THE EYE (2002) Seems awfully familiar for a Chinese movie I know this Chinese lady, who was telling me after she caught me with this DVD about a Chinese belief involving one eye being able to see ghosts. From that, I was more or less able to guess the entire plot of this movie, though I counted on one left eye too many. A movie from five-years-under-Beijing Hong Kong, can The Eye be blamed for it being so obvious to audiences on the other side of the world? Ten years ago, shit yeah. Now, I'm not so sure. Blind girl gets cornea transplants, sees ghosts. That's basically the plot and you can figure out the twists from there, some minor tweaks aside. She's a violinist in an all-blind orchestra, and after the operation is no longer allowed to play in it. Stevie Wonder got shit from blind activists just for considering such an operation - this girl probably shouldn't have been surprised with the conductor's decision. The inevitable, sad story of the cornea donor breaks with the girl's point of view and tells us nothing we hadn't figured out, and leads to a climactic explosion that left me wondering, what the hell was the point of that? Scary movies need fewer explosions. No doubt, The Eye is well-made and -cast, it feels spooky and and there are a few good scary scenes. It's just too narratively routine and behind the times for Western audiences, and I can't pretend I'm not among that crowd. Funny how there's sort of an excuse for this now, but there wouldn't have been ten years ago. BACK TO THE E's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE