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[ESSAY] “The Ecstasy of Love: The Precarious Line Between Reality and Illusion in Kiwi Chow’s Beyond the Dream” by Hilda Wong

Kiwi Chow (director). Beyond the Dream, 2019. 120 min.

Is love merely an illusion? And does it matter if it is?

“I am fake, but my love is real.” Can love be real if you love an illusion, a version of someone cast entirely by yourself? Beyond the Dream 幻愛 (2019), directed by Kiwi Chow, tells the story of a man recovering from schizophrenia who falls in love with an imaginary woman and subsequently with the real woman who inspired his delusion. The film’s emotional force left me with a lingering question: is love merely an illusion? And does it matter if it is? Beyond the Dream unravels the meaning of love, the clinical gaze of psychology, gender politics, and the complexities of human connection.

Beyond the Dream opens with Lee Chi Lok witnessing a woman helping a mentally ill patient on the street. Lee later discovers that the woman, Yan Yan, lives directly above his flat in a public-housing estate in Tuen Mun. Yan Yan is a pure, innocent girl abused by her father. By “saving” her, Lee becomes her hero, and the two fall in love. The illusion shatters when Lee records their voices and hears only his own. Yan Yan exists only in his hallucination. She is an idealised fantasy based on a real woman, Yip Nam, whom Lee sees comforting a mentally ill patient on the street. Reality intrudes when the recovery centre introduces Yip Nam, a psychology student who looks exactly like Yan Yan. She conducts research on erotomania for her thesis, and Lee becomes her subject. Their interview sessions spark an ethically questionable romance. As they hover near the dangerous boundary of the patient-counsellor relationship, the film reveals the cost that professionalism can exact on human connection.

The Geography
of Isolation

Unlike cinematic landscapes that capture the luminous towers of Hong Kong Island and the iconic neon signage of Kowloon, Beyond the Dream chooses Tuen Mun as its primary setting. Colloquially referred to as “大西北” (“The Great Northwest”), Tuen Mun is a town in the New Territories, spatially peripheral to the urban centre. The geographical marginalisation of Tuen Mun evokes the characters’ sense of social isolation. Beneath the dreamlike aesthetic, the public-housing estates, ferry-pier promenade, and railway tracks externalise the characters’ internal desolation.

Beneath the glamorous façade of this world-class city lies a silent crisis. The film’s dreamlike romance does not spring from nothing; it is born from its “wounds”. Nearly half of the population (46%) exhibit symptoms of mild-to-severe depression, anxiety, or both, and over 16% fall within the moderate-to-severe clinical range. Yet it is precisely amid this collective exhaustion that romance emerges. Beyond the Dream portrays a form of romance shaped by the peculiar loneliness of being surrounded by a hyper-dense urban landscape whilst experiencing profound isolation. It is a precious and exquisite love forged in the fire of wounds.

The Ambiguity
of Love

The ambiguity of love is, perhaps, the most captivating kind of romance.

The ambiguity of love is, perhaps, the most captivating kind of romance: the love that lingers in the space between certainty and doubt. “疑幻似真” (“ambiguity between reality and illusion”) is the central tagline encapsulating the film’s philosophical core. Lee Chi Lok is afflicted by erotomania, a condition affecting only 0.02–0.04% of the population. What is the rationale for centring a narrative on such a rare disorder?

On one level, it recognises that people with mental disorders yearn for love like anyone else. More crucially, however, the film uses the defining nature of erotomania, its blurring of the distinction between reality and illusion, to unveil the unsettling truth that all love, to some extent, involves illusion. One might invoke the philosophical “problem of other minds”, the idea that we can never understand another person with complete certainty. In the absence of complete knowledge of the other, love is, to some degree, directed towards a version of that person that exists only within our own subjective perception. Lee’s love for Yan Yan, and his later relationship with Yip Nam, push to an extreme this human tendency to project idealised images onto those we love.

Lee’s hallucination, Yan Yan, is a magnified fantasy derived from a fleeting moment of Yip Nam’s kindness. Lee witnesses Yip Nam covering Ah Ling, a mentally ill woman found naked on the street. He magnifies this gesture into Yan Yan, an idealised and selective illusion that exaggerates Yip Nam’s virtues and distorts reality. Lee therefore sees the hopeful possibility of being accepted and loved. As he confesses, “I feel like she is an angel. When the world is mocking, fearing, and humiliating Ling, she’s the only one who’s willing to protect Ling, as if she’s protecting me. I’m ill, I never dared to think about love…until I met her” (0:54:55–0:55:35).

