Movie Review: THE EYE aka Gin gwai [2002]

st) Lee Sin-Je, Lawrence Chow.
w) Jo Jo Yuet-chun Hui & the Pang Bros.
d) Danny & Oxide Pang

You know The Eye has to be good, otherwise those crazy Americans wouldn't be trying to remake it as a mediocre check-your-brain-at-the-door CGI crapfest. I'll bet it'll be "the number one movie in America," though. I'll just bet.
Mun undergoes an eye transplant operation to restore her sight after twenty years in the dark (sorry). Once the bandages come off, she marvels at her world's previously unseen beauty, a visual masterwork most of us take for granted. In time, though, she finds that not everyone can see the lost souls she encounters, nor the wispy spectres appearing at scenes of impending death. Mun's search for answers invariably links her with the destiny of a young seer who lost her life, that another might see...
My derby's off to the Pangs for crafting a subtly terrifying masterpiece, the likes of which I haven't seen since Hideo Nakata's Ringu. The story's pretty solid too, though I'm not up on my surgical innovations enough to know if eye transplants still count as science fiction. Attentive viewers and anti-subtitlites alike will agree the climax packs quite a sucker punch. Eye'll shut up now so you can see for yourselves.

~Excerpted from The Revenge of Jesse's Awesome Movie Review, 03/18/04

Posted by
Jesse Crater

Thanks Jesse!