Inner Senses

Rating:
Summary: Leslie Cheung's last great performance.
Review: "Inner Senses" is another great horror movie to come out of Asia in recent years. However, it suffers from a certain lack of originality. Its basic premise imitates that of "The Sixth Sense" i.e. psychiatrist tries to help troubled person who sees dead people. The horror scenes in the last minutes of "Inner Senses" also borrow heavily from Japan's "Ring". Such weaknesses aside, "Inner Senses" is certainly an intelligent horror movie, much more so than my other Asian favourite to come out in 2002, "The Eye". While "The Eye" goes all out to scare audiences, "Inner Senses" prefers to make audiences think beyond what they are witnessing on the screen. In what is probably his last great performance, Leslie Cheung is Jim, a psychiatrist who works in a mental hospital. Jim is an atheist who places his faith in science and has no time for superstitious nonsense, including religion. As he states in his lecture at the beginning of the movie, "ghosts" are all in the mind, the result of the mind putting together various randomly accumulated information about a society's superstitions. He agrees to take on a client as a favour for a colleague. Karena Lam is Yan, a troubled girl who claims to see dead people. She lives in terror of the strange visitors who visits her apartment, especially her kindly (but somewhat mentally unbalanced) landlord's long dead wife and child. She plasters all her glass windows and mirrors in her apartment with newspapers to avoid seeing "things". Jim works hard to free Yan of her fears and successfully convinces her that none of her visions are real. They are the result of her loneliness, troubled childhood, failed relationships, overactive imagination and neighbours' pranks. But once Yan is freed of her visions, Jim starts to see a dead teenage girl himself ... she hums a strangely familiar tune, giggles at some secret joke, and follows him around. He has flashbacks about his teenage years and sleepwalks looking for something from the past ... something so terrible that he has buried the memories in unreachable places in his mind. Yan has to help him figure out what it is before his visions destroy him. "Inner Senses" will have audiences thinking long after the end of the movie. Although "ghosts" do make multiple spine-tingling appearances in "Inner Senses", we are not told unequivocally that they are, in fact, ghosts. The protagonists' experiences can rightly be attributed to their fractured mental conditions. Leslie Cheung and Karena Lam both give outstanding performances as flawed people coping with inexplicable and terrifying events. The last minutes of "Inner Senses" eerily foreshadow Leslie Cheung's suicide in 2003. The Chinese movie world has lost a great entertainer, but his memory will remain with us.

Rating:
Summary: Leslie Cheung's last great performance.
Review: "Inner Senses" is another great horror movie to come out of Asia in recent years. However, it suffers from a certain lack of originality. Its basic premise imitates that of "The Sixth Sense" i.e. psychiatrist tries to help troubled person who sees dead people. The horror scenes in the last minutes of "Inner Senses" also borrow heavily from Japan's "Ring". Such weaknesses aside, "Inner Senses" is certainly an intelligent horror movie, much more so than my other Asian favourite to come out in 2002, "The Eye". While "The Eye" goes all out to scare audiences, "Inner Senses" prefers to make audiences think beyond what they are witnessing on the screen. In what is probably his last great performance, Leslie Cheung is Jim, a psychiatrist who works in a mental hospital. Jim is an atheist who places his faith in science and has no time for superstitious nonsense, including religion. As he states in his lecture at the beginning of the movie, "ghosts" are all in the mind, the result of the mind putting together various randomly accumulated information about a society's superstitions. He agrees to take on a client as a favour for a colleague. Karena Lam is Yan, a troubled girl who claims to see dead people. She lives in terror of the strange visitors who visits her apartment, especially her kindly (but somewhat mentally unbalanced) landlord's long dead wife and child. She plasters all her glass windows and mirrors in her apartment with newspapers to avoid seeing "things". Jim works hard to free Yan of her fears and successfully convinces her that none of her visions are real. They are the result of her loneliness, troubled childhood, failed relationships, overactive imagination and neighbours' pranks. But once Yan is freed of her visions, Jim starts to see a dead teenage girl himself ... she hums a strangely familiar tune, giggles at some secret joke, and follows him around. He has flashbacks about his teenage years and sleepwalks looking for something from the past ... something so terrible that he has buried the memories in unreachable places in his mind. Yan has to help him figure out what it is before his visions destroy him. "Inner Senses" will have audiences thinking long after the end of the movie. Although "ghosts" do make multiple spine-tingling appearances in "Inner Senses", we are not told unequivocally that they are, in fact, ghosts. The protagonists' experiences can rightly be attributed to their fractured mental conditions. Leslie Cheung and Karena Lam both give outstanding performances as flawed people coping with inexplicable and terrifying events. The last minutes of "Inner Senses" eerily foreshadow Leslie Cheung's suicide in 2003. The Chinese movie world has lost a great entertainer, but his memory will remain with us.

