Opening Day: 14 October 2010

Synopsis:

Being stranded in Thailand by the political uprising and the subsequent airport closure, Rainie and her friends are unable to return home. Reluctantly, they stay in an old and shabby hotel. Among them are Rainie’s almost-broken-up boyfriend, Lok; Ling and her brother Rex; Ciwi and her beloved boyfriend, Hei. From the moment they check in the hotel, they come across three weird children and a puppy, and then strange things begin to happen one after another.

The next day, Lok, Rex and Hei disappear at the same time. The three girls search the hotel thoroughly in hope of finding the three missing young men, but in vain. To save their missing friends, the girls gather their courage to seek the truth. The more they investigate, the more frightening the truth they reveal of the shabby hotel…

Desperately Rainie tries to get information from the hotel owner, Uncle Chuen. However he pretends to know nothing. Shortly afterwards, Ling and Ciwi are in trouble too. Rainie is left alone to fight against the unknown. At last, with the help of the ghost-seeing puppy, Rainie enters another world and searches for the truth. She is the only one who can save everyone’s life ……

Movie Review:

The Child’s Eye is the latest Pang Brothers’ horror movie related to earlier titles The Eye, The Eye 2 and The Eye 10. This time round, they made use of their expertise in weaving CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery) together with the movie’s narrative to produce the first movie in Hong Kong to use 3D stereoscope and high-definition for its entire production. It’s also noted to be the first 3D horror movie produced in Hong Kong.

In the brothers’ movie directing and production advancements in the horror genre, they are most noted for their debut Asian horror movie, The Eye, which achieved excellent box-office ticket sales in 2002. That movie had also made a tremendous leap for Hong Kong produced horror movies. However the subsequent misses have led to allegation that the Pang Brothers are on the decline. Well, that is not just any accusation without some justification.

First of all, it is not absolutely original to link supernatural events and a hideous looking creature together with a tinge of murder suspense and the likes. What’s more, the movie is set in Thailand. It’s not like we don’t already know how haunted Thailand is, considering having Thai horrors like Phobia (or stylized as 4bia) and Shutter selling like hot cakes, keeping us paranoid for the next few days after watching them. As such, having to work within such a premise will require an outstanding characterization of the main leads to create a memorable and praise-worthy horror movie. Sadly, there was little room for the characterization to happen. Moreover, the storyline was rather sloppy. This does little justification to those few actors/actresses who can act reasonably well, like Rainie Yang, who is nominated several times for her acting capabilities in TV dramas and her breakthrough lesbian role in Spider Lilies.

Where then, is the focus? I would say that the brothers have concentrated tremendous energy into putting the technology into good use. For the record, each frame can take more than an hour to be filmed, considerably tedious, so as to match the operation of the 3D shooting equipment. As mentioned, everything was shot in HD and 3D technology which means that there is a guaranteed satisfaction on the visual side. The images were crisp, sharp and realistic.
What constitutes a good horror movie is in its ability to sustain the audience’s interest and anticipation; simply put, get us into the mood! For the most, this movie heavily relied on the eerie sound effects and the eye popping 3D technology to elicit the interest and shock from the audience. However, the scare tactics were corny and repetitive. So coupled with the weak characterization and narrative, one may come to realize that the mood was not sustained well enough, and the scare tactics being too predictable and cliché, do not get the intended shock effect. The director’s hopes to effectively deliver a simple frightening scene through the use of cutting-edge technology prove to be just not good enough. Undeniably some images can be rather haunting, but hardly convincing.

Gone are the days when the audiences are satisfied with simple scare tactics where a green morbid looking figure with long hair covering more than half of her face stands at the background and gives the stare. With the introduction of new technology as such, audiences’ expectation increases exponentially; we need sophistication, we need new excitements! Ultimately this film has not made the mark, but still admirable for the sheer efforts put in.

Movie Rating:



(This is a big miss to horror fans out there. Don’t pin your hopes too high!)

Review by Tho Shu Ling