Seeking to capitalize on the release of the recent Hollywood remake of The Eye , the third entry in the Pang Bros.' Eye series is coming out on DVD in the U.S. from Lionsgate. And the twins' 2006 thriller Re-Cycle will get a limited theatrical release in the U.S.
Confusingly, the new Eye DVD is being released as The Eye 3. I say confusing because it has other names. The English title for its original 2005 release in Hong Kong and other Asian territories was The Eye 10, so named for the 10 ways of summoning ghosts. The film has been released in the U.K. as The Eye Infinity. And, director Tsui Hark has been said to be at work on another film called The Eye 3.
The 2005 pan-Asian production starred Wilson Chen, Kris Gu, Isabella Leong and Kate Yeung as well as Thai stars Ray MacDonald and Bongkot "Tak" Kongmalai. They're a bunch of meddling kids trying to communicate with ghosts. Can't they leave well enough alone?
Tying it in with The Eye series, they explore eight more ways to contact the spirit world. The first two means - having a corneal transplant as in 2002's The Eye and attempting to commit suicide while pregnant as seen with Shu Qui in 2004's The Eye 2 - have been tried already. In The Eye 3, or whatever it's called, one of the ways they try is to bend over and look behind you through your knees. Now, if you've seen Nang Nak, you know that's a bad idea.
There's a slick trailer making the rounds. I watched over at the Lionsgate page. Kaiju Shakedown's Grady Hendrix has seen the trailer too. He writes:
The press release brags it won "the Golden Trailer award." I sort of snickered at that and then I watched the trailer and they're right - it is pretty impressive. It actually makes Eye 3 look like a good, inventive horror film when it's actually a shoddy lowbrow horror/comedy flick.
The Eye 3 will be released on June 24. It's available for pre-order from Amazon, HK Flix and YesAsia.
Meanwhile, there's Re-Cycle, the Pangs' fantasy about a ghostly dimension of discarded items, which include aborted babies. Fangoria has more:
The new Luminous Velocity Releasing will give the Pang Brothers’ Re-Cycle theatrical play later this summer. Lee Sin-je from the Pangs’ breakout film The Eye stars as Ting-yin, a novelist suffering from writer’s block whose agent announces that her next book will deal with the supernatural. Investigating the subject, Ting-yin discovers a strange parallel reality and decides to write about it — only for this occult plane to start taking over her life. The film is set to open in Denver on August 8, with bookings for New York and LA (possibly as midnight shows) currently being worked out.
The theatrical releases will precede a reported Blu-ray and Region 1 DVD release of Re-Cycle in September.
(Via Kaiju Shakedown)
it doesn't help that some people also confused Tsui Hark's MISSING with The Eye 3, just because it stars Angelica Lee and has a ghost story somewhat similar to The Eye.
ReplyDeleteI wondered about that too after reading your review and Stefan's review of Missing.
ReplyDeleteAs you say: Absolutely baffling.