Directed
by the Pang Brothers, 2002, 98 min. starring Lee Sin-je, Lawrence
Chou, Candy Lo, Chutcha Rujinanon, Edmund Chen, Pierre Png, Yut
Lai So, Yin Ping Ko and Wilson Yip.
Fresh
from Hong Kong this year comes a surprise new horror hit, The
Eye (aka Jian gui), and somewhat unsurprisingly enough,
the moment that it was released, a remake was allegedly optioned
by Tom Cruise’s production company, which means you’ll
probably be hearing a lot more about this classy HK film
very soon ;-)
Directed
by the identical-twin Pang brothers, Oxide and Danny Pang, for the
first time working as a team, The Eye gives an innovative
new look (no pun intended) to the classic ghost story. Compared
favourably against such Hollywood drivel as The Sixth Sense
and The Others, The Eye works in a similar kind
of vein but in a deeper, more stylish and infinitely more affecting
way, mainly because the film actually has a human story at the heart
of it, and a very sad and real one, at that.
Granted,
the movie’s main theme concerns a young woman, Wong Kar Mun
(played beautifully by the lovely Lee Sin-je, in a moving and understated
performance), who ‘sees ghosts’ in almost the same way
as The Sixth Sense, which originally made me nervous, wondering
if this film would be a third-rate rip-off of a tenth-rate flick.
Luckily, I was proved very wrong: the ghost angle is merely
one theme among many, which gives the film a great richness of story
and emotional depth; you can really sympathise with the characters,
thanks to a great script and quality acting.
With
one eye (still no pun intended) fixed on the contemporary horror
film scene in Japan, The Eye displays the same kind of
atmosphere as Nakata Hideo’s Dark Water/Honogurai no mizu
soko kara, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Kairo/Pulse,
and of course, Ring.
However, the cultural references are defiantly Chinese, thereby
bringing the HK horror-scene bang up to date. Let’s hope that
The Eye incites a New Wave of Hong Kong filmmaking to rival
the Japanese scene.
Synopsis
‘What
if the reflection you see in the mirror is not your own?’
Essentially,
the plot of The Eye is a relatively simple one. A young
woman named Wong Kar Mun (Lee Sin-je), who has been blind since
birth, is due to receive a corneal transplant which should completely
restore her sight. Whilst waiting in hospital before surgery, Mun
meets a sweet little girl called Ying Ying (Yut Lai So), who has
a brain tumour and is awaiting surgery whilst undergoing chemotherapy,
and the two become very close friends, Ying Ying constantly referring
to Mun as ‘sister’. Ying Ying tells Mun that when her
sight is recovered, she will take Mun out to see the world, as “…
it’s so beautiful out there”. Mun herself doesn’t
have much in the way of family; just her grandmother (played by
Yin Ping Ko) and her air-stewardess sister Yee (Candy Lo), as her
parents divorced when she was a little girl and her grandmother
had to raise both Mun and Yee.
The
operation, carried out by a top eye surgeon, Dr C.T. Lo (Edmund
Chen), appears to be a total success at first: although the light
hurts her eyes to begin with, and she has 100 degrees of near-sightedness,
Mun can finally see for the first time in her life. However, on
the first night after the surgery, she has a weird experience: she
hears a strange groaning sound coming from across the ward. The
old lady who occupies the bed opposite her is making the odd noises,
saying “… I’m freezing…”
Of course, with her significantly diminished vision, Mun is totally
confused as to what’s going on… until the old lady disappears
and reappears with unnatural speed behind her, scaring her. Mun
watches in fear as a mysterious black figure leads the old lady
out down the hospital corridor, and the pair of them pass right
through the double door at the end.
When
Mun wakes up the next morning, she sees the hospital porters removing
the old lady’s corpse from the ward, covered by a sheet. She
asks the nurses about her strange experience of the night before,
telling them that the old lady had had a visitor in the night, to
which the nurses reply that no visitors are allowed in the wards
after dark.
The
next day, Mun is released from the hospital, promising to come back
and visit Ying Ying when she has her brain surgery. However, Mun
is starting to get a strange feeling about her newly-restored vision;
this is compounded when she begins to see and hear all kinds of
odd characters and sounds, who nobody else appears to see or hear.
It’s not until her first night out of hospital, staying in
her grandmother’s apartment, that Mun’s grandmother
realises that something is clearly not right, when Mun answers the
front door to a little boy who hides his face under his cap, and
asks her, “Have you seen my report card?”.
She answers that she hasn’t seen it anywhere, and calls out
to her grandmother, telling her about the little boy asking for
his report card. However, her grandmother is shocked by this, telling
her that the boy is teasing her… and when Mun looks around,
the boy has disappeared.
