The Eye

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Genre: Drama, Horror, Thriller
By Lionsgate
Director David Moreau, Xavier Palud
Starring Jessica Alba, Alessandro Nivola, Parker Posey, Francois Chau, Tamlyn Tomita

A Lesser Remake
What good is a remake if it is not as good if not better than the original? What if it is for the sake of allowing a wider group of viewers exposure to a film? The Eye has been remade from a successful Hong Kong horror flick starring Li Sin Jie as the blind protagonist who underwent an eye operation only to discover that she is able to see more things that she bargained for.

How would you feel if you were to regain your eyesight, having been blind for more than 15 years of your life, to be able to see the loved ones around you as well as the horrible sights of life beyond this earth?

Jessica Alba provides the eye candy in this US version of this remake. The premise is exactly the same; blind girl receives cornea from a tortured, unrestful soul, goes out of her way to find out the cause of her disturbances and eventually finds that having the sense of sight may not necessarily be better than being blind.

One main difference in the treatment of this horror flick is that for the Asian version, it is more easily acceptable that the protagonist was seeing ‘things’ while the US version made her out to be out of her mind and conjuring things in her mind because she suddenly found herself the same as the rest of the people and no longer a blind girl who is able to what non-blind people can. Interesting observation made by her doctor. Perhaps this was the reason the film ended with her being blind and accomplishing things beyond the expectations we have of a blind girl.

Another thing that strike me was that when Jessica Alba was blind, the world was beautiful to her. She was perpetually smiling, contented and genuinely happy. However, we hardly saw her smile ever since she came out of the hospital. She saw for herself how cruel the world can be. How callous and the black faces and scorns people wear on their faces everyday. How chilling to live in such a world ya? Perhaps being blind is not so bad after all.

Though the US version does not titillate or scare me as much out of my wits, I had to console myself that this is after all an American film made for Americans. I heard that Americans will most probably not choose to watch films in Chinese with English subtitles. Much like most Singaporeans will not choose to watch non-English or non-Chinese films with English subtitles. Perhaps I’m just the minority?

For those of you out there, unless you really want to catch the very attractive Jessica Alba, go watch the original Hong Kong version and scare yourself out of your wits.