Tung ngan

I was excited to watch this movie for two reasons: 1 - it is a Pang Brother's movie. 2 - it is an Asian horror movie.

However, having seen it I set here with a sense of disappointment and that I was somehow cheated out of something.

For a Pang Brothers horror movie, "Child's Eye" is fairly disappointing and uneventful. It doesn't quite live up to previous movies such as "Ab-normal Beauty", "Re-Cycle", "The Eye (trilogy)", etc. It has that certain Pang Brothers feeling to it, but it doesn't quite deliver like some of their previous works did. I surely hope that their next project will be more wholeheartedly.

The story in "Child's Eye" revolves around an old, run-down hotel in Thailand, where a group of young people from Hong Kong get stranded and are drawn into the dark, sinister story that is tied to the place. Sounds great, yes, but the story turned out to be rather jumpy, confusing and didn't fully have a red line throughout the feature length. Which made the movie somewhat of a pain to sit through.

As for the sets and props, well here it is the usual Pang Brother's standard. Lots of really nice sets and decorations. They sure have a good touch for details, and manages to get everything working well together. Despite it being shot in relative dark surroundings, the use of lighting in the movie is really phenomenal. It adds a great sense of dread and mystique to the movie.

The cast in "Child's Eye" were good as well. I have watched a lot of Hong Kong movies, and I am fairly unfamiliar with these people. But still, they did a good job with their roles. Most noticeable was Rainie Yang, as she sort of had the lead role, so to speak.

Now, one thing puzzles me in the movie, why did everyone speak Cantonese? They were in Thailand. Still the doctor in the hospital was speaking Cantonese. That was just a bit too cheesy. And the scene where they went through the "portal" and came out somewhere else, where you see buildings crumble and such, that was just too much. It looked like something that should have been in an entirely other movie. That was so misplaced in "Child's Eye". Seemed like a chance to just show off some CGI skills.

"Child's Eye" was a disappointing experience for me. It was a step backwards for the Pang Brothers in my opinion. The story was not well put together and it was too messy. But hey, you can't expect all Asian horror movies to be great, and even great film makers can deliver top quality with every single movie. It is good in a way that they moved away from their usual niche of movies, artistically speaking, but a bold move in a way as well, because the audience might not like the turn of events.

This is not a movie that I will be returning to for a second viewing. But hey, if you like Pang Brothers, you should check out "Child's Eye", you might just like it.

The most beautiful part about horror movies, the very essence is whether you've experienced that eerie feeling on a brink of "I just can't see it any further" and of course shivers. To summarize, this one delivers both. Couple of scenes are real, real creepy.

New words to the genre? Yes - I'm following horrors quite closely and still have found new tricks. Visual candy - yes, I've liked a lot the way camera played about dimensions, 3D-oriented scenes were also likable. Derivative to The Eye, Insidious and Re-cycle - also yes, quite unfortunately. But! I'd l-love to see more derivatives to Insidious.

Well, one can complain also about full-straightforward story, which is not so to say. So-so direction - here I can agree, but did you ever see stronger performance from teens in Asian horrors? (Pals, this is not a J-horror, it is from Thailand/Hong Kong) Not likely, so why complain too much?

I can mumble a while around longish scenes, but I can also cease it on the fact that this is quite typical for pan-Asian movie school and well, this is not a Transformers franchise anyway.

All in all this is a solid, quite creative 6/10 effort well worth watching for those who seek for new tricks on the horror arena. Give it a shot - at least to your exploratory agenda.

After the disappointing films of The Eye 2 & The Eye 3, The Child's Eye is a step back to the excellent first film (although not as good) and some of the elements that made The Eye so enjoyable were evident in this fourth installment of the film series. Thankfully, unlike the third film, there's no comedy scenes here...it was back to being serious like the first two movies, and the creep factor also returns and it returns big style.

Now, the story for this installment is a pretty strange one, especially for the last 30 minutes or so, but at least it's imaginative. It's not that big on character development, though. I mean, we're given the basics really and that's about it. In fact, we get to know more about the wee dog in the film than we do with some of the main characters, so I guess that aspect of the film is a bit disappointing. In saying that, however, this isn't some sort of boring, deep & meaningful drama. This is Asian horror, and while I'm not saying Asian horror films can't have decent character depth, sometimes you just have to take the film for what it's supposed to be.

What really makes this film is the atmosphere, the suspense, and the creepiness, and you can tell that The Pang Brothers went all out to achieve this when watching the film. And they succeed because the tension & uneasiness created through different scenes was nothing short of excellent. This is mainly why I gave it the rating I did, and I know that with such a weak development for the characters in the story, if there was very little in the way of atmosphere then The Child's Eye would have bombed for me.

In my opinion, The Child's Eye has been unfairly panned by a lot of critics. Why? Maybe certain people are too used to seeing run-of-the-mill "jump scare" American style horrors where everything is spelled out for them. Who knows, but this is definitely not as bad as some people would have you believe.

It's not as good as the first but it's still worth a watch.

I usually like the Pang Brothers so gave this a shot. It was better than a lot of works that get over here, but not exceptional. The story was not that convoluted that it could not be followed. It was a straight-forward ghost story with some redemption - nothing surprising for fans of The Eye.

Originally this was done in 3-D and you can tell some of the scenes were designed to take advantage of that, but it was not too over-the-top about it. It works quite well in 2D.

Some of the acting feels a little weak, but it is not bad enough to be distracting. A few tense moments where they don't go for an obvious scare, even after a large build-up. Refreshing that not everything is predictable.

While the coherence on this one might be a tad bit broken, there were some scenes that seemed out of this world! And yes, in a good way!

As most such films, of course it will seem twisted, sick, hard to read, difficult to interpret and so on! But what good Asian horror puts itself on the plate for you? Either go with the program, or find yourself another hobby! People like those involved in the making of "The child's eyes" should be encouraged, helped with finances and let them show us more, see what they are truly capable of. I had fun, I admit it, it kept me very interested the entire movie, didn't seem as long as other Asian horrors I've seen lately, and again, I have to put an accent on the fact that tension is a huge factor here. When such moments will make their appearance you'll just stand there, frozen, waiting to see what will happen.

Not many films have that effect on you, so a good scare is where you find it! Doesn't have to be a Boo, a loud fast sound, or a scary monster coming out of nowhere, it can indeed be something slow, annoyingly slow actually, and you'll feel your eyelids opening more and more, waiting..for what is there to happen. As I said, I had fun!

Cheers!