The Eye (filem 2002)

The Eye (, juga digelar Nampak Hantu) adalah sebuah filem ngeri 2002 Hong Kong-Singaporean-Thai diarah oleh Pang brothers. Filem ini spawned dua turutan oleh Pang brothers, The Eye 2 dan The Eye 10. Ada juga dua buatan semula filem ini, Naina, dibuat pada 2005 di India dan The Eye, sebuah pengeluaran Hollywood 2008 dibintangi Jessica Alba dan dikelaurkan oleh Peter Chan dan Paula Wagner.

Jalan cerita
Blind since the age of two, 20-year-old Hong Kong classical violinist Mun undergoes an eye cornea transplant after receiving a pair of new eyes from a donor. Initially, she is glad to have her sense of sight restored but becomes troubled when she starts seeing mysterious figures that seem to foretell gruesome deaths. The night before her discharge from hospital, she sees a shadowy figure accompanying a patient out of the room and the next morning the patient is pronounced dead.

Mun goes to see her doctor's nephew, Dr Wah, a psychologist, about the strange entities that she has been seeing with her new eyes. He is skeptical at first, but as he gradually develops a closer relationship with her, he decides to accompany her on a trip to northern Thailand to find Ling, the eye donor. When they ask a village doctor about Ling and her family, he is unwilling to reveal anything but becomes more co-operative when Mun tells him that she sees what Ling used to see. Apparently, Ling has a psychic ability due to her eyes, that allows her to foresee death and disaster. However, her fellow villagers misunderstood her as a jinx and refused to trust her. Once, Ling tried to warn the people about an imminent disaster but they drove her away and her vision came true. She felt guilty for the deaths and hanged herself. Ling's mother is both depressed and angry with her daughter and has never forgiven Ling for committing suicide, until one night Ling's spirit possesses Mun and attempts suicide. Ling's mother saves Mun and breaks down, saying that she has forgiven Ling and Ling's spirit leaves in peace.

On the return journey, their bus is caught in a traffic jam and Mun sees hundreds of ghostly figures lumbering on the road. Believing that a catastrophe is approaching, she runs out of the bus and tries to warn everyone to leave, but no one understands her and thinks that she is insane. In fact, the traffic jam is due to a tank truck that has toppled over and is blocking the road. The truck starts leaking natural gas but nobody notices it. A driver restarts his engine and ignites the gas, causing a chain explosion. Just then, Dr Wah saves Mun from death by shielding her with his body, but Mun is already blinded by glass fragments. In the epilogue of the film, a blind Mun is seen roaming the streets of Hong Kong. Although she has lost her sense of sight, she is happy that she now has the support and friendship of Dr Wah.

Lakonan
Angelica Lee sebagai Wong Kar Mun
Lawrence Chou sebagai Dr Wah
Chutcha Rujinanon sebagai Ling
Yut Lai So sebagai Yingying
Candy Lo sebagai Yee (kakak kepada Mun)
Yin Ping Ko sebagai nenek kepada Mun
Pierre Png sebagai Dr Eak
Edmund Chen sebagai Dr Lo
Wai-Ho Yung sebagai Mr Ching
Wilson Yip sebagai Taoist

Pengeluaran
The Eye is a co-production of MediaCorp Raintree Pictures in Singapore and Applause Pictures of Hong Kong, and was shot in Hong Kong and Thailand with a pan-Asian cast and crew, including Malaysian actress Angelica Lee, Chinese-Canadian singer Lawrence Chou, Singaporean singer-actor Pierre Png and Thai actress Chutcha Rujinanon. The crew included Thai cinematographer Decha Seementa and the Thai music collective Orange Music provided the score.

Danny and Oxide Pang said they were inspired to write the screenplay for The Eye by a report they had seen in a Hong Kong newspaper 13 years before, about a 16-year-old girl who had received a corneal transplant and committed suicide soon after.

"We'd always wondered what the girl saw when she regained her eyesight finally and what actually made her want to end her life", Oxide said in an interview.

It is worth mentioning that a similar movie was planned by Alfred Hitchcock many years ago, as referenced in Patrick McGilligan's Biography, Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light. (as well as others). The movie was about a blind pianist and Alfred Hitchcock had hoped to get James Stewart to play the part. The pianist undergoes a breakthrough eye transplant surgery and sees images and things that the donor once saw, including a murder.

Penerimaan kritikal
The film received generally favorable reviews from critics in North America. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 69% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 91 reviews. On Metacritic, the film received an average score of 66 out of 100, based on 26 reviews.

Persembahan Box office

The film was released in the United States and Canada in 13 theaters on June 6, 2003, grossing $122,590 its opening weekend. In those countries, the film's widest release was 23 theaters and it eventually grossed a total $512,049.

Rujukan

Pautan luar
Official site (English)
Official site at Palm Pictures

Hong Kong Cinemagic - The Eye
The Eye (2002) at HKMDB

Review

Filem 2002
Filem hantu
Filem ngeri psikologi
Filem seram 2000-an
Filem seram Hong Kong tahun 2002
Filem bahasa Kantonis
Filem Singapura tahun 2002
Filem seram Thai
Filem bahasa Thai