[The Eye 2]
Plot:Pregnant Joey (Shu Qi) teeters on the brink of madness after several fruitless suicide attempts. She's the unwilling recipient of an influx of shadowy images that haunt her pervasively. In an attempt to quell this disturbing phenomenon, she looks up with her secretive ex-lover Sam (Tik Jesadaporn Pholdee), who may be able to shed some light upon the mysterious twilight world descending upon Joey.

Cast: Qi Shu, Eugenia Yuan, Jesdaporn Pholdee, Philip Kwok, May Phua, Rayson Tan, Alan Tern, San Yow.

My Thoughts:Better than "The Eye"

Review:"The Eye 2", otherwise known as ("Gin Gwai 2"), is a follow up to The Pang Brothers "The Eye" ("Gin Gwai"), which was released back in 2002. The film builds on the original in which a woman recovering from an optical operation finds herself haunted by terrifying spectres. "The Eye 2" boasts th same premise, but unlike the woman in the original, the sequel follows another woman named Joey (Qi Shu), who after numerous unsuccessful suicide attempts, herself begins to be haunted by spectres. This film really goes where "The Eye" didn't, which was most likely what the Pang brothers wanted to do with their follow-up effort.

"The Eye", while good on a level of being something unique and different from the supernatural horror genre...on many levels did not scare me at all. The film was very intriguing on a story level, but for genuine scares I just wasn't impressed. The sequel does a much better job of catching the viewer off guard, and also adds a whole new terrifying dimension to it's antagonists. Qi Shu gives an excellent performance as Joey, the woman who is being stalked by these spectres. Shu's character is also an interesting character study herself, a woman with slight mental issues, a bad breakup to deal with, and on top of all of that...learns that she's pregnant.

The pregnancy itself plays a very vital role in the movie, as once it's revealed that Joey is with child, the ghosts step up their effort in basically scaring the piss out of her. The Pang brothers also make sure to tie Joey's pregnancy in with the story itself very nicely, using it at first as a footnote, and way to further develop Shu's character. Before later on making it the focal point of the film and the events which transpire within it. "The Eye 2" also doesn't skimp on the red stuff, it's quite a bloody movie for a supernatural horror pic, and alot of the scenes involving blood and or gore are pretty disturbing in their own right.

The film really makes it a point to mentally disturb, and freak out the viewer with some trippy imagery, and many methodical terror scenes. The story itself doesn't falter one bit, which is a quality you can really only find in asian horror films. In american ghost movies, usually there's a weak point in the story where you're not sure what's happening and in some cases fail to care at all until the ghost shows up again. But this film makes sure to grab the viewer and never let go...laying out a story which becomes more terrifying and more edgy as it moves along, and reveals what the ghosts actually want from Joey.

The ending is quite an entertaining wrap up as well. Allthough at times it's a bit much and takes it's liberties a tad too far...the gist of what's happening allows the film a safety net to really push the envelope and get wild, creative, and crazy with it's final 20 minutes or so. "The Eye 2" goes to show that with a solid effort from two very talented writers and two equally talented director's...a sequel doesn't have to be a total bane to an original films existence. And instead it can be as good as and even in some very rare cases, far surpass it's predecessor. "The Eye 2", is one of those rare cases.

Positives::Great performance by Shu, great directing by the Pang brothers, and a brilliant script by Lawrence Cheng, and Jo Jo-Yuet chun Hui. Also alot of eerie and very hair-raising scenes.

Negatives:Nothing major.

Overall:A solid sequel.





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