patients.
One day, after finishing up with her scheduled meetings, Lok approaches Nam and wishes to join the program.
To ease Lok’s mind in their second session, Nam shares her troubling childhood with him as a victim of domestic abuse and neglect at the hands of her mother.
However, despite Dr. Fung’s warning not to fall for a patient, Nam begins a relationship with Lok in secret and ends her affair with Dr. Simon.
At her home, Nam tearfully reveals that as much as she hates her mother's promiscuity, she had been sleeping with men (including Uncle Wong) for favors or gifts.
Dr Fung manages to calm Lok down before leading a teary-eyed Nam back to the university.
Nam admits to regarding Lok initially as a means to her ends; but she has genuinely come to care for him.
As dawn breaks, a dejected Lok looks at Nam and comes to a tragic conclusion – no matter who she is, she will leave him eventually.
Thanks to Dr. Fung’s influence, the committee may let her reenrol in the future if Nam agrees to: abide by the professional guideline of a C.P., never set foot again on the property of Give Grace Charity or approach their patients without the charity’s consent, and finally never contact Lok again.
No longer able to deny how much Lok means to her, Nam apologetically declines to meet the last condition and leaves her dream of becoming a C.P.
However, upon seeing Nam/Yan’s radiant smile, Lok and Nam/Yan rush to each other and kiss passionately as the movie ends, leaving this scene and their future to the interpretations of the audiences.
Director Kiwi Chow returned to school as a part-time lecturer two years after he was graduated from Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.
Chow suddenly hooked the movie that have been shelved for years since they're failed to find funds to start filming.
[8] "Beyond the Dream" was received HK $1.2 million through the Film Development Fund, which accounting for 20% of the total cost.
[9] The director Chow found that Terrance Lau performed in a different way within the audition, he's presents a Psychosis patient who seemed to be no different from the normal person, which coincides with his message.
In addition, combined with her looks like a highly educated person and her natural performance in audition, those various factors made her the best choice for the heroine.
When he discussed with the screenwriter about the character and background of the male protagonist, Chow believed that he was a character with low self-esteem, introverted, and avoids crowds, which was not suitable for living in the city center, but in a more remote location, so it made Tuen Mun as one of the options.
Fortunately, the box office rose sharply with the urgent support of the actors Chapman To, Kristal Tin, Harriet Yeung, director Wong Ho Yin and the yellow economic circle,[10][11][12] and with many film critics were praised the film also, the box office as high as HK$750,000 on 4 July, and HK$900,000 on 5 July, becoming the single-day box office championship for two consecutive days.
[23] Affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, there is a shortage of international blockbusters during June and July, and the release of "Beyond the Dream" made Hong Kong-produced films to fill this window period indirectly.
The "3 Treasures of Golden Scene" not only have their own characteristics, but also arouse different audiences' re-attention to Hong Kong-produced films.
Those three films were very popular among Hong Kong people, and a variety of peripheral products, such as postcards, novels, theme coffee, etc.