So
she goes up the corridor to look for him, and sees a door with two
mourning-lanterns displayed above it… and underneath, she
finds the boy, who asks about the report card again, and tells her
he’s hungry… but the disturbing thing about this is
that the boy is eating the candles which have been left outside
by the mourners in the house as an death-offering. (Traditionally
it’s thought that the dead are supposed to feed on their relatives’
offerings of incense and candles.)
As
for Mun’s grandmother, she seems as if she’s been expecting
such events to take place: she summons a Taoist exorcist (played
by Wilson Yip), not only to speak to the family in the house with
the mourning-lanterns outside but to try to dispel whatever spirit
or demon is possessing Mun’s mind. When the exorcist visits
the family, he discovers that their young son has recently committed
suicide because he lost his report card and didn’t want to
get in trouble. He tells the grieving parents that the ghosts of
people who die suddenly or commit suicide are condemned to keep
on repeating their last actions in a grim loop… something
which is borne out when the little boy keeps on appearing to Mun.
Yet
Mun, although she partially realises what’s happening to her,
only knows that there is something wrong with her eyes. After seeing
two ‘hungry ghosts’ in a café, the waitress there
confirms her fears, by telling her that other psychically sensitive
people can also see these two ghosts, and that many businesses in
the area have shut down as a result. So in total desperation, Mun
goes to see Dr. Wah Lo (Lawrence Chou), the psychotherapist (and
nephew of the Dr. C.T. Lo who performed Mun’s transplant)
who’s been assigned to her for rehabilitation purposes, with
her completely unbelievable story about seeing ghosts, mainly to
beg him to reverse the operation.
Even
though he doesn’t believe her at first, he has more than just
doctor-patient feelings for her, and he can see how distraught and
terrified she is. So he asks his uncle to disclose the donor records,
which he absolutely refuses to do… until Mun proves to both
of them that her story really is true, at which point Dr Lo releases
the records to his nephew. Mun’s cornea donor was a young
Thai woman named Ling, and Dr Wah Lo and Mun try to track down Ling’s
family so they can get some answers as to what’s happening
to her… but is there any way they can prevent Mun from Ling’s
terrible and tragic fate?
The
best thing IMHO about The Eye is that everything works
together so effectively: from reading the synopsis alone, you might
think that it’s a bog-standard old-style ghost flick, but
you’d be wrong. You’d have to have a heart of pure stone
if you don’t feel sorry for Mun, released from a difficult
life of total darkness into a new world of horror and dread; and
the same goes for Ling and Ying Ying, with their own terrible and
tragic stories. The actresses concerned play these parts with such
simple emotionality (no Hollywood raving hysterics though; tenderness,
restraint and exhaustion are the order of the day here) that I’ve
heard of some people bursting into tears whilst watching the film
– something you don’t generally tend to do
while watching your average horror movie.
The
cinematography really allows you to get drawn into the story, with
beautiful, chilling imagery, great locations (the Thailand scenes
are particularly awesome) and out-and-out shocks – even I,
as a totally desensitised, lifelong horror-film freak, felt a chill
when Alex Apple pointed out the creepy face reflected in the window
in the train scene. If you enjoy updated modern ghost tales with
a great story behind them, you’ll love The Eye.
Snowblood
Apple Rating for this film:
Entertainment value: 9/10
Sex: 0/10
Violence: 2/10
Explosions: whooomph!/10
Ghost Count: about 2 or 3 thousand
Chill Factor: 9/10
Hankie Factor: pretty high
Litres of tomato ketchup: 1. Must have bought charcoal in bulk,
though
***Highly Recommended!***
The Eye Wallpaper
You can download this wallpaper here: [800x600]
[1024x768]
Wallpaper credit: Alex Apple, 2002
Snowblood
Apple Filmographies:
Oxide Pang
Chun
Danny Pang
Lee Sin-je
Lawrence
Chou
Candy Lo
Edmund Chen
Pierre Png
Links
http://www.eyethemovie.com/
- The great-looking official movie site, full of goodies
such as e-cards to send to people you hate, trailers to download,
and a BBS
http://www.tartanvideo.com/theeye/
- looks like Tartan might be going to release The Eye
in the UK. Hooray!
http://www.lovehkfilm.com/reviews/eye.htm
- great review at LoveHKFilm
http://www.kfccinema.com/reviews/horror/eye/eye.html
- and another one at KFC Cinema, with lots of decent
pics too
http://www.movie-list.com/e/eye.shtml
- get yer lovely Quicktime trailers 'ere!
http://www.ociojoven.com/article/articleview/91979/1/119/
- review in Spanish only
http://www.foocha.com/publisher/public/doc/suffix/Movies/theeye.html
- another review, this time in English
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