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Review
by Kozo: |
The
Pang Brothers aren't dead, but after their most recent
horror films one may be forgiven for thinking so.
The Eye 2 felt somewhat light and The Eye
10 was a curious and even silly misfire. The twin
brothers still displayed their ace ability to create
cinema tension, but there seemed to be nothing beyond
the cinematic anticipation. That trend looks to continue
with Re-cycle, as the first half of the film
seems to be a repeat of their celebrated tricks. The
pulse-pounding soundtrack, slow-moving reveals, and
tense buildup feel like The Eye redux, but
thankfully the brothers pull something else out of
their sleeve. The result may confound as many people
as it intrigues, but at least this feels like a step
in the right direction for the Pang Brothers. The
presence of Angelica Lee only seals the deal.
Lee plays Tsui Ting-Yin,
a popular author whose last three romantic novels
have just been adapted into a new film. Her agent
(Lawrence Chou in a small role) has already announced
that her new book will be a supernatural thriller
called "The Re-cycle". Sadly, Ting-Yin is
stuck with her writing, and discards many of her ideas
soon after she imagines them. At the same time, she
has personal issues: a former love - and an inspiration
for her successful romance novels - has resurfaced,
but she shuts him out, choosing to bury herself in
her work instead. But strange things begin occurring
to Ting-Yin. She finds long strands of someone else's
hair littered about her flat, she begins receiving
odd static-filled phone calls, and she even spots
a strange red-colored rift in the sky pulling debris
into it. At a dinner with pal Rain Li, it's suggested
that all these strange phenomena may simply be a product
of Ting-Yin's overactive imagination, which is a reasonable
idea given her current difficulties writing a horror
novel.
Before long, the mysterious
events begin to pile up - and then Alice travels
through the looking glass. Ting-Yin crosses over into
a mysterious fantasy world defined by lurid colors,
desolate production design, and bodies falling from
the skies. Multiple worlds lay before her - abandoned
buildings with bottomless stairwells, color-drained
hills beneath ashen-colored skies, corpse-filled forests
stripped of green and yellow, a junkyard of oversized
forgotten toys. Ting-Yin finds herself wandering from
each desolate world to the next, each time being pursued
by shadowy creatures and scads of blackened undead.
How exactly did Ting-Yin end up in this place, and
more importantly, how is she going to get out?
Re-cycle is fun
for attentive filmgoers because of its heavy foreshadowing;
every single detail given, from dialogue to visuals
to whole scenes plays a purpose. This shows thought
on the part of the Pang Brothers, which is a rarity
for filmmakers currently working in Hong Kong. However,
while the screenwriting is thoughtful, it also serves
to make the film predictable. At a certain point,
it becomes obvious what will happen to Ting-Yin simply
because it's mentioned somewhere else first - and
in case you forgot, the Pangs use flashbacks to remind
you. The only time this doesn't occur is during a
pivotal moment near the film's climax, which likely
occurs because the Pang Brothers feared they would
give away one of the film's biggest reveals. Nice
try, but even that pivotal plot point is rather predictable. Re-cycle features some heady ideas, but it's
laid out so efficiently that even the most supposedly
surprising details can be easily guessed.
Still, the predictability
doesn't detract from the overall ride, which is as
involving as one would expect - and hope for - from
the Pang Brothers. The first half of the film, which
chronicles Ting-Yin's growing unease and initial foray
into the other world, is vintage Pang Brothers. By
now, the image of slow-moving portents of horror coupled
with a thundering-drums soundtrack isn't really that
scary, but it can still generate plenty of suspense.
The Pangs change up their technique effectively too;
slow buildups are alternated with pulse-quickening
chase sequences, and the sudden shock scares are used
sparingly. The other world is rendered with impressive
detail, each new world possessing imagery that's alternately
beautiful, immersive and horrible. Some of the details
are sometimes so over the top that they may appear
more funny than scary (the sheer fakery of the pursuing
ghouls prevents them from being that frightening),
but the atmosphere is more than enough to compensate.
Once you get what's going on, Re-cycle can
prove quite engrossing.
The film doesn't always
click, though. The actual logic of Ting-Yin's brush
with the supernatural is explained in an explicit
fashion - and even then there are lingering questions.
Once in the other world, Ting-Yin befriends a knowledgeable
old man (Lau Siu-Ming), who gives her some pointers
on making it to "The Transit", i.e. the
place where she can return to her own world. At times
the other world follows the logic laid out in the
exposition, and at other times it starts to feel arbitrary.
The Pang Brothers exercise their imagination in creating
the other world, but sometimes it seems as if they're
just using the screen as a canvas for whatever horrific
images they can come up with. It's never clear who
all the entities are that chase Ting-Yin, and after
a while her journey becomes more plodding than organic.
In getting to The Transit, Ting-Yin must cross a number
of worlds with specific challenges. The multiple worlds
sometimes provide interesting answers to Ting-Yin's
questions, but at other times they seem to exist like
levels in a video game - each coming complete with
a "puzzle" that must be solved before Ting-Yin
can move on. It's still involving, but also somewhat
transparent in its manufactured action.
Still, there is a cause
and effect behind Re-cycle, and the emotions
created resonate effectively. Part of this is due
to the film's themes, which manage more emotion than
the past two Eye films did. Ting-Yin has a
real connection to this other world, and though the
facts are doled out in an unsurprising and even predictable
manner, they seem very felt. Angelica Lee turns in
a remarkable performance, made all the more impressive
when you consider that for the majority of the film
she's basically acting against nothing. For Lee, Re-cycle is basically one big reaction shot, and the actress
is never less than convincing. At the same time, she
brings weight to the film's more emotional scenes,
and appears to give her character a tangible inner
life. If Re-cycle succeeds at all, Lee is a
very, very large reason why.
Re-cycle does
end on a final moment that could leave many in the
audience momentarily scratching their heads. The Pangs
take great pains to lay down their logic and their
rules, and they frequently do so in a way that seems
to talk down to their audience. Ting-Yin's understanding
is frequently complemented by flashbacks or quick
exposition, such that the audience is basically spoon-fed
everything throughout the course of the film. Throwing
an extra twist out there at the end only serves to
confuse things. Still, if one were to follow Re-cycle's
logic to its bitter end, then the film's final moments
do make sense. The whole may not feel that substantial,
but the ending does give the film that final talking
point that makes it much more discussion-worthy than
the Pangs' past two efforts. And hey, in these quality-starved
times, anything that gets people talking can't be
all that bad. Re-cycle shows that The Pangs
still have the ability to involve and excite as few
filmmakers working in Hong Kong do anymore. And again,
having Angelica Lee star seals the deal. (Kozo 2006) |
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