Abnormal Beauty (2004)

[Yani]

This one came from nowhere. Looks interesting to me, another Pang Brothers film is always (IMO) worth checking out, at least the trailer.

Part of the synopsis:

Jiney studies Photography in university. She is good at academic, sexy and rich. She is the one in the university and also rumor has it in school she is a lesbian with her classmate, Jasmine. Although her photos achieve great successes in both public and school, she is still not satisfied with her work. There are still missing parts.One day, on Jiney’s way to school, a woman is knocked down by a car and died horribly. Jiney witnesses the accident; from at first scary to excitement, she get closer and closer to the body and finally takes a photo. After experienced the excitement during printing the photo of the dead in her basement, she finally finds out what are the missing parts of her work. They are blood, the death moment.Since then, Jiney has a new feeling towards photography, that is, to capture the moment of death. She starts to shoot dead animals. This gives her fulfillment but can’t last for long. These photos are not as good as the one of that dead woman. She knows she needs DEAD HUMAN BODIES.--

Trailer looks great in my opinion and I really want to see this.

For trailer, complete (a bit spoiling IMO) synopsis and cast & crew info, head to here

EDIT: Tartan Films has picked up the rights to both Abnormal Beauty and Re-Cycle - co-directed by Oxide and his twin brother / producing partner Danny, and reuniting the brothers with their star from The Eye - for North America and the UK.

http://www.themovieblog.com/

[Mandi Apple]

Thanks for the info Yani - that sounds like a really interesting movie. I'm guessing it's not out yet, so I shall be adding this one to me wishlist

[Yani]

http://www.abnormalbeauty.com/

The official site for the movie. There you can trailers and making-of's etc. I'll give a direct link to the trailer.

http://www.abnormalbeauty.com/video/trailer.wmv

Still looks pretty good IMO.

[greven]

I really liked that trailer and the story sounds great this will definatly be a movie i want to see since it sort of freaked me out to watch it well it felt a really weird feeling in me.

[isolation]

The two actresses are played by the sister duo called 2R. Movie's premiring on the 28th in Hong Kong I believe. I think it's more of a psychology thriller than direct horror though. Race was saying in the interview that she couldn't understand why the character she's playing is so perverted :P

[Yani]

It's premiering November 4th... tomorrow. Here's two posters.



(Bigger versions here and here.)

[Troika]

This movie looks awesome, I felt chills just watching the trailer.

On My must have list when released.

[Yani]

HK DVD's out now. Release by Universe there shouldn't be problems with the release quality. DDDHouse has it for example, and so do others. I'm still interested in seeing this.

[ken the psycho]

First thing came to my mind was necrophilia but the trailer makes it look interesting. I'm not sure though, Pang brothers haven't really made me like any of their films so far.

[Troika]

I just got it in the post today, can't wait to watch it

[Troika]

Sorry for the double post but I seem unable to edit my earlier post for some reason.


MAJOR SPOILERS LIE AHEAD INCLUDING ENDING

I once again admit to being crap at reviews so this will more or less be a random rant.

Well I just finished watching Abnormal Beauty and it was a major let down which regardless of how the preview portrays it is almost devoid of any tension and at times made no sence such as for example when Jin (main lead) phones Jas (other lead) asking is She was coming over and answers the question herself leading me to think fight club rip off only for that to be totally wrong and it turns into a less then tense who's behind the mask situation in which the pay off was less then impresive (oh my god it was the librarian but wait I only saw him once in the entire movie so I don't care) and I was still wondering if Jin is just some messed up psycho at the very end when she revealed that she killed her cousin who sexually assaulted her years earlier.

Sorry if that seems like a random mess but that may give you an impression of what it was like for me watching the movie LOL.

But on a good note the lead actress imo was superb in her role but casting real life Sister's (ther are Sister's right?) in a movie with some Lesbian undertones (though very minor at that) is pretty weird imo.

If anyone else wathced it and made sence of it (especially the phone call I metioned at the beginning ) please let me know and then I may get some enjoyment out of the plot.

Final rating 4/10 but only that high because of the music which even though out of place most of the time was good and the lead Actress's performance which as I said was superd and the movie was very well filmed imo.

[Gemma]

Horribly disappointed at this movie, I sold my copy on eBay the same day.

I was impressed by the cover art and thought it looked like something different. (I really should learn not to judge a movie by its cover!)

The movie is slow paced, the characters are bland and the so-called twists are uninteresting. The final scene seems to have this huge build-up where you have the feeling that something shocking is about to happen and when it (finally) does, you're left with an after-thought of "is that it?" And like someone else said, when the "twist" is revealed, you don' really care enough to be shocked.

The translation and subs on my copy were absolutely TERRIBLE and you spent most of the time trying to change words around in your head to make sense of the sentences.

[Mandi Apple]

Well, the translation and subs on the Tartan release are pretty much perfect, and the transfer quality is flawless as far as I can tell. Movie still stinks, though Seriously, I hated it, almost as much as I hated Evil Dead Trap, and that's really saying something. I literally had to get up every twenty minutes, and in the immortal words of the Why Don't You theme song, "switch off my television set and go and do something less boring instead"

*** SPOILERS ***

I wanted to like it: I wrote reams of notes on the clever psychology of the beauty theme, but in the end when it turned into  W*nking Evil Dead Trap Gimp Vs Airheaded Spoilt Brat  I just wished I had chosen something better to review instead  The very fact that the gimp turned out to be some completely non-existant peripheral no-character  just made me scream and pull out chunks of my own hair

*** END SPOILERS ***

Hate, hate, hate

[Alex Apple]

Originally Posted by Mandi Apple

the transfer quality is flawless as far as I can tell.

I'm just going to qualify that by saying by looking at the screencaps M took, it looks like the PAL disc is transferred from an NTSC master - ghosting and all.

[Mandi Apple]

Rightyho, well, it looked fairly posh to me but then seeing it on a laptop screen, it's hard to discern quality issues 'cos everything looks the same

[Scuz]

Originally Posted by isolation

The two actresses are played by the sister duo called 2R.

I wonder if their acting skills are better than their songs. Had it not been for the bad review SA gave it, I might actually have considered finding out

[Mandi Apple]

Are their songs bad as well, then? Wow, there appears to be no start to their talents

[Scuz]

Well, I've only heard one song, but as far as I could tell their vocals were awful I'm not interested in hearing more.

[Troika]

I think the acting was pretty good really and personally I think it was just the crap movie that let them down, their really wasn't much to work with in the end imo.

Still a pretty lame movie though and it's just gathering dust amongst my unwatched movies now.

Best description for this movie imo is wasted potential because it had a great idea/theme and started well but it was all thrown away by the end.

[angel_from_hell]

I didn't have a chance to watch it when it released here last November. I buy a copy when comes out. I've seen The Eye 1 and 2 and I want to watch this also.