Eyeless in Hong Kong

There isn't much I ask for from a horror movie -- a few good scares, a jolt or two of fear, and a satisfying ending. If, by some chance, a horror flick manages to vault across genres, well, more power to it.

M Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense managed to be genuinely frightening while telling an absorbing story and saving its punch line for the end. While doing all that, Shyamalan even managed to contribute a catchphrase to contemporary culture: 'I see dead people.'

The reason I invoke that movie in a review of the made-in-Hong Kong The Eye is this: Shyamalan has obviously influenced the Pang brothers, who directed the film. Unfortunately, The Eye has nowhere near the level of craftsmanship that made The Sixth Sense such an instant classic.

Not that Oxide and Danny Pang care what I think. The movie has already been optioned for a Hollywood remake by Tom Cruise. It is only the latest in a run of films from Japan, Thailand, and Hong Kong that seek to reverse a longstanding trend -- Asian remakes of Hollywood hits.

The Eye tells the tale of Mun (Lee Sin-je), a blind violinist who receives a corneal transplant and begins to see too much, dead people included. At times she feels she is somebody else, a troubled woman who appears and disappears, blurring into mystery, much like the spirits who constantly visit Mun.

At other times, Mun is privy to desperate secrets passed on by a number of people she is powerless to ignore. There is a schoolboy who has committed suicide, a woman with a bloodcurdling scream and an elderly man with half his face missing. Why do they come to Mun? What secret does she conceal?

Okay, so much for the Joel Haley Osment character. Enter Bruce Willis: Mun takes herself to a psychotherapist (Lawrence Chou) who accomplishes nothing more than a romantic involvement with the hapless all-seeing violinist. Not that the unethical nature of the romance matters -- Chou exists as a foil for Mun.

The film now attempts to build to a climactic finale, a bloody apocalyptic ending with a twist. At the end, Mun is left pretty much back where she started. "I have seen a lot of ugliness," she tells Chou. "But I have also seen something beautiful." The beauty she has seen is, presumably, Chou's wooden face.

She then settles for a life without vision, happy to no longer witness a constant dead parade. Mun may be happy with that banal ending, but very few viewers will be. Add to that the simple fact that a horror movie with no scary moments cannot be very satisfying.

It may be that The Eye works better in Cantonese (it was shot in Hong Kong and Thailand) as a generic Asian product. In a Western context it is less successful, as if something crucial has been lost in the translation.

CREDITS
Cast: Angelica Lee Sin-je, Lawrence Chou and Candy Lo Hau-yum
Producers: Peter Chan Ho-sun, Lawrence Cheng Tan-shui
Directors: Danny and Oxide Pang