General Tao award ribbon
The Eye
84
8
Story
8
Cast
8
Fun
9
Subs
9
Overall
Janick Neveu
February 8, 2002
Movie poster for The Eye - Review | KFCC
Year 2001
Running Time 88
Distributor Panorama Entertainment
Director Pang Brothers
Scene from the movie The Eye - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie The Eye - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie The Eye - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie The Eye - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie The Eye - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie The Eye - Review | KFCC
Synopsis

At the age of two, Wong Kar Mann lost her vision. Since that time she has lived with that handicap but now, reaching the age of 20, she has the possibility to regain her vision with a risky corneal transplant operation. After the successfully operation, Mann's vision is starting to get better and little by little she can almost see perfectly.

After getting used to her new situation, Mann has started to notice some really strange effects. It seems that she cans see people that no one else can notice. Are they really ghosts? And who are those strange shadows that sometime come around the living people. With the help of her new psychiatric guide, she will try to solve that problem, which will lead her to a small village in Thailand were the original corneal owner lived before she died. Will Mann be able to find out what happened to the previous dead owner and finally get rid of her curse and live a normal life again?

Scene from the movie The Eye - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie The Eye - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie The Eye - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie The Eye - Review | KFCC
Review

What is going on here, I mean is it possible? Hong Kong has finally made a good, no an excellent horror movie and I'm not talking about a CatIII movie or a cheese horror comedy here. Thanks to the genius duo that made Bangkok Dangerous, the Pang Brothers have come to the rescue of the Hong Kong industry. Visually impressive, frightening and original, The Eye is a kind of supernatural thriller that we don't see very often.

By reading the synopsis you are probably telling yourself "Not a I see dead people movie again!" Yes it's true that the main premise is very similar to another very popular American movie, but I can tell you that The Eye has nothing to envy from other movies of the same genre. The story is very well built, maybe a bit slow paced in the middle but always keeps a good nervous rhythm that will keep you tense during the entire movie. I would say that the structure of the movie is very similar to the Japanese movie The Ring, in a sense that there's not many frightening moments during the whole movie until the final ending which just explodes right in your face.

The cast is also very surprising; the presence and acting quality has really given a deeper feeling to the movie. Angelica Lee plays the lead role of Mann and her acting is just perfect for the role. I think we are going to see her new face very often from now on, I just hope that she will stay in high production movies cause she really has great acting skill. We don't see much of the other characters since the story really evolves around Mann and her new psychic ability but none of the characters really felt out of place and the acting quality is always excellent during the entire movie.

Another interesting character was the therapist trying to help Mann who is played by Lawrence Chou. There's' a great complicity that will develop between these two character but fortunately for us the movie doesn't fall into stupid cliché love story and always keep that part of the movie well connected to the movie without taking over the scary feeling of the movie.

On the frightening side, the movie is surprisingly very effective. I usually find Hong Kong attempt at the horror genre very lame and stupid when they try something serious, but The Eye is really one of a kind. The special effects, by Centro Digital, were flawless. You won't find any stupid make up ghost trying to scare you with a flash light on his face here, but great and frightening realistic visual effects. I didn't find that there was a lot of scary moments during the movie but the atmosphere was always very tense and mystical which really keep you on your nerves all along the movie. There's also a lot of emotion and panic at the end of the movie, something that will make you remember this movie for a long time for sure.

Another element that makes the movie a stunning achievement is the sound and music. The Pang brothers have probably listened to Japanese director Hideo Nakata when he said that music and sound are a very important part of a scary movie. The music of The Eye fits very well with the atmosphere of the movie and the sound effects really gives you the creep during those really tense moments. A very well done job on that side indeed.

If you are like me and your faith in Hong Kong movies is leaving you, give yourself a treat and watch this movie, especially since the Americans has bought the rights to this movie. The American version will probably get rid of a lot of element since there's a lot of reference to the Chinese culture and ghost mythology in general. A frightening piece of art, The Eye is highly recommended for anyone who likes Asian horror.

Scene from the movie The Eye - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie The Eye - Review | KFCC
84
Story
Cast
Entertainment
Subtitles
Overall
Janick Neveu February 8, 2002
Media Review
Media Review by
Janick Neveu
Distributor
Panorama Entertainment
Media Format
DVD
Region
All Region
Encoding
NTSC

Unfortunately the DVD is not as good as the movie itself, something that I'm very disappointed about since Mei Ah is producing stunning transfers with their new release. Panorama Entertainment is offering us the movie in a widescreen format that is suffering from bad compression that is very apparent during the dark scenes. As for the sound, you have an excellent DTS original audio track, but for those who can't play DTS, you will have to rely only on a DD2.0 track since that there's no 5.1 track on the disc. The subtitles are of excellent quality and for the extra, well there's absolutely none. Very average release, too bad because a movie of this quality really deserves a better treatment.