The Eye (DVD)

I am the fans of Scary Horror movies, the list of my favorite Scary Horror movies are like "The Ring (Japanese)", "Shutter (Korean)", "The Others" and of course "The Sixth Sense" and many more…
Have you ever watched "The Sixth Sense"?? Well "The Eye", original title is "Jian gui is a kind of similar movie; in this movie The Pang Brothers borrow the idea from "The Sixth ...
...scenes do not play out the way you expect. I shall not go into too details about the plot cause I feel it's best if you watch it without knowing too much.

The only thing I should admit after watching "The Eye (Hong Kong)", my list have become longer :p

What kind of movie is it??

Genre: When a movie makes you scare, it must be "Horror

Movie" but this one I categorize ... more

I am the fans of Scary Horror movies, the list of my favorite Scary Horror movies are like "The Ring (Japanese)", "Shutter (Korean)", "The Others" and of course "The Sixth Sense" and many more…
Have you ever watched "The Sixth Sense"?? Well "The Eye", original title is "Jian gui is a kind of similar movie; in this movie The Pang Brothers borrow the idea from "The Sixth Sense" but the story is original in its delivery where scenes do not play out the way you expect. I shall not go into too details about the plot cause I feel it's best if you watch it without knowing too much.

The only thing I should admit after watching "The Eye (Hong Kong)", my list have become longer :p

What kind of movie is it??

Genre: When a movie makes you scare, it must be "Horror

Movie" but this one I categorize as Psychology Horror

Release Year: 2001 and the Collector's Edition in August 2004

Directed by Oxide Pang Chun and Danny Pang or well known as The Pang Brothers
Producers: Lawrence Cheng and Peter ho-sun Chan

Starring (Main Cast):
- Angelica Lee (Lee Sin-je) -> Wong Ka Mun
- Lawrence Chou -> Dr. Wah
- Chutcha Rujinanon -> Ling
- Yut Lai So -> Yingying
- Candy Lo -> Yee (Mun's Sister)
- Yin Ping Ko -> Mun's grandmother
- Pierre Png -> Dr. Eak
- Edmund Chen -> Dr. Lo
- Wai-Ho Yung -> Mr. Ching
- Wilson Yip -> Taoist

Runtime: Be prepared to sit back for 99 minutes

Plot:
Malaysian-born actress Angelica Lee Sin-Je does a Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense) in "The Eye". But she doesn't just see "dead people"; it gets a little more intimate.

"The Eye" has a compelling story about Wong Ka-Mun (Angelica Lee Sin-Je) or Ah Mun, a beautiful girl but blind since she was 2 years old. After 18 years of blindness, at 20 year-old decided for a cornea transplant. But she received more than she dealt for, as her restored fifth sense came with a sixth. At first it was pure joy, things appear to be going well as Mun learns to see again and decipher shapes and colors into recognizable objects and people, like when she started to see how her room was lit, to see what she looked like in the mirror.
What she sees there is a woman's face, she think it is how she looks like but actually she doesn't see herself but instead she sees another woman's face.

Her gift of sight comes with the curse of the third eye: yes, she is not only can , Ah Mun can now see beyond the realm of the ordinary, glimpsing shadowy and frightening figures, even foreseeing the future.

She become confuse and scare, so her first reaction is lock herself in her room, hoping that she could avoid the things she has been seeing by sitting in the darkness

The doctors are convinced it is simply the mind playing tricks on her, struggling with the concept of seeing again and the effects will pass, but Mun is not so sure.
Ultimately, Mun convinces Dr. Wah, a good looking young doctor friend that she is not crazy and she is really seeing 'things' and they set out to find some answers, they look for the cornea donor. whose eyes were they before?

Character:
Angelica Lee undeniably is a very nice looking woman but the fact that she doesn't look very glamorous, I could say she is more like an ordinary woman, which enhances this character. That way her vulnerability and sensitive side is more credible.
Her approach to the character she plays is very laid-back; she brings out a natural fierceness that the audience easily identifies with.

Lawrence Chou who plays the good looking young doctor is good I think he is a little too young to play the character of Dr. Wah. He has that kind of youngster idol look but He improves as the movie starts it's second half.

Review:
"The Eye" goes beyond the confines of its genre because horror in the film is not just limited to the act of haunting but broaden to the concern of everyday life. You can find it in some scenes like when Mun examines through her new eyes for the first time, trying to make sense of the world around her - a serious learning process described by her concerned psychotherapist Dr Lo (Edmund Chen), a distinction is made between what she has known and that which she now sees. We see the new things from her point of view: a world of slow recognition both beautiful, as she finally admits, as well as terrifying. There's a natural empathy between cinema and vision at work.

You can't help but have an emotional response as she looks at herself in the mirror for the first time, hardly able to believe she is looking at herself. While you are happy for this very sweet woman for finally being able to see, you see it affect her life negatively too, the blind people's musical group she was once a part of playing the violin no longer want her because she is no longer blind.

Then come the most frightening scenes hence at the first half of the film, enhanced by an effective soundtrack, frightening staging, as well as Lee's own convincing performance. Mun's ghostly encounters are filled with excellent use of sound.
The road accident, the calligraphy lesson, the spooks in the restaurant, and Ying Ying's (a child patient in the hospital who suffers from cancer) farewell - these are all remarkable exercises in building agitation. Especially notable is the lift sequence, where by use of editing, performance and dread, the Pangs certainly create the most memorable scene in the genre. Their film works best on its strengths: a sense of eerie foreboding followed by ghastly appearance; the manipulation of mood by music and editing; the antipathy of ghosts, and the misery of one who sees 'this world'.

There are plenty of enduring, skin-crawling moments that make you want to shrivel in your seat.
The film takes up blurry and extremely shallow focus shots to underline Ah Mun's shifting perspectives, and we also see her confronted frequently by hallucinatory images where her safe, familiar room shape shifts into a strange room and back again.

The supporting cast are solid and back up the story well, but this is Angelica Lee's film and she does a great job in the role of Mun. Giving a sense of warmth to her character while also giving compelling performances during the creepy scenes occur, she makes you care for her character, and her strong screen presence makes it extremely difficult to take your eyes off her whenever she is on.

"The Eye" was made to give sympathy to Mun and not let her just become a tool for the scare sequences. That's not to say that the film isn't balanced between the horror and the characterization though, as there are a number of unsettling scenes that scatter much of the film. These are brilliantly done, and differ in delivery from simple 'look away and It's gone when you look back' shots to clever use of Mun's blurred vision.

I found is a pity that the second half which is situated in Bangkok, where Mun accompanied by Dr. Wah look for the cornea donor, the mood of the movie changes so suddenly. At this point ghosts have almost disappeared from the story. The film takes a more classical turn. Everything is being explained and there's nothing more to fear for the future.

Well written, compelling and tastefully shot with good performances and a very good lead actress.

Overall:
One of my favorite movies. If you liked The Sixth Sense or The Ring then I recommend you check out this film. Good scares; freaky ghosts. The Eye is one of the Asian film you should not miss!

I hope this MOVIE review will be satisfying and make it more complete in gaining interest. 

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