The Eye (2002)

The Eye (2002), directed by Oxide Pang Chung and Danny Pang, is a Hong Kong horror film. The main character, Wong Kar Mun, receives a cornea transplant in the very beginning of the movie. After being blind since childhood, she is finally able to see. It takes a while for her to adjust to her new pair of eyes, but after some time, her sight becomes clear. Every now and then, however, she seems to have strange, creepy illusions of peculiar people. Not only that, but she seems to be the only one able to see them.

Later on, Mun realizes that these strange people she sees are ghosts. Their sightings become more and more frequent, terrifying her to no end. Eventually, Mun seeks the help of her doctor, Dr. Wah. They are notified that these ghosts she has been seeing are all people that have had issues in their lives that were still unresolved at the time of their deaths. The solution to her problem of seeing all these spectres lies within the story of the original owner of her eyes.

Along with the help of Dr. Wah, they travel to discover the identity of the original owner of Mun's eyes - a girl named Ling. They locate Ling's hometown and hear her tragic story from her mother. After a sad life of being hated, Ling committed suicide - and for those that committ suicide, their painful deaths are repeated everyday in their ghost form. That night, Mun and Ling's mother stop the ghost of Ling to commit suicide again and help her to be at peace.

All seems well, until the disastrous ending. On her way back home with Dr. Wah, stuck in traffic, Mun suddenly sees many ghosts. She realizes that something awful is about to take place and tries to warn all the passengers sitting in their vehicles, but to no avail. A massive explosion erupts and kills many people. Not only that, but shards of glass and debris damages Mun's eyes and, in the end, she ends up blind yet again. Ultimately, though, Mun is not regretful of anything that had happened. She has seen many horrible things, but she feels lucky to have seen many beautiful things in life as well.

I have never seen the American version of The Eye as I do not really enjoy horror films in general, but this was not so bad. There were many similarities between this movie and the typical American horror films I am used to seeing in terms of music, sound, and technique for arousing horror. For example, there was the familiar use of steady, terrifying music (by holding that high-pitched, single note) to draw suspense, followed by a sudden action accompanied by a loud noise to cause a startle.

Overall, the movie used audio effects pretty well, especially in the beginning when Mun's eyes were still bandaged. Since she could not see, her sense of hearing was very important and was her way of knowing what was going on around her. She heard things, such as the air conditioning coming out of the hospital ceiling. The movie did a good job of putting the audience in her shoes and making them feel and experience whatever she did from her perspective.

The use of visual effects also helped this experience. Many first person point of view shots were used. At first, these shots were blurry, because Mun's eyes were still not adjusted to see clearly. I also enjoyed the strong use of special effects. An example of one cool visual effect that was used was when Mun saw her room morphing back and forth into a different, unfamiliar room. The ghosts were also creepy, yet neat to see - especially the one in the classroom. It was a ghost of a girl that asked Mun why she was sitting in her chair, then it unexpectedly flew at her.

Although I do not generally enjoy horror movies, I found The Eye still interesting to watch. The acting, from what I could tell, was well done and there was also a good balance between visual and sound effects. If someone particularly enjoys horror films, I would definitely recommend them seeing this one.