The Eye (2002)Blind since age two, Mun (Angelica Lee) takes a cornea transplant and comes out of her bandages able to see dead people. With ghosts at home, on the streets and even at her new calligraphy class, the pressure becomes too much for the young woman to bear. Teamed up with a young psychologist (Lawrence Chou), Mun sets about finding the root of her problems. Just like Mun's repairing vision, The Eye's plot builds its focus slowly and carefully to bring developments and theme into clearer view. The inability to see, or at the very least recognise everyday images, adds intriguing tension and approaches the Hong Kong horror genre from new ground. Humour is kept to a minimum in the script, limited mainly to a caricature of bureaucratic inflexibility at an orchestra, and only a ridiculous romance angle between the two leads throws a damper on the pace. That plenty of off-focus moments are included in the production goes without saying and the effect works well in the developing story from Mun's difficult perspective, while additional sound work and music raises the drama elsewhere. Much to the filmmakers' credit, two standout sequences struck a chord with early viewers, setting off favourable good word-of-mouth among local cinemagoers -- unprecedented for a modern Hong Kong horror flick without any major stars. Effects from Centro Digital Pictures give the production a good workover; even ghosts' long tongues get a digital upgrade from the rubbery red things that stuck out of mouths on screen a decade ago. Angelica Lee makes for an impressive lead and carries across both intense suffering and hope in an ultimately upbeat performance. Lawrence Chou takes the other lead slot, faced with an unfortunate role that damages the film more than anything else. Wearing glasses in what appears an unsuccessful attempt to make him look older, Chou's lumbered with a very unconvincing love interest character. With the absolutely no justification for his "love" for Mun given in an otherwise coherent script, viewers may question why The Eye needed to veer towards romance at all. |
Credits: Directed by Danny and Oxide Pang |
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