Old Elvis song featured in new Chinese film

It's a work of sheer magic.

Wen Shipeng -- a young director who graduated from Columbia University in New York -- discovered a unique method to achieve a distinctive look for his directorial feature Are You Lonesome Tonight?.

During a recent promotional event held in Beijing, Wen said his cinematographers installed an antique camera lens and covered it with pantyhose, as they believed the blurred images that resulted convey the movie's themes of regret and atonement.

The movie, which took Wen and his crew four years to produce, will be released in Cthe hinese mainland in multiple formats on June 12, including IMAX, and it is currently the second highest-grossing picture in the country's presale box-office charts for the Dragon Boat Festival holiday.

Set in Guangzhou in South China's Guangdong province in 1997, the tale examines an air conditioner repairman's efforts at atonement, as he believes he caused the death of a pedestrian. However, the truth is thornier than he thought, and complications ensue after the repairman tries to get close to the victim's widow.

With a stellar cast, the film stars A-list actor Eddie Peng as the repairman and award-winning actress Sylvia Chang as the widow, as well as veteran actor Wang Yanhui as a police officer.

Peng, previously known for tough guy characters in blockbusters like Operation Red Sea (2018) and The Rescue(2020), lost 16 kilograms to play this character, a skinny young man struggling with guilt.

Are You Lonesome Tonight?, the title song performed twice in the film with greater significance each time, has a long history. It was originally created in 1926, before winning more popularity thanks to cover versions by some American singers in later decades, including Elvis Presley.