Reality shatters the dream when Lee discovers that Yan Yan is not real and meets the woman behind the illusion, Yip Nam. Yip Nam’s confession forces Lee to confront the person behind the fantasy. She claims that she is a “dirty woman”, having slept with many men in the past for professional advantage. The agonising collision between fantasy and reality later evolves into an internal psychic conflict. In one scene, Yan Yan and Yip Nam fight over him, each claiming to be the only “real” one (1:42:00–1:46:15). Lee’s insecurity eventually explodes as he becomes convinced that he will ultimately be abandoned, pushing him closer to surrendering once again to his safe but delusive world.

Lee is not alone in his doubt. Beneath Yip Nam’s professional composure lies a similar fear: that she is unworthy of love because of her chaotic past. She confesses, “If you know what I’m really like, you won’t want to be with me.” Lee responds, “You don’t mind that I’m ill, what is it that I can’t accept?” He assures her, “I know you’ve had many relationships before, I know that. Those were in the past, I don’t mind.” She presses further, “How will you not mind?” (1:19:30–1:20:36). Her insistence reveals her inability to comprehend how anyone could fully accept her. Ultimately, neither Lee nor Yip Nam can trust the genuineness of the other’s love. Both characters cling to the belief that they are fundamentally unlovable.

Despite their mutual doubt, the significance of what they offer each other is not diminished. Lee clings to Yip Nam not because she is perfect, but because she is his “anchor”, a reason to believe that he belongs somewhere. Her existence makes him feel safe, and their salvific dynamic is mutual. Yip Nam does not simply love Lee for who he is; she also loves the reflection of a better version of herself that she sees in his eyes. Lee’s illusion of Yan Yan reveals to her a potential self she never imagined she could be. Like Lee, she also needs an “anchor”, and Lee’s idealised vision of her becomes a source of hope. Their love is not a union of two complete souls, but of two drowning souls reaching towards each other in the dark.

Yet this invites a question: if Lee’s love for Yan Yan originates in Yip Nam, and he amplifies Yip Nam’s virtues whilst disregarding her flaws, is his love “fake”? Or is it a visualisation of what we, as humans, often do: project our desires onto the people we love? If Lee’s love is predicated upon illusion, is Yip Nam’s love equally so? Yip Nam loves the ideal self she sees reflected in Lee’s eyes and the hope he gives her that she can be fully embraced. Does true love exist, or does it serve only as a survival mechanism? But if this is not love, then what is? Is not love, whether familial, platonic, or romantic, in its most desperate form, the ultimate power we possess when all else crumbles? Yet to love is to tiptoe along a precarious line: it demands not only the courage to give ourselves fully, but also the strength to confront the possibility that the image we love may one day shatter.

The final scene, in which Yip Nam and Lee run towards each other in a tunnel, invites two interpretations. Either they are truly together, or the happy ending we see is a shared delusion, a mutual erotomania that exists only in their imaginations. Perhaps the distinction between real and imagined love matters less than the fact that love keeps them alive, even when we know it might be a dream.

The Clinical Gaze

The film’s romance between a psychology student and her research subject constitutes a serious ethical violation. Yet Beyond the Dream does not merely present their romance as a transgression; it interrogates the institutional framework that proscribes it. When Yip Nam’s mentor observes Lee’s affection towards Yip Nam, she identifies it as “transference”, the psychological mechanism through which a patient transfers feelings associated with another person onto their therapist. She warns Yip Nam to “beware of counter-transference”. In an age in which humans are increasingly preoccupied with decoding human behaviour through clinical terminology, one might ask: must every human experience and behaviour be named, diagnosed, and filed away? Beyond the Dream reveals the dehumanisation embedded in a society that quantifies every human emotion and diagnoses “problems” before they have a chance to manifest. In one scene, Lee confronts Yip Nam for merely using his case for her thesis. Lee’s humanity and desperation for connection are eclipsed by a clinical gaze that seeks only explanations and diagnostic labels. Is it not suffocating to name every movement, every impulse, and every ache with a psychological term?

