STUDIO: Image Entertainment
RELEASE DATE: September 23, 2008
STARRING: Lee Sinje, Siu-Ming Lau, Zeng Qi Qi, Jetrin Wattanasin, Rain Li, and Lawrence Chou
WRITTEN BY: The Pang Brothers, Sam Lung, and Cub Chin
DIRECTED BY: The Pang Brothers
FEATURES: Making Of
Deleted Scenes
CG Rendering Comparisons
Premiere
Q&A Sessions With Cast And Crew
Trailer

Finally. It's about time the Pang brothers made a worthy follow-up to their brilliant The Eye, one of my favorite films from the wave of Asian horror that struck the States in the early part of this decade. The Eye is a great horror movie, full of atmosphere and genuine scares (all of which was horrendously washed away in the American remake). Re-Cycle is the best Asian horror movie in years. A worthy successor to not just The Eye, but a lot of the films on this list. Re-Cycle is a relatively simple, mostly dialogue-free haunting tale, a bad experience for a female protagonist, but it's shot in such an unusual, atmospheric style that it gets under your skin. It's like Mirrormask meets The Grudge. Yes, it's as awesome as that sounds. It may have some overly goofy visuals and not make a lick of sense, but watched late at night with the volume turned up, as all Asian horror should be (I'll never forget seeing the original Ringu alone at about 3am), Re-Cycle really works. It's the most effective Asian horror movie I've seen since 2004's Shutter. (Although, it should be noted that Re-Cycle is a 2006 film. It takes that long for them to get to our shores.)

Re-Cycle feels more confident from the very beginning with a fantastic score and mood-setting opening credits. The impact of that can't be denied. It's like an overture before a play. It sets a tone. Lee Sinje (so great as the lead in The Eye) steps in front of the camera for the Pangs again as Tsui Ting-Yin, a very successful writer trying to get over a bad relationship. She's moved on from the romantic novels she once wrote to try her hand at horror with an impending novel called Re-Cycle. At the same time, the man who inspired her heartfelt melodramas comes back into her life. The title is clearly an artistic aesthetic for the Pangs. Re-Cycle refers to what creative people do, taking their life experiences and turning them into successful fiction. But can it go both ways? What if writing a horror novel, a ghost story, makes that a reality? That's what starts to happen to our heroine, as bumps in the night and long, black hairs that don't belong to her give way to much creepier fare. Like what? How about what looks like a magnetic rip in the sky and what is basically an alternate universe of terror? Re-Cycle starts as a simple ghost story but becomes more than that. And what I truly love about it is that it is completely fearless in its irrationality. What Hollywood has missed in nearly every single Asian horror remake is that they always feel the need to explain everything. Re-Cycle may have interesting themes about writing and creativity but it's a mood piece, first and foremost. It doesn't need to make perfect sense if it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. And Re-Cycle definitely does that as Sinje goes deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole of insanity all the way to an entire world of horror. It's a fun house ride of Asian horror that may fall apart in the end (the final scenes are ridiculous) but that doesn't make the ride that came before any less enjoyable.

The Pangs bathe Re-Cycle in a green and silver color palette. It's hard to believe the same visual artists who made a movie that looks this impressive would make the stinker called Bangkok Dangerous that came out last month. Their visual sense is on best display in Blu-Ray 1080p, of course. I will say that the picture, while sometimes stunning, also looks awfully grainy for Blu-Ray but that reflects both the budget and a writer who has been spoiled by recent releases for Iron Man, Transformers, and The Godfather. I'm used to seeing foreign horror films with weak visual presentations, sometimes on bootleg tapes, so seeing one on Blu-Ray is a stunningly refreshing experience, even if the video may not be perfect. The audio is better with a perfectly mixed score and a film that relies a lot on sound effects. An impressive collection of special features rounds out one of the few must-buys for horror fans this season. You'll see a TON of horror releases in October trying to find their way into your Halloween marathon. Impress your friends and start the scares with Re-Cycle.