The Eye
2½ out of 5 stars
R E V I E W   B Y   R I C H   C L I N E
what if the reflection isn't yours OK, what is it that filmmaking twins Oxide and Danny Pang have about disabilities? Their last film Bangkok Dangerous was a romantic thriller about a deaf-mute hitman. This one is about a beautiful, blind 20-year-old (Lee) who gets a corneal transplant that allows her to see for the first time since she was 2. Only now she can also see dead people, Sixth Sense-like. So she hooks up with her cute, young doctor (Chow) and travels to Thailand to find out more about the cornea donor. And why she's seeing someone else's face in the mirror.

The Pangs ratchet up the tension from the first frame with edgy editing, dreamlike effects, drifting focus, crashing sounds and creepy music, just so we're in no doubt that this is a horror film. And it is quite scary in places, especially when we fully understand what we're seeing! At the root of it all, though, is a very simple film without much real grisliness, a lot of suggestion and a rather cute and silly love story underneath it all. There's an overall cheesiness to the film that keeps it from ever becoming truly gothic and horrible. Some of it is truly frightening, parts are fascinatingly realistic and other sequences are goofy and rather sweet. But the overall visual imagery is terrifically effective, unsettling and eerie, yet darkly beautiful at the same time. I'm still waiting for the Pangs to get a Hollywood film to work on; I doubt it'll be long.

cert 15 themes, suspense, violence 6.Aug.02

dir Pang Brothers
scr Jojo Hui, Pang Brothers
with Lee Sin-Jie, Lawrence Chow, So Yut Lai, Candy Lo, Ko Yin Ping, Edmond Chen, Ben Yuen, Winson Yip, Chutcha Rujihanon, Pierre Png, Wang Sue Yuen
release UK 27.Sep.02; US 13.Jun.03
02/China 1h39

I see dead people. Wah and Mun (Lee and Chow) try to comfort each other on the train, while a ghost watches over her shoulder....

shadows
R E A D E R   R E V I E W S
what if the reflection isn't yours send your review to Shadows... "WOW! Check out this movie!" --Doubting Tomas, London 26.Sep.02
© 2002 by Rich Cline, Shadows on the Wall

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