Extras: Trailers, Teaser trailers, Filmographies, Film Notes,
Asia Extreme Trailer Reel, Pang Brothers documentary, Making of documentary
Director:
Oxide and Danny Pang
(Bangkok Dangerous, The Eye, One Take Only, Ta fa likit)
Producers:
Peter Chan and Lawrence Cheng
Screenplay:
Jo Jo Yuet-chun Hui, Oxide and Danny Pang
Original Score :
Orange Music
Cast :
Mun: Angelica Lee
Dr Wah: Lawrence Chou
Ling: Chutcha Rujinanon
Ying Ying: Yut Lai So
Yee: Candy Lo
Mun's grandmother: Yin Ping Ko
Dr Eak: Pierre Png
Dr Lo: Edmund Chen
Mr Ching: Benjamin Yuen
Taoist: Wilson Yip
From the age of two,
Mun (Angelica Lee) has been blind, but around eighteen years later she
gets the chance of a cornea transplant and, aside from the initial pain of
eye-to-brain co-ordination, it appears to be a success.
The plus points are that she gets to see videos of herself as a young girl,
recorded by her father who now lives in Vancouver, so she can see them later
if her eyesight was ever restored. She also gets to see the girl with which
she's made friends, Ying Ying (Yut Lai So), who's suffering from cancer
and undergoing chemotherapy treatment.
However, there's downsides to be expected such as when she's axed from a
concert with classical star Vanessa Mae because Mun is performing for a blind
organisation - and now she's not blind. Can things get worse? Just slightly...
Mun begins to see things which aren't real - past echoes, such as a little boy
looking for his report card, the same boy who committed suicide recently and
for whom his parents are still coming to terms with. Echoes of the future are
not long off either, and quite disturbing ones at that which makes Mun's
plight all the more involving.
Brown-trousers-time began when Mun saw more frightening things like a young
woman, who looks similar to herself, shouting, asking why she's sitting in her
chair during a caligraphy lesson. Clever special FX are also employed, mixing
what she sees and what the reality should be, making her room look like it has
the texture of paintings.
I could comment on the film further, but to do so would bring spoilers into
the review, as would showing screengrabs from the movie.
The Pang brothers make full use of the entire 1.85:1 widescreen frame, causing
a drab landscape to look inviting. It's frustrating that such a recent film
has a large number of small print defects on view. While the sound is only Dolby
Surround, it still has an exceedingly haunting theme tune that sets you on
edge perfectly.
The extras begin with four trailers, all in 16:9 non-anamorphic, two
of which are 45-second teasers and the other two are longer ones, around two
minutes each but slightly different from each other, plus the fact that one
has an American commentary over the top and the other doesn't.
The Making of The Eye (8 mins) sees interviews with the cast and crew
talking about their inspirations for the film and how they've collected moments
from their lives that they've seen so they can turn them into a weird-as-fuck
movie, interspersed by non-anamorphic film clips.
Pang Brothers Documentary (7 mins) concentrates on the sibling directors
in similar fashion, with the rest of the cast and crew enthusing greatly about
them and their work.
The rest of the extras include Filmographies for the Pang brothers,
Angelica Lee and Lawrence Chou, a few pages of Film Notes from Justin
Bowyer, a Promotional Art Gallery, showing some designs for the artwork,
plus the Asia Extreme Terror Reel - trailers for Dead or Alive 2,
City of Lost Souls, Battle Royale, Bangkok Dangerous and Ring.
There are subtitles in English only, plus the option to remove them which is
good as a video would have to have them burned into the print, just 16
chapters, and a short piece of the music on the main menu.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
