The Eye

Rating:
Summary: Yet another way-above-average Asian horror flick.
Review: The Eye (The Pang Brothers, 2002)

In case you were thinking about entering the World's Coolest Name contest, don't bother. Oxide Pang has the title sewn up. He also, along with his brother Danny, makes very interesting films out of a studio in Hong Kong. First coming to Western attention with the crime thriller Bangkok Dangerous a few years ago, the twins came up with a horror film this time. And it's one of the best horror films to come down the pike in a long time.

Mun, a blind girl (Angelica Lee, who caught Western attention a couple of years back in Betelnut Beauty), has a cornea transplant to restore her sight. While in the process of recovery, she starts seeing things that don't quite gel with reality. After she regains focus, she comes to realize what she's seeing is not exactly what's out there. Not just ghosts (though the movie has its share of those, a la The Sixth Sense), but places and things that aren't actually around her. Her therapist, Dr. Wah (Lawrence Chou, not familiar to Western audiences yet. Give him time), half thinks she's nuts, half wants to get her into bed, so he goes along with her attempts to track down the donor of her corneas and find out what happened to the person.

Slick, eerie, and chock full of tension, The Eye is exactly what thrillers are supposed to be. There is a lot of The Sixth Sense in this movie, but the punches are delivered more deftly; the movie contains the best jump-out-of-your-seat scene since the cat came flying through the window at the beginning of Friday the 13th Part 2 twenty years ago. Asian directors also seem immune to the silly emotionally manipulative tricks American directors are so fond of pulling, and the Pang brothers are no exception; they have a story, they want to tell it, and the emotion will come out (though sometimes awkwardly, as when Wah's uncle confronts him about his intentions towards Mun).

Apart from such unintentionally funny moments as this, The Eye is a wonderful little supernatural thriller. Very highly recommended. ****

Rating:
Summary: SIT TIGHT...
Review: In the wake of Ringu comes a Chinese film that can deliver genuine fear and dread into the audience: The Eye.

The film tells of a young Chinese woman (Lee Sin-Je) who has been blind since the age of two. Through a cornea transplant, she is finally able to see the world around her. However, with this recovered sense of sight, she is also able to see things... not of this plane. What first brings only confusion and annoyance soon induces horror and anxiety. As the situation worsens, the woman soon pieces together that the secret to her ability may be rooted in her eyes.

If the story seems a bit familiar, it's probably because it is. Borrowing elements of The Sixth Sense and Final Destination, The Eye excels on its own by using them to greater effect.
'Seeing the dead' is not exactly a new plot device, but it all lies in presentation. The ghosts are all frightening creations, abandoning the typical American norm of "gore is more." The ambiance created by the sounds as well as built up by music can be too much to stand, making each moment as tension-filled as the last.
Lee Sin-Je does a great job as the tormented heroine while Lawrence Chou is pretty good as her caring psychotherapist, though I much prefer Ringu's male lead.
I must also praise the movie's fantastic 'eye-catch' at the beginning, injecting a bit of Asian humor. The Eye also has the best opening credits of any film I've ever watched, with a clever transition from Braille to written word while fingers behind a white silhouette streamed behind. All the while, chilling music seeps to the ears. Spectacular!
Of all the films of this general genre I've had the pleasure of seeing, this is the only one to keep me up at night. Some scenes will imprint themselves onto your mind for many nights to come.

During a plethora of blockbuster summer movies, don't make the mistake of missing this brilliant cinematic masterpiece. For a thrilling, unforgettable glimpse into a world unseen, look no further than The Eye.

Rating:
Summary: beneath a world of drained art we find a MASTERPIECE!!!!!!!!
Review: CUDO'S to the PANG BROS.this movie is masterful!although it might not be a pure original idea its pulled off better than anyone else's version of this idea.the spine tingleing jolts that this movie gives you makes "sixth sense" "the others" and "sighns" all rapped into one seem like a WALK IN THE PARK!!!there all good movies yes,but you have to wait till the end for the real big puzzle piece jolt of an ending.in THE EYE there are more of those big puzzle piece jolts through out the whole movie nevermind the spooky scary ending.im not going to tell you any details of the movie im just going to tell you that it was great!!buetiful leading lady who can act!! awsome story pulled off just wright by great new horror director's(only if the pang bro's stay flerting with the genre!!!)and its drop dead spine tingleing scary! what else as a horror fan could you ask for!!im amased that this movie was made in recent times,now a days horror flicks pretty much suck!!!!with some exceptions("house of 1000 corpses""cabin fever""wrong turn""dawn 2004""and besides the shady big studio unrealistic happy ending TCM 2003")anyway get this movie horror fans, if your true to your genre your gonna love it!!the dvd is great it comes out looking great and it has a couple of cool extra's including a neat little making of.hurry up! tom cruize's production company snatched up the remake wrights and you will want to get this version before the big big studios soften it up and destroy it.im not a big fan of remakes if the movie is already a masterpiece!!though!! i did think it was a bad idea to remake dawn of the dead and that turned out to become in my opinion the greatest zombie flick ever made!!!!the difference though is the original dawn is a classic for what it is, and is by far NOT!!! G.ROMERO'S best out of the dead trilogy(day of the dead is!!!!)so there was plenty of flaws and hole's that a remake of dawn could fill in AND THEY DID! AND THEN SOME!!the eye doesn't have many flaws if any at all thats why a remake to this movie might not be so wize MR CRUIZE!! so get it before they ruin it!!!!!!! GRAB SOMEONE TO HOLD ONTO AND ENJOY!!!

