After the success of their previous film, The Eye
(2002), the Hong Kong based Pang brothers, Oxide and Danny, provide not a continuation, but another aspect to the idea of seeing ghosts. This time, another young woman, Joey Cheng (Qi Shu), gains the ability to see ghosts after an unsuccessful suicide attempt in Thailand. Returning to Hong Kong, she finds out that she is pregnant and her lover is unwilling to meet her. Single and with no close family, she becomes more and more distressed as her pregnancy progresses and she continues to see a particular ghost haunting her.
The Pang brothers' restrained use of special effects and shock make the ghosts' appearance more scary than they would otherwise have been, and provides some room to speculate if Joey is just hallucinating and depressed. They're also provided some surprises in the plot that neatly links the events at the start of the film with the appearance of the ghosts. The climax in the hospital is reminiscent of Rosemary's Baby
, though more sticky and bloody for modern audiences, and not as intense as expected.
The Eye 2
is a competent supernatural thriller, with enough surprises to maintain viewer interest.
Cantonese with English subtitles.
3 out of 5 stars.
