Joey, a young girl, is going through a bad time: she quits her job, spending all her remaining financial means, to lock herself in a hotel room... where she attempts-unconsciously-to take her own life through the use of barbiturates.
The intervention of an orderly (who was supposed to wake her up at a given time) proves providential and, following a gastric lavage, the girl is saved. Meanwhile, after being kept under medical observation, Joey attempts to make contact with her boyfriend who, for no apparent reason, dodges and avoids her.
The young woman discovers that she is pregnant: in a new attempt to reconnect with her lover she learns, to her disappointment, that he no longer intends to continue the relationship with her...
Meanwhile, strange visions and presences, seem to disturb the girl's psychic balance: during a pre-birth class she witnesses a nightmarish vision...
One of many that have been haunting her for some time. Getting in touch with a Buddhist monk, Joey is informed of what is happening to her: the souls of the dead appear in two circumstances to the living; when one is poised, between life and death (an experience the girl had after ingesting pills) or when a woman is pregnant.
It is, in fact, according to the karmic law of reincarnation that -the souls of the dead- pursue pregnant women in order to be able to take the place of the unborn child.
But who is that lady Joey sees over and over again?
Learning that her boyfriend was married, and that--as a result of his affair--his wife took her own life, a combination of guilt drives Joey to the brink of insanity, prompting her again to entertain the idea of suicide...
Original sequel to a film (The Eye) that, in its own way, divided public opinion: garnering -in equal measure- accolades and critiques.
What is certain is that The Eye proposed a challenging type of horror filmmaking, endorsed by a directing style (eventful and caustic) that the Pang brothers followed up with this second chapter.
And if before the eye, the cause of otherworldly and spirit visions, was that of an outcast "visionary" who died and was later transplanted onto a patient, now it is that (or rather they are those) of a depressed young woman who attempted suicide only to find out later that she was pregnant.
Agitated, chaotic, and bustling style, a decidedly intriguing and engaging soundtrack, and a story that-for the first 60 minutes-grabs the viewer's attention.
It would have been a must-have in the genre, in spite of the plethora of Western sequels and remakes, if the ending-slow, dull, and pathetic-did not direct the entire narrative structure (expertly and classily constructed for the first part) to total collapse.
In conclusion: a film that hints at being in front of two good, promising, and talented authors and that--at the same time--irritates because of a ridiculous and de-constructive afterword.
That's too bad, because the first part is respectable--and the Pang brothers build the whole affair through the use of a script that looks at the Western type.
Review by Undying1
