THE EYE 2 (2004)

In 2002, filmmaking siblings Oxide and Danny Pang released a film that, for me, was one of the most spine chilling horror thrillers that I have seen come out of the Far East in recent years. So popular was the story of Mun and the supernatural visions she was forced to endure thanks to a revolutionary cornea replacement operation, that Hollywood, in its current fever to rehash perfectly good horror fair, has commissioning a US remake with the help of The Ring Two director Hideo Nakata at the helm. But nestled between the originals unsettling visuals and this future remake is the sequel, a story which bears little resemblance to the first and is a far more personnel journey for its central character.

This time around our female protagonist is a fragile young girl by the name of Joey, whose failed love for a married man causes her to inflict a terrible harm against herself in an attempt to end her sorrowed life. Whilst teetering on the brink of death she catches a glimpse of several shadowy figures standing around her. Passing this off as nothing more than a hallucination brought about from the mass of tablets she swallowed, she slowly recovers only to find that she is pregnant with the child of her disinterested lover. As the pregnancy progresses, she is again visited by ghostly visions which slowly get more intense as Joey becomes convinced that they are trying to harm her unborn child.
Unlike a traditional sequel, The Eye 2 has absolutely nothing to do with the events of the first film with the Pang brother’s merely using the title as a recognisable forum for this particular phase of their career. That’s not to say that this incarnation is a complete departure from the familiar ghostly antics so expertly conveyed in the original, but it does have a very different story telling attitude which makes this much less of a horror and more of a supernatural drama. As the film commences, the mystery surrounding our female character is effectively sustained and slowly heightened thanks to a rather eye watering stomach pump scene which made me want to give my nose a bloody good blow! Shortly after this botched suicide attempt, the filmmakers start to introduce the ghostly visions in a similar way to that of the first film, except this time each appearance plays out in a rather clumsy, haphazard way. These early events are neither scary nor very relevant as Joey is randomly antagonised by her visions and this causes the film to fall short of the edgy atmosphere accompanying the first. As Joey’s unborn child slowly develops, so does the films slant towards the more intense supernatural encounters and manages to pull off a few genuinely gripping moments to help improve on the early misdemeanours including a sunken eyed ghost on the train platform who stares right out of the screen at the viewer, marking a small turning point in the terror stakes.

Qi Shu’ role as Joey, a girl never truly happy with the cards that life has dealt her, is very effective and gives a strong and often touching performance. Her conveyance of mixed emotions over the pregnancy of her character is excellent and the reactions she offers over the visions that plague her waking hours are, I would imagine, spot on. The only problem here is the relationship that the viewer builds with this character as Joey’s dark mood swings, detached persona and lonesome journey though out the film leave onlookers with little to relate to and her constant yearning to resolve her problems with suicide just widens the gap and isolates the character from everyone except those who can see ‘Dead People'.
Only during the final moments of the film, do we see a story which is actually a very touching portrayal of life, death and everything in between, but by this time, the clarifying of the films hidden spiritual significance is lost amongst the cold misgivings of a weak screenplay and a story whose direction is mediocre at best.

Tartan Video’s DVD package comes complete with a solid Anamorphic 1.78:1 image and a slightly underused Dolby Digital/DTS 5.1 sound track. On the special features front, we get a 13 minute behind-the-scenes documentary where lead actress Qi Shu discusses her demanding role and the Pang brothers talk about the key differences between this and their original 2002 creeper. That’s pretty much your lot except the usual theatrical trailer and a few previews of other Tartan Asia Extreme titles.