El ojo

Wong Kar Mun went blind at the age of two, 18 years later she undergoes a cornea transplant that appears to be a success. Unfortunately that success comes with a terrifying side-effect; the ability to see unhappy ghosts.

Gin Gwai (The Eye) is directed by the Pang brothers Oxide and Danny and stars Angelica Lee (Mun) and Lawrence Chou (Dr.Wah) as the two main principals.

No matter what source of reference you use for film reviews, one thing that can be guaranteed as regards Gin Gwai is how divided people are on it. One of the few things that most tend to agree on though is that it's visual flourishes are nothing short of fantastic. And they are. Blended with the editing, music, sound, camera-work and the effects, it therefore fuels the fire of those calling it style over substance. It's also fair to drop onside with those folk decrying the over familiarity with its central themes. If you have seen Irvin Kershner's The Eyes Of Laura Mars, Michael Apted's Blink and M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense, well you wont be watching anything thematically new here. But the Pang brothers have crafted a thoroughly engrossing, menacing and nerve gnawer of a film, one that delivers chills and scares for the discerning horror sub-genre fan.

Here's the crux of the matter with Gin Gwai, it is the opposite side of the Asian horror coin to the likes of the blood letting Audition. This is pure and simply for those not in need of murder death kill to fulfil their horror needs. I was creeped out immensely by this film because the ghost and supernatural side of horror is what really works for me, as long as it is done effectively. To which Gin Gwai most assuredly is. The various scenes shift from ethereal unease to hold your breath terror, from classrooms to lifts, to hospital wards, the brothers Pang, with beautiful technical expertise, held me over a precipice of dread. Even the opening credits are inventive and have the ability to send a cautionary shiver down ones spine. There's a barely formed, and pointless, romantic angle that marks it down a point, but as the blistering (literally) last quarter assaults the senses and so does the time for reflection arrive. Gin Gwai ends up being one of this decades best horror pictures. Well to me at least. 9/10

Of all the horror movie genres in existence, ghost stories have always been my personal favorites. The Haunting, Ju-On, The Innocents, Ringu, The Shining...all nice, moody, creepy ghost tales. The Eye now finds itself at the top of my list along with the aforementioned as one of the best and creepiest ghost stories of all time.

Mun, blind since the age of 2, receives the gift of a cornea transplant at the age of twenty. Her restored vision comes with a price, however. She can no longer play with the all blind symphony that she once found solace within, she cannot read or write, having had no reason to learn, and she has no words for visible objects, having always identified them by touch. She's also seeing things that nobody else can see...terrifying things. A little boy looking for his lost report card plagues her daily. An old woman wanders the hospital corridors, complaining of the cold. Shadowy forms come to escort the recently deceased away to parts unknown, and Mun's own bedroom flickers in the darkness, changing into another room that once belonged to another girl, in another country. Mun knows that the things she sees are not normal, but no one seems to believe her, not even, at first, the cute doctor who is trying to help her. Mun finds herself alone in a frightening world filled with things she never wanted to see. When Mun and the cute doctor finally learn the identity of the donor whose corneas Mun has received, they also learn of her frightening abilities, her sad death and a terrible tragedy which is destined to repeat itself.

The Eye is an original and innovative film and yet it is also a perfect mixture of plot points and elements drawn from such previous films as The Sixth Sense, The Mothman Prophecies and Blink, all of which are very good films in their own right. The Eye knows exactly how to scare you, and does so without a drop of blood or a hint of gore. A scene in a calligraphy class provides a truly frightening shock, while a scene in an elevator is an exercise in slow, building dread which grows more excruciating by the second. The performances are all wonderful, and the feelings of loss, alienation, fear and determination are genuine and powerful. Fans of the aforementioned films would do well to seek this one out, as would ghost enthusiasts and Asian Horror aficionados. It's rare these days that a film will actually make me jump, gasp and check the corners of my bedroom for boogeymen, but this one spooked me very well indeed - and I watched it in the middle of a bright, sunny day. The Eye tells a good story and tells it well, with strong characters and genuine scares. It is never dull or cheap or overly dramatic.

Highly HIGHLY recommended!!!

This is a good little Asian horror film that I would definitely recommend renting or even buying, if you like foreign films. A young blind woman receives a cornea transplant and soon finds out that she got way more than she bargained for when she starts being visited by some very unhappy dead souls. It's not very original, true, but the acting is good, the lead character (played by Angelica Lee, is that her name?) is adorable, as is the little girl who plays Ying Ying; there is some serious tension and dread here, especially in the first half hour. The scene in the hospital hallway had my skin trying to crawl off my body, as well as the "Why are you sitting in my chair?" scene. We're talking serious chills. Some of the music IS a bit cheesy and over the top, but hey, you can't have everything, right? The scenes where we see through Mun's eyes in the first few minutes are very effective; we know someone is standing there, we just don't know who it is, and we feel her fear and uncertainty. Not the best movie ever made, but it's definitely worth seeing.

