Usually when you hear of the Pang Brother you automatically think great Asian Horror Directors. I think of my favorite Asian horror film, and one of the best films I have ever seen, The Eye. The brothers are known for their excellence in horror. However, as of late they have been in decline, as some of their films have not been all that great. I expected this one, The Child’s Eye to be awesome, because it is kind of a sequel to The Eye. However, what I got was a lackluster film with some bad acting and a ghost story that offer nothing new to the genre.
The Child’s Eye is about six young people on vacation in Bangkok that find themselves stranded at an airport due to a riot. They go to the Chung Tai Hotel, run by Chuen (Lam Ka-tung), where Rainie sees a female ghost and Ling finds a hovering hand trying to grab her. While at dinner the three men disappear. Rainie leads the girls with the aid of Man-man and her ghost-seeing dog Little Huang as they try and find them in the hotel’s underground passages where they encounter the female ghost and a strange monster which is actually a dog human hybrid.
This film was originally shot in 3-D and was one of the first 3-D Hong Kong horror films. You can see in the film that scenes involving some kind of giant bug and tear gas canister are all done with the 3-D technology as are some of the ghosts. The film lacks in a lot of areas the script reads like a long boring talkie and the action, (besides a few moving chairs) gets off to a slow start. The acting is nothing special either as it seemed that the lead actors in the film struggled to grasp hold of their characters. Sure it had a few good scares here and there but I didn’t think the film was anywhere near as great as The Eye was.
The DVD has a few features such as a behind the scenes interview with the Cast & Crew as well as a Trailer Gallery. The DVD also offers the film in Cantonese and English 5.1 Dolby Digital Audio as well as optional English and Spanish subtitles.
Overall, I was impressed by the style of the film but not with the story, the acting and yes even the hokey effects. There is also something about a ghost seeing dog that just brings up the thought of that dog in the original Hills Have Eyes 2. What’s with these psychic dogs in movies? It just does not work for me.
– Horror Bob
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- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
