Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on June 6, 2003, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
It was while watching a screening of Takeshi Kitano’s Brother (not a terribly inspiring movie otherwise) that this Hong Kong/Japanese film fanatic came to a revelation: The sight of well-dressed Asian men blasting each other with firearms just wasn’t doing it for me anymore. At least, not without new ideas in the storytelling, or a strong emphasis on story and character—but the intrinsic appeal of this over-the-top action had simply become worn out through repetition. I’m regrettably starting to have the same feeling about the Asian supernatural genre. I was one of the lucky ones who got to see Ringu early, several years ago at the Fantasia festival, followed by a number of subsequent films in the same vein. And as with two-fisted gunplay (and, to be honest, Chinese wirework before that), familiarity has bred in me, not contempt, but simply a need for a fresh narrative approach to back up the subgenre’s particular conventions.
That’s why I can’t be as enthusiastic as many others have been about The Eye, which is proficiently and often evocatively directed by the Pang Brothers, who have certainly come up with a unique (and indeed, already imitated) character angle on which to center their supernatural story. Mun (Lee Sin-je) has been blind from a very young age, and as the movie opens has received a corneal transplant that allows her to see again. Like anyone truly viewing the world for the first time, she has some trouble re-adjusting to life—and the Pangs (Danny and Oxide, who also scripted with Jojo Hui) expertly convey the way Mun senses and experiences her environments. Aided by Lee’s deeply felt, award-winning performance, they display—and generate—true sympathy for her plight.
It is this identification that carries the film through what proves to be an overly familiar series of frightening developments. Mun soon finds that she has acquired a second sight as well—she now sees ghosts that sometimes appear to her in unnerving visions, and at other times in crowds and other everyday situations looking like regular people. (The notion that a woman who has never been able to see before would not necessarily distinguish spirits from normal folks is an intriguing one that isn’t explored enough.) With the help of a friendly doctor (Lawrence Chou), Mun comes to realize that the visions are connected to the person whose eyes she now sees through, and the two set off to uncover the donor’s past.
So what we have here is the I-see-dead-people theme from The Sixth Sense, which leads to an inquiry into a young woman’s tragic history that’s familiar from Ringu, not to mention its follow-ups and remake. Not that The Eye plays like a ripoff; the Pangs bestow the film its own integrity, and bring it off with considerable stylistic panache. (One narrative turning point is communicated through a striking, completely visual plot twist.) But you can’t fake your reaction to a horror film, and I never got the truly creepy buzz out of this one that I’ve felt at a number of its forebears. What happens to Mun, and what she discovers, simply isn’t unexpected or startling enough to place The Eye in the pantheon of great ghost stories. And that includes both its climactic scene and the setup for it, which feel all too reminiscent of a genre movie from last year that I’m loath to give away.
The Eye, like so many Asian films to have captured attention in the West, is slated for a U.S. remake, in this case by Tom Cruise’s company. There are enough rich elements and possibilities here to suggest that with the right approach, a new version might at least equal, and perhaps surpass, its inspiration. The Eye is also good enough to make one look forward to seeing what the Pangs can do with their up-and-coming status and fresher material—though under the circumstances, it’s a tad dispiriting that what they’ve next chosen to turn their attentions to is The Eye 2.
