The Eye 2 (2004)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Growing up in the United States in the 90's, I was never really exposed to foreign film as a child. Foreign films were more a niche market at that time... something you had to actively be aware of and seek out for yourself in cramped back-sections of video-stores or through special orders in magazines. It wasn't really until my mid-teens in the early 2000's that I became a fan, when a rash of Americanized remakes and reboots started to popularize foreign film- particularly Asian cinema- to increasing numbers of western audiences. Soon enough, by the time I was 16, I was ordering Region-Free imports of films and series online, scouring the shelves of the local Video King for the latest translated releases and borrowing whatever I could from friends and relatives.One of my favorite finds around that time was the Pang Brother's wonderfully eerie and thrilling 2002 release "The Eye"- a fun but somewhat flawed ghost-story about a woman who goes through a cornea transplant and gains the ability to see spirits and ghouls. It was a very fun little tale of terror, and even to this day, I give it a watch now and then. However, I wasn't immediately aware that the film was only the first of a series, with several sequels of inconsistent quality having followed. So you could imagine my surprise a few years later when I stumbled onto "The Eye 2" on a store-shelf one Summer day. "The Eye 2" is most certainly a peculiar follow-up. Not a direct sequel by any means, the film tells a unique tale regarding a depressed woman named Joey (Shu Qi) who tries to commit suicide after a failed relationship, but survives and learns that she is pregnant with the child of her former lover. Soon though, she begins to see vile spectral figures that follow her, and she learns that they are trying to take ahold of her unborn baby so that they may be reborn into the human world. And so, she goes on a journey to try and discover just what's happening and if there is any way to save her baby from being taken over by these seemingly vengeful spirits.The film does falter quite a bit in the fear department which is why it loses some crucial points for me, and a big part of the issues at hand is the lack of fear and panic in comparison with the first film. While it does have a few select moments of genuine creeps and jumps, the film is far too focused on story and character to really get under your skin, and the genuine scares often come few and far in between. I also found that Joey, while a compelling enough protagonist, is saddled far too often in the first half into being little more than a sort-of sad-eyed puppy-dog of a woman. Yes, the film is about an emotionally damaged woman... but it can be a bit overbearing at times.However, the film excels and is still a worthy watch due to the shockingly warm heart it contains beneath the surface. It really sets the film apart of not only the other entries in the series, but also the other contemporary horror films as a whole. The film is genuinely an emotional roller-coaster and many of its twists and turns are actually quite sweet and good-natured. It may seem counter-intuitive for a horror film to have a good moral center, but it actually works quite well here. The film's themes tend to center on ideas like seeking forgiveness from both oneself and the others around us, the concept of motherhood as a whole and just doing the right thing no matter what, and it gives the film a very fulfilling arc for not only Joey as a character, but everyone around her. Qi is quite good as our protagonist even if it takes some time to accept her depressive personality. And supporting roles by the likes of Eugenia Yuan and Jesdaporn Pholdee are exceptionally well-played and add a lot to the proceedings.While it's never quite as startling as I'd have wished, I still find "The Eye 2" a very fun and engaging feature, and I'd definitely highly recommend it to fans of foreign horror. For me, it's a pretty solid 7 out of 10. If you liked the original, give it a shot. I'd just also recommend steering clear of the third film... Oh, boy.

Since I liked the first one so much, I was hoping that the sequel would not be of the cash-cow variety; you know, the ones made purely for a profit, since the producers know that the audience is already there. I was thankfully right. This isn't phoned in, and it isn't really a follow-up to the original(not sure I see how one could be made). Instead, it's a completely different concept, albeit with similarities(also in the tone and, to an extent, the way it terrifies you). A young woman becomes depressed after a break-up, and tries to commit suicide. After that, she begins to see things that others don't seem to be able to. I gotta say, I love the idea(which I can't imagine many in the West thinking up) behind this(and refuse to spoil it for anyone). We get new characters, and the main one is again likable. The acting is quite good in most cases. This one is written by one of the same guys, and the director brothers return. The plot is interesting, and the explanation(arguably overly spelled out) basically makes sense, though the ending lets us down, and once you know the entire thing, it loses a lot of its impact. It's not as effectively creepy as its predecessor, even if it does start being so from the first frame. Eerie supernatural mystery, yes, thriller, not really. There are a few jump-scares and disgusting bits. It does work as a drama again, with genuine emotion, and it's only seldom corny and cheesy. The editing and cinematography are great, if a handful of shots last longer than they need to. There is a ton of disturbing content and some bloody violence in this. I recommend this to those looking for the hints more than the goods, and who don't require a strong conclusion, when it comes to Asian horror. 6/10

... inventive camera-work, thoughtful sound design, well constructed scenes, a few jolts, and a story line that mixes fantasy, flashbacks, hallucinations and dreams with some present tense reality and impossible events (like jumping pregnant off a building roof and ending up with only a few scratches and a healthy baby. Call it a script.No secret, I guess, that the Pang Brothers have their own personal logic and/or they can't be bothered with cohesiveness to their stories as long as there's a general thrust of somebody doing something questionable so the scaries can come after them until they fess up in an ambiguous way. I don't care. They do everything else well enough for me to enjoy their films.Big pleasant surprise was anorexic model Shu Qi nailed her part. She was beautiful and convincing.There is no reason for this film to be called EYE 2 except for capitalizing on the success of the original EYE which dealt specifically with a blind person getting an eye transplant from ... drum roll please ... someone who didn't die right--the basis of most Asian horror--so they haunt until a remedy is found.I'm pretty sure Shu Qi had 20/20 vision in this movie, but she was messing around with a married guy, causing the wife to commit suicide (didn't die right), comb her hair over her face like a good Asian horror girl should so she can effectively haunt the nasty mistress who is pregnant with her cheating husband's child.The MIA husband of some other pregnant girl also haunts our heroine for some reason. I dunno.They don't show it but at one point Shu Qi practically bites the face off some other guy. That was fun to think about.

The Eye was something of an exercise in frustration, an excellent first half with some truly chilling moments, lapsed quickly into a pedestrian 'detective' story for a scare free, and ultimately fairy dull second half. Scare free and dull because the film-makers reveal the background and explain why the heroine can see ghosts... Once this is revealed, the fear factor is quickly lost as the ghosts then have a motive - a reason for being. The element of the unexplained is lost, and it is that very element; particularly in ghost story, that can provide the most effective scares .The Eye 2 (which is not a true sequel) suffers in exactly the same way, as very early in the film, the appearance of the ghostly visions are fully explained, as are their motives ... The unfortunate consequence of this is that once the spirit's motives are known; (unpleasant enough as they are) the ghosts themselves cease to be in the least bit scary.The Eye 2 is by no means a bad film, it simply fails to deliver the scares that The Eye; (well, the first half at least) did with such effective aplomb. Whereas the former film's scares were born from the confusion of the newly sighted heroine seeing things she (and the audience) couldn't accept or understand, The Eye 2 relies all too heavily on cheaper scares and 'jump' inducing sound effects. If it's a genuinely creepy horror film you are after, The Eye 2 may leave ardent fans of the genre more than a little disappointed.