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INNER SENSES continues Hong Kong's trend of making movies where attractive young women see ghosts. Like Hollywood, Hong Kong has never met a successful film yet that it didn't want to copy...and copy...and copy...and copy some more...

The gimmick for INNER SENSES is that it takes a more psychological approach to its supernatural elements. The ghosts may be real or not, it's open to debate right up to the very end. Unlike other Hong Kong films cashing in on the "I see dead people" trend, INNER SENSES does try to approach the subject from a somewhat common sensical direction, even if the ending comes across as awfully camp.

Of note is that INNER SENSES is one of Leslie Cheung's last films before his untimely suicide earlier this eyar. It's a shame, because the world is going to miss his talent.

6 out of 10.

Good horror film with a serious plot about people who cannot recover from the losses in their pasts. The film builds up very slowly to build character but also produces some genuinely creepy scenes in the third act. The subplot about the landlord (which also acts as a catalyst for the main character) is a little under-explored, which is a shame, but other than that it's a very accomplished film. More Dark Water than, say, Ju-on: The Grudge.

Also Leslie Chungs last film before he threw himself out of a window...a little spooky considering some of the scenes in this film, which are similar.

People who are expecting unrelenting scares and a general feeling of creepiness should probably avoid this one. It's good, but it's more of a character study than anything else. The ghosts are real, but then, we're all haunted by our own personal demons, aren't we?

A young woman with the frightening ability to see ghosts seeks help from a handsome young doctor. The two soon fall in love and begin a relationship. However, as her ability lessens, his increases, and soon he is plagued by the vengeful ghost of a teenage girl he once wronged. The doctor, who never before believed in ghosts, begins to fall apart. Will he be driven to suicide by the restless spirit, or will he find a way to put both her and himself at peace?

This film is methodical in its careful construction of its characters. Some might prefer the term "slow moving." It's a ghost story with bookend ghosts, one of which strongly resembles Sadako of "Ringu" fame. Perhaps the creepiest aspect of this film is the fact that Leslie Cheung, in the role of the tormented Jim, committed suicide not long after this film was released. It is most disconcerting to see his character pushed to the brink of suicide by a ghost who wants him to jump off of a building when you know in advance that he actually did leap to his death from a tall building! This sad fact definitely lends the movie an unsettling quality.

The performances are all strong and quite believable, and the ghosts (when they appear) are frightening. This is a good, strong story of guilt and shame and the way in which they come back to "haunt" us. Fans of fast-paced, gore- splattered fare might find themselves bored silly by this one, but for the intellectual ghost lover "Inner Senses" just might be their thing.

Don't let the put downs deter you. Decide for yourself. This DVD is worth the patience it takes to watch. IF you like the Tomie series, Sixth Sense - etc. - then you will most likely be very pleased with this film. This is a Superb Ghost Story in the tradition of the above - and Ringu! I found it truly moving. It has some truly chilling moments! (The over-the-shoulder-apparition is a classic!) This is a Ten - for me.

`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 borrows heavily from Japan's `Ring'. Such weaknesses aside, `Inner Sense' 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.