The Third Eye

Year:2006
Director:Carol Lai Miu-Suet
Cast:Race Wong Yuen-Ling, Wong Yau-Nam, Derek Tsang Kwok-Cheung, Liu Kai-Chi, Otto Wong Chi-On, Tony Ho Wah-Chiu, Samuel Pang King-Chi, Farini Chang, Joman Chiang Cho-Man, Fu Yuet-Mai, Sze Mei-Yee, Sarika Choy
Description:
Premiering at the 30th
Hong Kong International Film Festival, but taking
over a full year to finally make it to home video,
The Third Eye has been all but forgotten in
the meantime. One might think that an Andrew Lau-produced,
HD Video-shot suspense thriller starring Race Wong
and Wong Yau-Nam would at least get some buzz, but
so far nada. Honestly, has anyone out there ever said
two words about The Third Eye after its fest
premiere? If they did, then yay for them, because
The Third Eye deserves some attention
- though not that much, as it's really little more
than a competently shot and conceived slasher/thriller
that uses its limited resources well. The film ultimately
goes nowhere, but it possesses interesting visuals
and some effective performances, and the amount of
blood spilled is rare for a Hong Kong film nowadays.
We're looking hard for positives over here.
Wong Yau-Nam is Leung,
a slacker voyeur who shows up at a rural motel located
in Tai O on Lantau Island. He got there by following
a comely flight attendant named Amy ,
and once he checks in, he goes about rigging the motel
with hidden cameras in order to spy on the hotel inhabitants,
as well as broadcast their hopefully sordid exploits
on the Internet. Despite his less-than-noble intentions,
he gets drawn into the lives of his neighbors, who
possess differing secrets and degrees of sin. Writer
Gum is working on a disturbingly bloody
novel, and it's curiously set in a rural motel with
characters quite similar to the people around him.
Gum has a thing for Fa , a depressed
young girl who spends all her time taking care of
her invalid father, who gravely talks about how he'd
be better off dead. Fa sometimes receives drugs from
Lik , a dealer who lives in the motel
and grows his own inventory in his room. Lik also
deals to Zheng , a barrister who visits once
a week to sleep with his longtime mistress, Susan
.
Running the motel is
the pretty Ka Kei , who lost both her parents
at a young age and has a boyfriend named Wai , who urges her to leave Lantau and emigrate
to Australia. Leung strikes up a friendship with Ka
Kei, but is warned off by her uncle ,
a local cop whose manner is overprotective and curiously
menacing. Regardless, Leung stays on, but things start
to go very bad - though at first, they actually seem
to be getting better. Fa and Gum start to act on their
romantic feelings, and Leung and Ka Kei seem to get
closer. too. However, while in a drug-induced stupor,
Leung dreams that Fa murders Amy, and Gum always seems
to think that someone is watching them - besides Leung,
that is. There is another voyeur or maybe even two
watching the inhabitants of the motel, and people
even start to disappear. The situations and relationships
eventually come to a head, and when the answers are
spilled, so are copious amounts of blood. Who's watching
everyone, and are their reasons for doing so sound
or senseless?
The Third Eye
sets up its characters and the mystery rather effectively,
the highlight being a surreal drug-induced montage
midway through the film where everyone trips out on
Lik's homegrown goods. There's some interest in simply
trying to figure out who's offing who in the motel;
the film sets up clues that make the proceedings involving
for those who are actually paying attention. The motel,
with its green-painted walls and claustrophobic spaces,
makes for a fine location, and the actors are okay.
Wong Yau-Nam is effective at creating amoral, though
interesting protagonists and Race Wong is able to
project vulnerability or even danger through minute
facial expressions. Liu Kai-Chi is always worth watching,
especially when he's allowed to go over the top -
which he eventually does. The big reveals in The
Third Eye are welcome because they answer all
the film's nagging questions, some of which go unanswered
from the first minute of the film. When everything
gets explained, at least it all makes sense, with
some details neatly falling into pre-planned place.
Director Carol Lai has a good handle on technique,
which she also demonstrates in her later horror effort
Naraka 19, and she's good with visuals too.
There are a couple of problems with the HD Video image,
such as the expected video noise during low-light
scenes, but considering the obvious low budget, this
is a good effort.
However, when everything
finally ends in The Third Eye, a possible response
could be: "So?" Audience identification is tough here,
as the characters are not terribly sympathetic, and
when the big explanation comes down, it's mostly a
connect-the-dots exercise, with some new information
thrown out that fills in all the gaps. The explanations
don't really resonate with the characters, however,
and the film fails at connecting their issues to the
film's overarching theme. The film's Chinese title
translates as "Be careful of the eye," which possesses
a double meaning. One, it references the many instances
of voyeurism, which occur via binoculars, hidden cameras,
or just peepholes. The second meaning is richer, referencing
the omnipresent "eye in the sky", who watches over
everyone to see if they've been good little boys and
girls. That meaning gets mentioned in the film, but
it doesn't really add much to what came before, plus
it's delivered during a protracted, goes-on-forever
ending that goes from interesting to simply interminable.
At a certain point, the film slows to a crawl to indicate
that there was more thought behind this film than
your standard horror exercise. However, it's questionable
if the filmmakers truly accomplished all they seem
to imply they did. The Third Eye is a decent,
but not entirely successful effort, and it doesn't
end in a way that convinces of its self-supposed meaning.
But for a while, it's better than its reputation -
or lack of one - would indicate.