Sei mong se jun

the photography and the use of the music was very nice. i enjoyed the majority of the first half, and was expecting the movie to end when the second segment of the plot unfolded. i think the transgression was a bit awkward, and a certain person at the end of the film wasn't entirely flesh out. this is not the same kind of movie as The Eye, and if you are not interested in the earlier portion of the movie, fast.forward toward the end for all the gritty material. its nice to see, that even with the movie's flaws, it stands out from the influx of carbon-copy split-personality/long haired ghosts/technological entities gone evil. the violence isn't too harsh (although there is some animal-oriented slaughter, which i assume is simulated to maintain American film standards) and most people shouldn't get too overwhelmed to handle a viewing: my rating: seven out of ten stars.

The Pang Brothers know their stuff when it comes to visual style. This movie is a proof. It's visually flawless. Beautiful photography, nice camera tricks, gorgeous looking leads and eerie atmospheres, but that's as far as it goes. Oh… And the sound is nicely done too. In some ways this film is like The Crow: City of Angels, an absolute feast for the eye, but it delivers no content to back it up. And it gets boring in some parts, since you don't really give too much about the characters. The so-called violent scenes at the end are a letdown –that's if you're looking for something truly disturbing. It's well done, and creepy in some parts. The killer's method was a great idea, with all the cameras and the sound of him approaching. I loved that. But at the end it's like if someone mixed Beverly Hills 90210 with Thesis (the Spanish flick). If that's your cup of tea, then this movie is for you.

Watch it on a nice home system. You will get it's full blow.

This is either brilliant Asian horror or total claptrap. I'm leaning toward the latter.

Hmm. I'm split. The first half is totally compelling as we watch a brilliant young Chinese lesbian art student veer off into a fascination with photographing death after witnessing a fatal traffic accident. She's obsessed with capturing the moment of death on her Nikon, be it chicken or fish or a suicide jumper from a tall building. We watch lovely young Jin as she follows her muse into dangerous places.

There may be a reason in her past for this obsession. Her lesbian partner is really worried about her. And -- whoa! -- now there's a boy in her life who has obviously fallen in love with her.

A lot of interesting elements have come into play. And the Pang brothers are brilliant cinematographers and editors. Sheer beauty on the screen. I cannot stress how magnificently this is filmed.

Then comes the last half hour. It is total gibberish. And it's filmed in such deep darkness you cannot see what's going on (I am talking about the DVD version). All you can tell is that it involves bondage and sadomasochism. A woman bound to a chair is screaming her lungs out. Someone unseen is tormenting her.

If some truth came out, I totally missed it. Maybe it's a western thing. I like Asian horror movies. But this left me baffled.

Jiney is a young photographer,but she is not satisfied with her work.One day,she witnesses a car crash which stimulates her to take some pictures of its dying victims.The girl starts obsessively making photos of dead and dying people and animals.This morbid fascination with death become her ghastly obsession.These images of death and destruction turns on Jiney and when she is finally able to shoot a suicide,she finds complete sexual relief and totally losses herself.However,knowing that her sexual desires are not right,Jiney wants to stop this before it gets out of control.Together with her intimate friend Jas,Jiney starts to acknowledge her wrong behaviour.Suddenly she receives a snuff video from a killer who is sharing the same artistic idea about death as Jiney."Ab-normal Beauty" is a pretty unsettling thriller made by Pang brothers.It's a fascinating look into a young woman's obsession with death.The film is loaded with truly ominous and dark atmosphere and there are some lashings of gore that may shock casual viewers.The S&M style killer looks creepy but his identity is rather easy to guess.The film is colorful and stylish as it resembles a truly moody painting.Give it a look.9 out of 10.

1st watched 2/16/2008 - 5 out of 10(Dir-Oxide Pang): 1st half excellent, 2nd half confusing. This disparity in the movie makes for a so-so movie when it could have been great. The movie is about a photographer/artist who is not happy with her work even though she's getting awards. On her way out of her house one day, she sees an accident and decides to take photographs of the incident including a death. After this, she becomes fascinated with the subject. partially because of an incident that occurred when she was young where she was molested by her cousins and her mother didn't believe her; since then she deep down didn't feel worthy of anything to the point of attempting suicide. Her girlfriend is at first confused by her obsessions but as they become more and more bizarre she helps her address her demons in her past including talking to her mother again. She appears cured and then starts receiving anonymous pictures and videos of women being tortured by a masked man. The assumption is that the person sending the info wants her to go back to her old ways. This is where the story goes awry, in my opinion. It now becomes more of a cat and mouse horror story then a morally tale, which the first half of the movie was. The couple tries to determine who's sending the pictures, as the girlfriend is pulled into the trap and tortured and killed. When the movie became about the identity of the masked man and less about the original main character in the movie it becomes confused and loses it's spark. Too bad, because the movie started out portraying a subject not shown much in movies(the effects of abuse) and ended as a typical horror/thriller.