Rating:
Summary: Takes it back to the roots of suspense thrillers!
Review: This movie scared the bajeezums outta me!
Not too many recent movies has done that to me so this movie gets an instant 3 stars. I thought it was dubbed in english but disappointed it wasn't but it stil didn't make much of a difference because the movie was easy to follow, very very suspensful, and that music had me a bit shook. Try watching this movie in the dark by yourself with your DVD stereo equipment with the surround DTS sound all the way up!
The part that scared me the most was when the kid ying ying (I didn't know she was a girl, thought she was a boy)
was all excited about finally feeling better and able to do the fun things with Mun they had promised on each others recovery.....then the grim reaper shadow was like sitting in the shadows waiting....
The ghost near her apartment with the kid eating the candles and asking about his report card was also a scarey highlight not to mention the dude in the elevator!
The only real downside of this movie was the so unecessary romance betweent the Mun and the young doctor, they didn't even share a kiss in the movie nor was it believable that he was infatuated or in love with her.
The movie lost me a little when they went to do a background check on the donor eye to Thailand and it became a little "yadda yadda" but picked up again towards the end.
maybe if this movie was dubbed in english more people would give it a chance and see it for how great it really is. I recommend this movie if your into good old fashioned suspense with minimum gore.

Rating:
Summary: 'I Can See Dead People': The Real Deal
Review: This is the scariest movie I have seen in a long while, and more so since I made the 'unwise' decision to watch it close to midnight with the lights switched off..I can only say that I found it very hard to fall asleep after that.Still,thinking about it now sends shivers down my spine,something very few horror films managed to achieve.
The subject itself is not original,the 'supernatural eyes' have been treated extensively on the big screen ,from Eyes of Laura Mars, Jennifer 8, The Gift, Afraid of Dark ,Final Destination, and many others in cinema and TV,but the lack of originality is in no way a hinderance to creativity and making an excellent film.
The Pang brothers,(the Coen Brothers of China) manage to weave an old genre into their unique style,adding a lot of Chinese 'ghost folklore',alledgedly true accounts, and a reworking of a real life tragedy, the gas explosion on a busy motorway.
The closet film that can be associated with The Eye is of course the Sixth Sense and its famous line' I can see dead people'.Though Shyamalan's version was excellent and scary, it lacked this raw,relentless and intense tension that will grip you the very second The Eye starts.
A blind woman (the excellent and pretty Angelica Lee, who does a great job at never falling in the trap of 'overacting' that many a horror actress had fallen in), gets eyes transplant and sees for the first time since she was two years old. Not only the familiar shapes and people, but also the sinister and scary from another realm, and at first she naturally can't distinguish between the two.
From then on and through her new eyes we are shocked and terrified with the tormented souls of the dead she sees quite often, some disturbing like the ever present and shadowy grim reaper,and the boy who committed suicide, but others with some hope,like the little girl who befriends Lee in the hospital before she dies.
At the end she traces the identity and address of the donor of her eyes,with the help of her smitten young doctor,and manages to ease her donor's tormented soul.This,she believes will relieve her from seeing these ghosts,and it does, but with a twist of genuis by the Pang brothers, there is another gift hidden in her eyes that is as disturbing.The very last scene of the movie, which I will not disclose,is very powerful!
There are other very disturbing scenes: the one in the lift is one of the scariest I have seen,(you have to see it to know what I am talking about), while the one where Lee plays the violin is touching and quite unforgettable.
The romance between Lee and her young doctor is very well treated and not cheesy as some reviewer saw it.Their relationship is veered more towards a friendship born out of an urgent need that might develop further,(indeed they sleep in seperate rooms when they stay in the donor's house and their love is never 'consumated')
Now a word about editing: it is largely overlooked when reviewing movies, but especially in horror films,it is a absolute vital component in making or breaking the film. The Pangs, who did the editing as well as cowriting,successfully make the right cuts at the right moment, increasing the tension greatly.
As is written on the DVD backcover, Tom Cruise's production company has already bought the remake rights, so I guess it will not be too long before an American version hit the screen.I just hope that it will not be a scene by scene copy as is the tradition with many Hollywood adaptations of foreign classics,or even include (God Help us all),a sex scene or two, but rather I hope it remains faithful to the creativity behind The Eye.
To advise you not to switch the lights off while watching it would be wise but somehow not quite right(like putting Vivaldi in a pub's jukebox at Happy Hour!),as there is a sort of ritual and mood to watch horror films, but you have been warned:
The Eye will genuinely scare you!
Be Prepared to see 'dead people'...The real deal!

