Originally a character in Pu Songling's (
蒲松龄) Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (《
聊斋志异》, c. 1740) — a young scholar who falls in love with the ghost Nie Xiaoqian (
聂小倩). Made world-famous by the 1987 Hong Kong film A Chinese Ghost Story (《
倩女幽魂》), where the late Leslie Cheung (
张国荣) played Ning Caichen opposite Joey Wong (
王祖贤) as Nie Xiaoqian — a definitive Asian romantic-fantasy classic.
