Shuang tong

A Perfect cast in an Evil Intention Plot Thriller

With Double Vision, multi-talented director Chen Kuo-fu pierces the evil of the unexpected whereby he has taken a typical corny Hollywood story line, infused it with millennia-old Chinese mystical beliefs and placed it in the sweat soaked, politically charged atmosphere of 21st -century Taiwan.

This thriller is about a troubled police detective Huang Huo-to (Tony Leung Ka Fai) whose is about to suffer from a severe mental breakdown as his life is falling apart. The reason for this is as payback for blowing the whistle on corruption in the force. He's then relegated to a do-nothing job as a Foreign Affairs Officer. His fellow policemen colleagues have turned on him and his wife Ching-fan (Rene Liu) is filing for divorce. Then suddenly three grisly murders shake up the department. The victims are unrelated but the coroner (Yang Kuei Mei) finds a mysterious black fungus in their brains, along with evidence that they had all died in a hallucinatory state. Clearly there is a serial killer on the loose, but the first in Taiwan's history whereby the police are unequipped to handle the case. With the public on the verge of panic, the high command of the Republic grudgingly calls on the United States for assistance. The FBI comes into the picture and sends its top expert, Kevin Richter (David Morse) to help Huang to wrestle these mysterious cases. The suspenseful ride is now on..... sit tight!

Besides its suspense and thrills that you would find in this movie, the perfect cast of Double Vision is also worth a mention. Tony Leung who shot to international stardom in the box-office hit The Lover, plays a demanding role as well as the main foundation bearer of the movie. His role is certainly worth a nomination in the Best Actor category in the coming Film Awards in Taiwan and Hong Kong. As for the graceful, azure-eyed David Morse who is in his debut Asian Film, plays a FBI agent who is sympathetic as well as a lovable character. As for the supporting cast, each and everyone is also a heavyweight in the Taiwanese film industry like Rene Liu, Lung Sihung, Leon Dai Li Ren and Yang Kuei Mei. Therefore it is a perfect cast in an almost perfect movie.

Working with Oscar-winning production and costume designer Tim Yip of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame and Arthur Wong, one of Hong Kong's great cinematographers, director Chen Kuo-fu takes danger and suspense to a new level of dimension. In fact, just making the film is a venture into a new territory. Double Vision is a very brave effort indeed for a Asian production. It would also open a few eyes of the Hollywood producers on Chen's credibility as well as catapult him to the ranks in the likes of Ang Lee or John Woo.

I am not a devotee of Hong Kong or Asian movies. What initially attracted my attention to Double Vision was the presence of David Morse. Over the years he seems to have had a knack for showing up in interesting, if offbeat, films. This movie is no exception to that pattern. The acting of the leads is good to above average. I don't want to duplicate the comments expressed so well by others. Let me just say that I concur with the general opinion that the film goes offtrack in the third act. Up to that point it relied on the characters of the leads and exposition on Taoism. After that point it veered off into supernatural confusion. However, all in all, worth the viewing.

When Edgar Allan Poe wrote Rue Morgue and other Dupin stories, he is said to have created two branches of the detective-novel: the sensational and the deductive. Trying to reconcile elements of the detective with the supernatural the way traditional Taiwan has married Westernization, DOUBLE VISION--quite the adequate title--is a hybrid worth watching for its bastardy. The detective part suffers when the movie ventures into the supernatural, and the former has holes of its own without the latter. However, once you've taken the Red Pill and bought the protagonist's story about his daughter, these holes in logic somewhat become intrinsic to elements of the supernatural, and the unexplained becomes the unexplainable that is plainly accepted. This fallacy grows on the film like the hallucinatory mold the plot revolves around, and DOUBLE VISION gains dreamy and poetic dimensions. Undoubtedly, this is not the deductive type of mystery--the cancer of sensationalism is as terminal as a brain tumor better left not operated: it is the entire charm of the movie.

This film had an engaging premise. A murderer is shooting pellets laced with a mite-bearing, extremely hallucinogenic mold into air conditioners of intended victims. The victims then destroy themselves in a manner orchestrated by their killer.

Now here is the disappointing part... The film could not decided if it was going to remain a mystery or a supernatural thriller. Unfortunately, by the time the credits rolled, I really didn't care.

There are several different sub-plots traveling straight together in the first half of the film. Tony Leung Ka Fai plays a cop failing to cope with the attempted murder of his daughter and the suicide of a corrupt fellow officer he helped bring to justice. His daughter won't speak and his neglected wife is seeking a divorce. Amid the murders, Leung Ka Fai learns that a FBI agent specializing in behavioral science and assigned to work with him, has been summoned by his superiors for show. One of his fellow detectives alludes to this and that the government might have a malevolent purpose behind this. The investigation points towards supernatural forces, and we are led into a temple where we witness a murder take place in the midst of what appears to be a Taiwanese Satanic ceremony.

All this flies straight together, but then each veers off in a separate direction, and in order to make sense and keep up with the story line, the viewer needs "double vision."

Double Vision is definitely one of the best Asian horror films I've seen in the last few years, and definitely the best out of China/Taiwan.

A dark film with a good storyline (though yes, the last part of the film is a bit hazy), and excellent characters and actors. A real unexpected pearl, far better than what I had expected from promotional material when it was first released.

A very refreshing change to the usual Korean/Japanese/Thai ghost films, it is genuinely frightening without being deliberately gratuitous.

The temple scene mid-way through the film remains my favourite scene, so fast and well done that you're left utterly shocked by the time its over.

For a good dark supernatural horror film, or for something completely different to the increasingly done to death Asian ghost/horror film with long black haired ghosts, see this one.