Double Vision

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.

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.

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.

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.

DOUBLE VISION is a weird little serial killer film from Taiwan with some surrealistic touches and some memorably gruesome set-pieces. The clear influence here is SEVEN, which comes as no surprise during this era, although I was also more than reminded of THE X-FILES as DOUBLE VISION has the same kind of spirit of investigation as it charts the two cops going after a serial killer who employs a very unusual method.

This is a slick, glossy production which works well and keeps you watching just because the plot elements are so unusual and bizarre. It's not the type of film that you'd describe as a classic and it's not really one that sticks in the mind either, but it works well enough and keeps you watching throughout. Tony Leung is expectedly good as the lead but the real stand-out is imported American star David Morse, one of the most underrated character actors working today, and of course he's excellent here.