Jiney is a talented student of Arts with a trauma in her childhood and lack of communication with her mother, and excellent photographer that is not satisfied with her awarded works. When sh... Read allJiney is a talented student of Arts with a trauma in her childhood and lack of communication with her mother, and excellent photographer that is not satisfied with her awarded works. When she witnesses a car crash, she is driven by a morbid wish and takes pictures of the dead vic... Read allJiney is a talented student of Arts with a trauma in her childhood and lack of communication with her mother, and excellent photographer that is not satisfied with her awarded works. When she witnesses a car crash, she is driven by a morbid wish and takes pictures of the dead victim. She becomes obsessed with death, and her close friend Jas feels that Jiney needs help... Read all
- Awards
- 6 nominations
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Storyline
Did you know
- Trivia(at around 9 mins) When Jiney (Race Wong) first visits Jas (Rosanne Wong)'s apartment, Rosanne is watching a music video of their group, 2R.
The first half of the film is slow, subdued, beautifully shot with sporadic moments of surreal violence presented in a distant, dreamlike manner that stresses the characters' disconnection from society. The scenes in which she sets up and photographs various monstrous, decaying objects is masterful; creating a warped sense of beauty that seems as far removed from the horror genre as you could possibly get. As the character continues to stock-pile these images of death and decay - including that first fleeting moment wherein she snaps the aftermath of a car accident, or a tense and thrilling scene in which she documents the suicide of a man from the top of a tall building, one devastating frame at a time - we get hints of something else beginning to take shape that won't truly become apparent until right at the very end. Until then we must wonder where the film is going; with the first half of the story seeming at times to be more like a biographical drama about a tortured artist losing their grip on reality and the world around them and, as a result, creating their own world in which murder and sex become dangerously inter-twined and beauty can be found within the piles of decapitated chickens and the damp, soaked carcass of a rotting dead bird.
Describing in more detail the switch in tone and texture that occurs somewhere towards the end of the film might be considered too much of a spoiler, especially given the ideas, mood and atmosphere so skilfully established during these first forty minutes. That said, I don't think the eventual unravelling of the narrative is quite as random as many of the other reviewers seem to suggest, with a number of scenes, particularly those between Jiney and her sort-of boyfriend Anson foreshadowing many of the elements of power, humiliation, sex and violence that will reoccur during the eventual twist in the tale. It's fascinating stuff, but again, as with Audition and Marebito, could prove to be somewhat disappointing to anyone expecting a conventional horror film; with the lingering mood of ambient dread and voyeuristic terror conveyed in the more psychological first half recalling some of the more tense moments of Oxide Pang's earlier co-directed hit, The Eye (2002) - and similar Asian horror films that arrived in the wake of Ju On: The Grudge (2000) and Ringu (19998) - being completely replaced with something much darker, grittier, physical and explicit; tapping into the territory of Eli Roth perhaps, although it's worth noting that this particular film was released a good year before Roth's near iconic Hostel (2005).
Whether or not the ending really works is a question for the individual, though I suppose it would be easy to view it as an extended fantasy sequence in keeping with the character's dark descent into the depths of her own tortured imagination. Regardless, this for me is still a great film; one that creates a mood and an atmosphere perfectly pitched between elements of fantasy and reality, and riddled with images that are bold, striking and completely unforgettable. It is the style of the film and the strange wavering atmosphere in which every character seems to be a potential victim or victor that really pulls us in; enticing us with a story of fear, regret, terror and paranoia, leading us down numerous narrative blind alleyways, convincing us that all is well and that we've emerged from the psychological wilderness and then BAM! - they hit us with the hard stuff. Understandably it won't appeal to everyone; it begins slowly and takes time to pick up the pace and never make a conscious effort to appease conventions of genre or narrative expectations. However, anyone with a fondness for interesting, challenging and edgy world cinema should enjoy the fantastic atmosphere and lingering traces of horror presented to us by this fine piece of work.
- ThreeSadTigers
- Mar 19, 2008
Details
Box office
- Gross worldwide
- $677,279
- Runtime1 hour 41 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1