Rating:
Summary: I didn't get scared at movies... til this one!
Review: First of all I am a huge fan of not only asian cinema, but also of horror films. After first hearing of this film a couple weeks ago I decided to go ahead and pick it up. I figured it sounded cool. Now you have to realize that although I'm a fan of horror films, I'm really not someone who gets scared of horror films. I mean when I saw The Exorcist, supposedly "The scariest movie ever made", I literally laughed and said, "That's it?" I mean it didn't scare me at all, it wasn't creepy at all, it was built up to be such a scary movie and to me it was a big joke. So it came as quite a shock to me that when I finally saw The Eye, it scared the crap out of me! This film doesn't rely on sudden scares or things that make you jump, nor does it rely on gore, what this film does and does better than any movie I've seen is get under your skin! I got goosebumps so many times over the course of this movie and even a couple times caught myself saying aloud "I hate this movie!" as I'm curled up in a ball with my blanket over my mouth, painfully awaiting what's going to happen next. I really don't want to give anything away by going into more detail, and in fact if you've never seen the trailer for the film, do yourself a favor and don't watch it before you watch the movie. I luckily chose this route and when I did watch the trailer after seeing the film, I was glad I did it in that order. Some of the creepier moments in the film are revealed in the trailer which although good for marketing, I'd think would somewhat ruin the impact the film has on a audience.

Anyway I've rambled enough here. Just do yourself a favor and at least rent this movie. You'll be glad you did.

Rating:
Summary: the eye.
Review: if you like movies like The Ring. You will love this one! very creepy, well acted and keeps you on your toes. A good movie to watch alone with the lights off and a big bag of popcorn!

Rating:
Summary: SCARY? SPOOKY?
Review: After reading all the quotes on the package I thought I was in for a supernatural treat. I was disappointed. This movie could have been much better and maybe it will after it is Hollywoodized(Tom Cruise has bought the remake rights).

The acting and visuals are very good, but there is not enough skin crawling. Only one scene gave me a start. As another reviewer stated, there is some kind of relationship between the two main charaters, but it comes after only a couple hours together.

This movie is not refreshing. It is very predictable. It verges on, but does not quite become lethargic viewing.

Rating:
Summary: Asian view gives some refreshing scares
Review: The old donated body parts affect the recipient plot...However the Pang brothers--being chinese--give it a refreshing Chinese spin.

They appear in the types of ghosts...the way they became ghosts, and the way the situation is resolved.

You realize that some things are creepy and scare to all cultures when you see this movie... and the Pang brothers views of the ghost genre does not disappoint if you are looking for some scarey moments.

I would have to say if this was an American movie with stock "western" scares, it would not have the same effect. It is still very much a chinese movie, if you've seen the relationships and personalities in Jackie Chan movies, you've already gotten on over the top dose of those. (for example, the way all women act like goofballs) But those traits are much more subdued in this movie, and I give credit to the Pang brothers for concentrating on the story more than throwing in scenes that dominate Asian movies...

Rating:
Summary: It's good, but not a classic
Review: The eye is a movie which shares the best features of contemporary asian horror films: it aims to create a dim and weird atmosphere. There are awesome visual effects, but they are only a medium for the development of the story. The introduction of supernatural events is very subtle and thoughtful. But, "the eye" don't reach the peak of perefection of "Ringu" or "Ju-on" because just in the best moment of the film is introduced an unnecessary love-story. As if the director were scared to push the argument to its ultimate limits. It's a well made film, but I am afraid it announces the beginning of the decadence of the successful model of asian horror films.