Rating:
Summary: Not that great, but worth checking out if you like horror
Review: Here is an interesting concept...an Asian remake of an American Hollywood horror film. "Inner Senses" is a remake, or, as they call it, an "homage" to "The Sixth Sense." With all the negative attention surrounding Hollywood remaking Asian horror, I'm surprised this has slipped under the radar. It's not a terrible film, but it certainly isn't as good as "The Sixth Sense." So where's the outrage?

The little kid who runs around whispering, "I see dead people!" is replaced by a twenty-something single woman, who also sees dead people and is in therapy for it. I could read into this and say something about how significant it is that they equated a child with an unmarried woman, and back up my gripe with the fact that as soon as she gets a boyfriend, she inexplicably stops seeing dead people. But instead I'll just be really passive-aggressive and off-handedly mention how I could have talked about that if I wanted to.

Leslie Cheung plays a psychologist who believes that people see ghosts only because they are engrained in society's collective consciousness. If society stopped believing in, and talking about ghosts, no one would see them again. One day he gets a phone call from his colleague who wants to arrange for him to meet with his wife's cousin, who sees ghosts, which greatly interferes with her life. They set up an appointment for him to see her as a patient. His friend says on the phone, "I have a real beauty for you to meet," and after the first meeting, it is revealed that the friend and his wife arranged this appointment to set the duo up on a date.

Now I know setting people up can be awkward, because nobody really looks forward to a blind date. But since when is this the right way to hook two people up? Never mind the RIGHT way, since when is this even a WAY to hook two people up at all? I know the conventional way would have been boring for the audience, and they were obviously going for the doctor/patient relationship present (in a completely different way) in "The Sixth Sense." But since doctors are technically not supposed to get involved with their patients, wouldn't it have made more sense for them to fall for each other and want to start a relationship and have their friends be against it, instead of the other way around?

Despite its ridiculously stupid and implausible nature, the plan works, and the doctor and the patient are soon in a montage sequence that is supposed to indicate that they are "falling in love." Oh, you know, stuff like...she's eating an ice cream cone and gets it all over her face, and he thinks it's cute...if only they had that BJ Thomas song, "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head," or some such hideous early 60s pop song playing in the background, it would complete the mood. (disclaimer: I'm fully aware that "Raindrops Keep Fallin On My Head" isn't actually a love song, but somehow it fits. Even Neil Diamond doesn't have anything cornball enough to fit with this scene.)

Once the patient and doctor are thoroughly into each other, she moves in, and is cured of ever seeing dead people. But strange things begin to happen to the doctor....

As you can imagine, the surprise ending is not what it is in the Sixth Sense. I must admit, I didn't see it coming, although sadly, it's not that interesting. Most annoyingly, they don't explain why the female character magically stops being haunted by ghosts. (I have to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it's not because they think all women are crazy unless they get a boyfriend.)

The most depressing and creepy thing about the film is actually a morbid coincidence--the scene in which Leslie Chueng's character is being tormented by the ghost into jumping off a tall building. In the cast bio on the DVD, it is revealed that this is the way in which he committed suicide shortly after completing this film.

