I was hoping and expecting this would be a good movie, but I wasn't quite prepared for the experience of watching it...
It was like being twelve again, watching Robert Wise's masterpiece The Haunting alone in a new house in a new country... tense, rapt, barely blinking, unsettled, moved and basically in love! Immersive, emotional, beautiful and solidly written, this films suffers from none of the faults commonly ascribed to either Hong Kong cinema or to horror movies. The premise and script are equally strong, and while it's not plot-driven by any means the conclusion is immensely powerful and satisfying in a way few horror films can pull off.
Lee Sin-Je is a beautiful and extremely talented actress, whose mannerisms and body language reminded me very strongly of the sight-impaired people I've known, and her performance as Ah Mun could easily have carried the whole thing.
But although the character of Ah Mun is the centrepoint and driving force of the film, she didn't have to - the secondary characters, from Lawrence Chou as Dr Wah on down to the wordless presence of Chutcha Rujinanon as Ah Ling, are uniformly well-played and unusually rounded considering how briefly we meet some of them.
(I was a disappointed that Ah Mun's granny had so little to do - I love character actors and old people in movies, and she's great!)
Even the ghosts have personality.
The FX are excellent - sometimes horrifying, often intensely creepy - and the Pang Brothers direct with just the right amount of flash and fire. They know when to hold a shot, when to focus on a facial expression, when to move slowly... and when to go for the throat, too!
The film also makes excellent use of its multinational origins, though it may be a little obscure to Westerners who can't tell HK from Thailand or Cantonese from Thai. Even the sound design and music in this film are outstanding.
The Eye has instantly joined the likes of The Wicker Man and Chakushin Ari on my list of all-time favourite horror movies, and I would recommend this unhesitatingly to any fan of sober, intelligent horror.
It's rather sad that there's an American remake. Like Chakushin Ari, Ring, The Wicker Man and even a slew of my favourite American horror movies (from The Haunting to Dawn of the Dead), the remake misses the point and dilutes the original vision almost to the point of irrelevance.
The only purpose served by these remakes is to present the film to the laziest and least interested audience (and, of course, to make money for people who already have plenty), so take my advice with this as with all those others: watch the original, avoid the remake!
Update: A while back as a part of our "Friday 13th Horror Weekend" this movie became the first horror film my daughter watched from start to finish, and I thought it'd be nice to add that she liked it almost as much as I did! Truly, an 11-year-old with excellent taste!
It was like being twelve again, watching Robert Wise's masterpiece The Haunting alone in a new house in a new country... tense, rapt, barely blinking, unsettled, moved and basically in love! Immersive, emotional, beautiful and solidly written, this films suffers from none of the faults commonly ascribed to either Hong Kong cinema or to horror movies. The premise and script are equally strong, and while it's not plot-driven by any means the conclusion is immensely powerful and satisfying in a way few horror films can pull off.
Lee Sin-Je is a beautiful and extremely talented actress, whose mannerisms and body language reminded me very strongly of the sight-impaired people I've known, and her performance as Ah Mun could easily have carried the whole thing.
But although the character of Ah Mun is the centrepoint and driving force of the film, she didn't have to - the secondary characters, from Lawrence Chou as Dr Wah on down to the wordless presence of Chutcha Rujinanon as Ah Ling, are uniformly well-played and unusually rounded considering how briefly we meet some of them.
(I was a disappointed that Ah Mun's granny had so little to do - I love character actors and old people in movies, and she's great!)
Even the ghosts have personality.
The FX are excellent - sometimes horrifying, often intensely creepy - and the Pang Brothers direct with just the right amount of flash and fire. They know when to hold a shot, when to focus on a facial expression, when to move slowly... and when to go for the throat, too!
The film also makes excellent use of its multinational origins, though it may be a little obscure to Westerners who can't tell HK from Thailand or Cantonese from Thai. Even the sound design and music in this film are outstanding.
The Eye has instantly joined the likes of The Wicker Man and Chakushin Ari on my list of all-time favourite horror movies, and I would recommend this unhesitatingly to any fan of sober, intelligent horror.
It's rather sad that there's an American remake. Like Chakushin Ari, Ring, The Wicker Man and even a slew of my favourite American horror movies (from The Haunting to Dawn of the Dead), the remake misses the point and dilutes the original vision almost to the point of irrelevance.
The only purpose served by these remakes is to present the film to the laziest and least interested audience (and, of course, to make money for people who already have plenty), so take my advice with this as with all those others: watch the original, avoid the remake!
Update: A while back as a part of our "Friday 13th Horror Weekend" this movie became the first horror film my daughter watched from start to finish, and I thought it'd be nice to add that she liked it almost as much as I did! Truly, an 11-year-old with excellent taste!