Review: Gin gwai 2 / The Eye 2 (2004)

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.

Review: Ils se marièrent et eurent beaucoup d'enfants / ...And They Lived Happily Ever After (2004)

Does romance end with marriage and children? Three friends, Vincent (Yvan Attal), Georges (Alain Chabat) and Fred (Alain Cohen) ponder the issues. Fred is single and has no problems picking up women, much to the envy of his friends, who are both married. Georges and Nathalie (Emmanuelle Seigner) bicker constantly, while Vincent and Gabrielle (Charlotte Gainsbourg) are drifting apart.

In Yvan Attal's second film about relationships, the characters are recognizably middle-class and a mid-life stage, and it is easy to let yourself get carried away with their ups and downs. There's an unexpected funny and passionate scene when Vincent and Gabrielle rediscover romance, and Johnny Depp makes a long cameo appearance as an attractive stranger.

French with English subtitles

3 out of 5 stars.

Review: Mystic River (2003)

Three Boston boyhood friends, who have drifted apart over the years, meet again in unfortunate circumstances. Jimmy Markum (Sean Penn), a shopkeeper with a criminal past, and David Boyle (Tim Robbins) still live in the same neighbourhood, while Sean Devine (Kevin Bacon) has become a police detective. Their lives intersect when Sean and his partner, Whitey Powers (Laurence Fishburne), investigate a murder in the neighbourhood.

I found Sean Penn's acting a rather irritating set of twitches (he won the Best Actor Academy Award for this role, so what do I know?), Tim Robbins is great as the damaged David, while Kevin Bacon, who is given some dramatic space in a subplot with his estranged wife, does an acceptable job. Marcia Gay Hayden is incredible as David's frightened wife, Celeste, and Laura Linney has a curiously underwritten but critical role as Jimmy's wife, Annabeth.

With such an A-list of stars, and Clint Eastwood as director, it's not surprising that 'Mystic River', is for the most part, an engrossing drama and mystery. Shot in a prosaic style by Tom Stern, the gloomy inner suburbs of Boston, its surrounding parklands and the titular river, captures the sad mood of characters. All the overwhelming gloom and sadness, with no relief, becomes a bit wearing and the climax is rather inevitable.

4 out of 5 stars.