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.

David morse is a underrated actor that is for sure. He and Tony lueng balance alot of this film on there shoulders which is ok since they can pull it off. Between them and the director they did a good job creating sympathy for the main characters.

This is dark and brooding some times brutal serial killer mystery that has a few really well crafted surprises. I missed a chance to see this on the big screen at the SD asian film fest and i regret missing it. Too bad it played at the same time as giant live action transformers in the returner.

Good pick for fans of asian horror but in that genre nothing beats tell me something and the eye.

Here's one of these films that must of gone unnoticed in it's two week running. This would have to be one of the most overlooked films of 2002. We have two great male leads for starters who play good off each other. Taiwanese cop, Leung (always impressive) becomes obsessed with this case involving bizarre instances and deaths, if stylish, some in graphic detail that all lead to some fungus which has made it's way into the brain of the victims. Morse, strong here again in these roles, plays a FBI serial killer profiler, who teams up with Leung where he almost becomes more concerned with the destruction of Leung's family, than this mind wracking case. It involved a standoff that went horribly wrong, involving a family member, from which Leung's little daughter has gone mute. It's good too that we have the family angle, and more lighter, happier moments with Leung's family and Morse, who puts him in place, regarding his lovely wife, child. This film will cause you to use your noggen, even more so towards it's bleak end. Double Vision has some very violent scenes, I warn you, one involving a priest being disemboweled, as a few quite graphic be headings in a temple. This violence quite caught me by surprise. This is a supernatural violent, and imaginative thriller of a higher order, and damn well engrossing. If you're a supernatural horror freak or not, as not ever hearing of this one, hunt it down. I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Double Vision is a horror movie from Taiwan that may be "The Next Big Thing" amongst Asian film lovers. It stars Tony Leung Ka-Fai as an intense, troubled Taiwanese detective and David Morse as an FBI agent sent to assist the Taiwanese cops in the investigation of a serial killer (since America produces more of those than any other country, the FBI are considered to be the world's experts).

It doesn't take much to discover that there's something very strange about the killings. The first victim is a business man, found frozen to death in his office on a hot day when the air conditioning was off. The second, a politician's wife is found burnt to death in her home - which shows no signs of fire damage.

The Taiwanese cops are convinced the case is simply insolvable, as it is clearly the work of devils or demons. David Morse, sceptic that he is, is quite convinced the deaths are the work of human hands.

Playing out rather like a multinational episode of the x-files, the film is infused with Taiwanese Taoism and the notion that there is more to the world than the ordinary human eye can see. Well, what good horror movie isn't?

Tony Leung gives a fantastic performance as the intense, haunted cop, and David Morse fares better than most Western actors do in Asian productions. The film is very slick, with high production values and great cinematography (from Hong Kong legend Arthur Wong). It doesn't all make a lot of sense, if you try to think about it too much, but that's just an aspect of horror movies I guess I will get used to one day. Scares are not constant, but are effective.

The script mixes together a large number of elements, and in particular contains far more political content than usually makes it into horror movies. Although clearly made with the international market in mind, it is very much focused on Taiwanese culture and history.

Although the film tries to be smart, and perhaps by horror standards is, the presence of several lapses of logic frustrated me quite a bit. I never seem to get it, but I always wish a horror movie would actually make logical sense. I guess this is usually compromised for "I didn't see that coming" type scares and twists, and so it is in DOUBLE VISION. This is the primary reason why I'm not a horror movie fan, and was never going to *love* DV. For those that enjoyed THE RING and its ilk, I'm sure DOUBLE VISION will be perfectly satisfying. It's certainly a glossy production that attempts to cover a lot of ground, sometimes with success.

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."