A Dream Like a Dream – Synopsis and Cast List

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Synopsis

 

Part 1

Having witnessed the consecutive deaths of four out of five patients in her assigned ward on the first day of reporting duty after her graduation, the Doctor is frustrated particularly to the fact that she is unable to figure out what kind of sickness that Patient No. 5 is suffering from. The only thing she can do for him is to listen to his story before he dies.
 
Patient No. 5 begins to tell his epic journey of life: He and his wife were once happy to give birth to a baby boy. However, the infant suffered from an unknown disease and passed away three months after his birth. The loss of the child ruined the couple’s relationship. He began to get sick; one day, his wife suddenly disappeared and his condition became worse. Although having received numerous consultations from doctors, he was unable to figure out the reason of being sick. The only thing he was sure, however, was the fact that he would not live long. Hence, he decided to take “his last journey of searching for clues.”
 
After travelling around most areas of the world, Patient No. 5 went to Paris, where he met a Chinese illegal lady immigrant Jiang Hong. They fell in love with each other. Jiang Hong brought her boyfriend to a Gypsy fortune-teller who advised him to make use of other people’s riddles to find the solution to the riddle of his own life. The young couple was also asked to go to the chateau to look for some clues. When they went to Normandie, they saw a lake named “See Yourself” behind the chateau. In the chateau, they found a piece of oil-painting portrait of a French gentleman and a Chinese lady. The majordomo of the chateau told them that the Chinese ex-mistress of the chateau might be living in Shanghai. Leaving Jiang Hong in Paris, Patient No. 5 went to Shanghai to look for another piece of clue for solving the riddle of his life.
 
 
Part 2
Patient No. 5 found the aged ex-mistress of the chateau, Koo Hsiang-Lan, in Shanghai and listened to her story:
 
Growing up in a brothel, Hsiang-Lan was the most beautiful and popular courtesan in Shanghai. Her beauty had taken the breath of all her admirers away. Although Wang Debao, one of the wooers, crazily fell in love with Hsiang-Lan, he was not able to take the courtesan away from the brothel because of the failure in his business. Hsiang-Lan therefore tied the nuptial knot with Count Henri Duchamps, a French Consulate- General in Shanghai, who proposed to take her to France after marriage. While seeing off Hsiang-Lan, Debao poisoned himself and died in front of his lover. Hsiang-Lan left for France with her newly-wed husband to begin her new life.
 
Hsiang-Lan had become the mistress of the chateau. Her world had suddenly turned into extravagance with fresh experience. However, she soon found that she had not been released from the “cage” – she was being kept from a small cage to a large cage, while realizing the fact that she was only one of the curios collected by the Count. In order to make Hsiang-Lan an artist, the Count sent his wife to study painting in Paris, in where she met a group of artists in Montparnasse café. As always, her beauty had driven the French artists crazy.
 
To Hsiang-Lan’s surprise, the Count was not offended by his wife’s affairs with other men. One day, he was reported to be killed in a train accident. What he left for his widow was nothing but huge debts. Hsiang-Lan therefore had to sell the chateau for settling the debts, while realizing none of her admirers were able to offer any assistance. For survival, she became a nanny of a family from Africa.
 
Having discovered that the Count was the master of the African family she had been serving, Hsiang-Lan left quietly but returned again to look for opportunity for taking revenge to the Count who had ruthlessly framed her. Wang Debao, who was saved from his committing suicide, came to Paris to look for Hsiang-Lan, whom he had never been able to forget about in those years. He proposed to Hsiang-Lan to go back to China with him. Meanwhile, the Count was dying from cancer. After saying goodbye to her dying ex-husband, Hsiang-Lan returned to China with Wang Debao…
 
Thinking Patient No. 5 was the Count, the dying Hsiang-Lan held the hand of her listener, revealing her last words to “the Count” and passed away.
 
Patient No. 5 went to Paris again to look for Jiang Hong. Knowing that he was not able to find her anymore, he attended a Millennium ritual in Normandie. After he returned to Hong Kong, he came to the last stage of his life. Having told his epic story to the young doctor, he passes away in the hospital.

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Cast List