For so many influential years, the best Asian horror films were the trendsetters amongst global genre movements; the go-to films for the coolest kids in film school. Mimicked and mutated by filmmakers the world over, the works of masters like Hong Kong’s Siu-Tung Ching (Chinese Ghost Story, 1987), Japan’s Takashi Miike (Audition, 1999) and Hideo Nakata (Ringu, 1998) and The Philippine’s Yam Laranas (The Echo, 2004) were the source of a new style and language in modern cinema.
When they burst on the scene with the kinetic shoot-'em-up Bangkok Dangerous (1999) and horror classic The Eye (2002), twin brothers Danny and Oxide Pang became the cause célèbre of Asian cinema. Sadly, in recent years their output has been negligible (their ok American debut The Messengers, 2006; the derivative The Storm Warriors, 2009; the unwatchable American remake of their own Bangkok Dangerous, 2008). With Child’s Eye, their much-anticipated return to the ghostly film landscape they made famous nearly a decade ago, they have hit a new low.
Essentially a weak rehash of the best elements of their 2002 film and its inferior sequels, Child’s Eye is the story of three doe-eyed young women – Rainie (Rainie Yang), Ling (Elanne Kwong) and Ciwi (Ciwi Lam) – searching for their boyfriends in a murky netherworld that exists beneath a flea-pit hotel in Bangkok. Led by a mysterious orphan and her ghost-sniffing puppy, the girls walk the dark, dank ruins experiencing dog-faced demon-boys (not as scary as it sounds), floating disembodied hands and the traditional dark-haired apparition that has been the Pang’s stock-in-trade spook all along.
The Pang Brother’s have never been overly reliant on dialogue to achieve their creepy aims, but ignoring the wordplay in Child’s Eye is impossible – it’s terrible. The boyfriends are the most superficial of creations, uttering imbecilic lines that are delivered with eye-rolling 'first-time-actor’ intensity; the three women are the most obvious of filmic tools, merely in frame to react to the poor effects. (At this point, I may have been tempted lighten up the review with a comment like 'The best actor is the dog!", but even his/her thesping, with its incessant and inappropriate yapping and blank stare straight to camera, is infuriating, even comical.)
Worst of all, The Pang Brothers have chosen Child’s Eye to be Hong Kong horror’s first dabble in modern 3D technology. It is plainly obvious that the directors have little knowledge of the format beyond its effectiveness when aiming for empty-headed shock tactics. Hands, chairs and spectres rushing the camera become tired very quickly. (On a few occasions, one is reminded of the cheap, cheesy effects of '80s films like Jaws 3-D and Amityville 3D – stinkers that sounded the death-knell for the chintzy fad until just recently.)
So largely worthless is Child’s Eye in most regards, its Australian release seems unwarranted. 3D fanatics will be left disappointed, as will aficionados of HK-horror and Asian frighteners in general. That only leaves die-hard fans of The Pang Brother’s work – an already-straining subset that, after having viewed their latest limp, uninvolving misfire, will surely dwindle to virtual non-existence.