Yip Nam crosses the “safety line”, the professional boundary designed to protect both clinical psychologists and patients and to sustain society’s trust in the profession. Yet her love is labelled “counter-transference”; might it not instead be genuine sympathy or love stemming from the core of her humanity? After all, a professional is also human. It is the duty of psychologists to prevent further harm, but this tension also reveals a deeper truth: institutional frameworks can preclude authentic human impulses.

Is it not ironic that a discipline built to heal denies the natural human instincts it seeks to understand? The film exposes this contradiction by revealing the fractures within the professional, Yip Nam, and reminding us that she, too, is human. I believe mental illness is not a binary but a spectrum. None of us can conform completely to an ideal of psychological normativity. We all bear, to varying degrees, the weight of mental disturbance; some forms are visible, whilst others are suppressed. Perhaps all of us, to different degrees, suppress our emotions in order to perform “normality” for the sake of the social masquerade we call reality.

The Purification Narrative

There is a persistent debate surrounding the film’s gender politics that demands critical attention. Several reviews have criticised the film for slut-shaming. This critique centres on Yip Nam’s history of using sex to advance her career. Critics argue that Yip Nam’s past is portrayed as a form of bodily impurity and a mark of sexual shame that requires purification through Lee’s acceptance. The narrative subjects her to a journey of redemption that demands “purification” before she can be deemed worthy of love. This dynamic evokes the “Madonna-whore complex”, whereby women are categorised as either pure, idealised figures or sexually degraded “whores”. Originating in Freud’s psychoanalytic framework, the complex was later defined as the inability to experience both love and sexual desire for the same woman (Kaplan, pp. 4–5). The film depicts no sexual desire on Lee’s part towards Yan Yan; instead, it positions Yan Yan as the pure figure and Yip Nam as the “fallen”, sexually compromised woman. However, the narrative gradually merges the two, destabilising this binary through its emphasis on mutual recognition and the integration of fantasy with reality. Yet this resolution still depends upon Lee’s acceptance of the real Yip Nam.

Beneath this sexualised portrayal lies a more tender revelation. Yip Nam’s “stain” is not a moral failing but a wound deeply embedded in her insecurity and her inability to believe that she can be loved without ulterior motives. Having been sexually harassed in childhood, she clings to the belief that love is transactional, that her body is a currency with which to purchase affection. Yip Nam’s character arc is not about “purification”; it is about dismantling the barrier she has built around her heart. What she must overcome is the belief that she cannot be held without being instrumentalised.

Beyond the Dream carves out a space for a kind of love that defies reason, a love that persists despite illness, trauma, and the possibility that it might end in fragments. The two protagonists become each other’s “lighthouse”, a beacon of safety amid the storms of their own chaos. In a world that demands reason, certainty, and practicality, perhaps a wild ecstasy is what keeps our hearts beating for something worth holding on to. We all carry invisible burdens into love: wounds, fears, and insecurities. Yet imperfection does not disqualify us from being loved. As Yip Nam says, “It’s recovered, if you don’t feel pain when you touch the scars.” In Beyond the Dream, Lee Chi Lok and Yip Nam are not complete souls coming together, but two fractured ones learning that acceptance is not about erasing the past, but about touching the scars in the knowledge that, one day, they will no longer flinch.

Bibliography

▚ Chow, Kiwi. Beyond the Dream. Golden Scene, 2020.
▚ Kaplan, Helen Singer. “Intimacy disorders and sexual panic states.” Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, vol. 14, no.1,1988,pp. 3-12, doi: 10.1080/00926238808403902
▚ Mind HK. “Nearly Half of Hongkongers Show Signs of Depression, Anxiety, or Both, Co-Study by Mind HK and Manulife Hong Kong Estimates.” Mind HK, 29 Sept. 2025, https://www.mind.org.hk/new/press-release-nearly-half-of-hongkongers-show-signs-of-depression-anxiety-or-both-co-study-by-mind-hk-and-manulife-hong-kong-estimates/.

^{How to cite: Wong, Hilda. “The Ecstasy of Love: The Precarious Line Between Reality and Illusion in Kiwi Chow’s Beyond the Dream.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 17 Aug. 2026, chajournal.com/2026/08/17/beyond-the-dream.}

Hilda Wong is currently a master’s student at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). A graduate of the Department of English Language and Literature at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU), she has wide-ranging interests in multicultural writing, speculative fiction, Modernist literature, and postmodern and postcolonial studies. [All contributions by Hilda Wong.]