"Inner Senses" gets three stars, because it does have it's moments. The woman's landlord had a family that died several years ago. His character, who still talks about them as if they will come home one day, and the atmosphere in the house make for some great scenes. The images of the spirits are all well done, and have some fun creepy moments. This is certainly no "Juon," but if you're a fan of this type of thing, it's worth a look.

Rating:
Summary: To see or not to see...
Review: I watched the film called "The Eye," which I stronly recommend to everyone, a couple of months ago and loved it. Asian horror movies are a lot better than most American ones because they are much more poetic. I saw "Inner Senses" as I was walking through Blockbuster and thought I would give it a try. I thought it was going to be as good as "The Eye" but in fact it wasn't. It's not that it wasn't good, it was just not what I thought it would be. I don't think it's as scary as "The Eye" but that's just my opinion. Besides that, I thought that the message behind the movie was interesting. I think that this movie is a must for someone who likes romance and horror/ghost movies. If you're looking to get scared out of your pants, then watch something else like "The Eye." But I must forewarn that these kinds of movies are not non-stop action and horror: patience is the key my friend!

Rating:
Summary: To see or not to see...
Review: I watched the film called "The Eye," which I stronly recommend to everyone, a couple of months ago and loved it. Asian horror movies are a lot better than most American ones because they are much more poetic. I saw "Inner Senses" as I was walking through Blockbuster and thought I would give it a try. I thought it was going to be as good as "The Eye" but in fact it wasn't. It's not that it wasn't good, it was just not what I thought it would be. I don't think it's as scary as "The Eye" but that's just my opinion. Besides that, I thought that the message behind the movie was interesting. I think that this movie is a must for someone who likes romance and horror/ghost movies. If you're looking to get scared out of your pants, then watch something else like "The Eye." But I must forewarn that these kinds of movies are not non-stop action and horror: patience is the key my friend!

Rating:
Summary: An interesting, if flawed movie
Review: Leslie Cheung plays a man with a secret. He begins a descent into madness when he starts seeing a dead girl from his past. Memories churn as he is haunted by her. The film slowly builds in suspense until it climaxes in an unexpected ending which is not one that you'd see in most Hollywood films.
Leslie Cheung is great in his last role. If one is a fan of Leslie Cheung or Hong Kong horror/suspense films, then I'd reccomend getting it.

Rating:
Summary: Ok, If you like horror, you might as well watch it
Review: OK movie but like so many Asia movies (Suicide Club,The Eye), the stories are great but they end up going nowhere, they give you extra characters and facts that have nothing to do with the end result and sometimes even contradict the story. I must admit, I did jump a couple of times but foreign films also don't capture the moment by increasing the volume of the special effects for that added chill.
Disclaimer: I'm using the same review for The Eye.
Rent-Yes
Buy-Maybe

Rating:
Summary: An interesting, if flawed movie
Review: Taking a page (or two) from the Sixth Sense, this movie is about a girl who think she sees ghosts, and the unbelieving psychologist that tries to help her. Things get tense when the doctor starts to see ghosts as well.
Part romance, part ghost story, this movie is mostly about how we cope with our pasts. Although it is well acted by Leslie Cheung and Karena Lam, and very well shot and directed the movie starts to ramble in the last half hour or so and although there are hints and clues all over the place, by the end you'll be left wondering how the details all fit together.
Although this is by no means a bad movie, I'd recommend picking up The Sixth Sense or the Pang Brothers The Eye, recently released on DVD and VHS in the US. If those aren't available, give this a shot, there are certainly worse ways to spend 90 minutes.

Rating:
Summary: CREEPY!!!
Review: This movie starts of creepy then slow then again
really creepy and then sad.I don't know why they call
it hong kong's SIXTH SENSE because it really isn't
anything like it.All I have to say is that this movie
is really creepy and it deserves a look.