Before I close, I would like to respond to the attitude expressed here by some people that American films are all stupid, and that American filmgoers are all drooling idiots who have to see a throat slashed every few minutes in order to be engaged by a movie. When you make comments like that, you really show how ignorant you are when it comes to American cinema, as some of the finest movies ever made came right out of Hollywood, and no they aren't all slasher films or mindless teen comedies. But then I'm sure you folks already know that, you just want to feel intellectually superior to others. I enjoy a good foreign film, and so do many Americans, but just because they're foreign doesn't mean they're perfect. They have flaws just like any other human effort, so please get over yourselves and try to watch movies with an open mind, because you'll enjoy them much more that way. That's just my two cents.

Watch this movie, it's good.

For the most part, "The Eye" is a competent effort from HK cinema. While most HK films nowadays involve big pop stars in pointless romantic comedies, this film (and also Infernal Affairs) show that there are still talented filmmakers in HK.

The story is about a blind girl named Mun getting a cornea transplant. When she gets her vision back, she begins seeing supernatural beings (ghosts, to be precise). For the first half of the story, we see her experiencing all these haunting encounters. One notable scene is in an elevator. The mystery and creepiness in this first half is incredibly effective and well-made.

The same cannot be said about the second half though. Like "The Ring" (or "Ringu"), Mun travels to Thailand to figure out the origin of the owner of her cornea. What starts out as a supernatural thriller turns into a mystery.

The film seems to be a mix of "The Sixth Sense", "Ringu", and a touch of "Final Destination." The switch of style in the middle and toward the end is somewhat annoying. The ending is an effort of the directors to show that they can do big CGI action sequences too. But, this film would have been good enough to stand on its own without that.

The acting is pretty good. Angelica Lee as Mun is very believable. The same cannot be said about the doctor though. I think this is mostly because his character's motivations are not convincing enough. Why does he give up his whole career to travel all the way to Thailand to help her after meeting her for a few times only? For love? Probably...but I don't buy it at all.

Overall, this film is pretty good. It is a nice effort from promising directors.

About three months ago, I was paging through cable and found a film that looked intriguing. After watching for about five minutes I had the pants scared off of me, so, being the complete wuss I am, I turned it off. Curiosity made me want to go back to it, of course, so about twenty minutes later I got up the guts to turn it back on. After about two minutes, I was full on terrified, and turned it off for good. I told some friends about this film, and all seemed intrigued, mainly because of the scare factor, so this weekend we got around to finally watching it. That movie of course, was the Pang Brothers' "The Eye", a film that ended up being something completely different than what I was expecting.

In "The Eye", Wong Kar Mun (Lee) is a young blind woman who gets a corneal transplant. Soon after her operation, as her eyes are adjusting, she begins to see some pretty scary images; shadowy black figures hanging around people who later die, dead people themselves, and her room keeps doing a pesky trick where it changes on her as she's looking at it, furniture and all. Her doctor, Dr. Lo (a really young looking Edmund Chen) doesn't believe her at first, but then realizes that there may be some merit to her claims, so they go in search of the donor in order to find out what history her eyes' previous owner had, and what kind of baggage Wong Kar Mun has to deal with now.

Based on my first impressions of the film, I was actually expecting a big scare fest like "The Grudge"; short on story, big on scares. What I actually realized is that the two parts that I briefly watched were actually two out of the three genuinely scary parts of the film. (The elevator scene was enough to make me take the stairs today at work, seriously.) The rest of the film is certifiably creepy, but there is actually a decent story to support those creepy parts. "The Eye" has no doubt been compared to "The Sixth Sense" in terms of theme, but it is also similar in substance as well. Even without the scares, the film would be able to stand on its other merits. Some of the special effects in "The Eye" were kind of cheesy (basically Sci-Fi channel made-for-cable television caliber) and in typical Chinese film fashion, the music was horrible, but all told, it is a decent film.

After doing a little reading on the film, I saw that Tom Cruise's production company bought the rights to the film and are planning a remake. I'm not very educated on Asian horror films and their American remakes, (yet) but I think I would see it just out of mere curiosity, because I would imagine that they would take this relatively small film and mess with it to make it "bigger". "The Eye" is definitely worth checking out because while it definitely scared the pants off of me a couple of times, the rest of the film was really was worth sticking around to see how it all would end. 6/10 --Shelly