Devil Eye
Director: Cash Chin Man-kei
Year: 2001
Rating: 1.0
One star
is being generous. This shoddy made on the run film perhaps encapsulates
the collapse of the Hong Kong film industry at the beginning of the 21st
century better than most. The number of films dropped precipitously
as did the budgets. After 1997 people were in a state of confusion and few
wanted to invest in Hong Kong films. Johnny To and Wong Jing to their credit
being two who continued to make films in Hong Kong. It wasn't really until
the Mainland began to pour money into films in co-productions that the quality
of films picked up - but there was a price to pay of course. This film definitely
had no Mainland money or any other kind really. The director is Cash Chin
Man-kei which may not mean anything to most people but in 1995 he directed
one of the most deliriously fun trashy supernatural films out of Hong Kong
called The Eternal Evil of Asia in which some innocent Hong Kongers went
to Thailand and ran into witchcraft and giant penis heads. In this film five
young Hong Kongers go to the beach resort of Pattaya and run into murder
and ghosts.
Eternal Evil was a real movie, this was
likely shot in a weekend. They show the name of the Hotel (Royal Twins Palace
Hotel) so many times that I have no doubt they were being comped. If the
hotel was ever shown the film they must have been pissed because the hotel
has a ghost and Thais totally believe in them, think they are bad luck. I
have mentioned this story before but once my girlfriend had two friends coming
by and I had to go downstairs to let them in. When we got to my floor the
lights down my wing were off and I said "Yes been like this since the fellow
next door died", Without a word both of them took off like bats out of hell.
The same things happens in the film except they really see a ghost.
Three women and two men come for fun. One
of them (Iris Wong) is one of those annoying people who have to video everything
they do. I would have grabbed her camera and thrown it into the ocean. She
inadvertently films a man throwing a woman into the road where she is run
over and killed. Does she go to the police and say I have it here? No, she
says to the group, let's go eat. Later that night the ghost of the woman
possesses her and has her walk and walk and walk - nice tour of Pattaya at
night - till she finds the killer - and he kills Iris. Thanks ghost. She
of course has her camera with him and videos her death. The next day the
cops give the camera back to our now foursome. Without looking at the footage.
But they do and see their friend killed. Do they then say we should contact
the police? No of course not. They go look for him. So astonishingly stupid.
The film is less than 80 minutes and big
chunks of it are taken up with Iris filming and then later walking through
the town and then another one of the girls walks and films and to fill out
the film the last ten minutes is a travelogue of monks walking around. Any
of us with five friends could have made this film. I ask myself, why do I
watch films like this. Because someone has to for the record. Somehow talked
into this - for a free trip I would imagine - were Cheung Tat-ming, Michael
Tse, Iris Chai and Cindy Au.
