Re-cycle (2006)

The brothers Pang, mostly known for relatively crisp horrors such as "The Eye" plus both "Bangkok Dangerous" movies bring forth a visual spectacle, which surprises unexpectedly those tuning in for an Asian hair ghost flick. After some stunning build-up with ghostly spectres around every corner gloomily injecting fear (some of the best Asian horror sequences to date) the movie takes a drastic turn into Dantean territory of descent in the beyond. Reminiscent in style of movies such as "The Labirynth", "The Cell" and "What Dreams May Come", albeit way darker, more startling and creepy (but simultaneously awkwardly camp) concept.The story focuses on a writer Angelica Lee (Tsui Ting-Yin), a renowned author of romance novels (famed for her love trilogy). After getting rid of one demons, those of the heart, Lee decides to indulge into horror and researching the supernatural. Stating that she finds it pivotal to experience happenings first hand, she soon starts experiencing encounters with shadows lurking just outside the peripheral vision and finds long dark hair laying around her apartment. Soon she realises that ideas and concepts created for her book are taking on a life of their own and blurring the distinction between fiction and reality. What's more these occurrences are increasing not only in volume, but also in intensity and brutality...Featuring a Danteian descent into another reality started off with taking a inconspicuous elevator Angelica soon immerses into a terrifying realm, where friends are few and far between. Thus enter a visual extravagance across this ghastly underworld. Despite however these cinematographic strengths and frightful promise of terror initially suggested "Recycle" soon ventures into different story quadrants. Much like "The Eye", who starts off as a horror, but ends too close for comfort to "The Sixth Sense" territory. This time around influences regarding the highway to hell are evident, although the twist to the tale does the movie little favour. As it turns out the reality into which Angelica ventures is more a state of limbo, a graveyard for discarded ideas, thoughts, memories and things, where aborted foetuses grow and thrive and stuff of the mind lingers, when no longer remembered. Hellish connotations are rampant with forgotten dead waiting for remembrance and the journey increasingly going downward, nonetheless this is more a sort of purgatory of ideas, then a turtle-house for the evil.The biggest issue however is the unrelenting melancholic melodrama overwhelming the otherwise intriguing tale. Whenever characters interact you can be more than sure that a moment of zen awaits you. Severely hindered by such poor dramaturgy the spectacular and at times horrific background fails to fill in the void. Moreover the whole journey into limbo is fraught with poorly executed horror frights with extremely low believability levels (which is saying much given we are left floating through a dream world).

The Pang Brothers (Danny Pang Fat and Oxide Pang Chun) have struggled in recent years to build on the success of their hit Asian horror film The Eye, which has spawned two inferior sequels, as well as a Hollywood remake. The pair made their directorial debut as a team with Bangkok Dangerous, but arguably their most imaginative and striking film is 2006's effort Re-cycle.Minor niggles disappoint, but Re-cycle is still a minor classic that deserves a lot of respect. You will be scared. You will be blown away. You will be touched. When a film manages to deliver such transports of delight, it's foolish to ignore such entertainment. DW

If you like movies with no discernible plot, with protagonists you don't care about, that leave you wanting to slit your wrists, by all means watch this! I gave it 3 stars because at least it was somewhat original in terms of visuals and had a surprise ending. But seriously, I have never had a movie with no real plot make me feel so depressed. It was horrifying, but not in the sense that you WANT in a horror movie. Word of caution - if you have ever had an abortion, had a fetus die or have any sensitivity to this topic, don't watch this movie, as it has some REALLY disgusting and emotionally sickening images/themes.

The conventionally creepy opening half of this movie manages to draw you in- and then gears shift and you're plopped right into the middle of a fairy tale. Not that there's anything wrong with that... And it's not like we haven't seen it happen before: many martial arts movies, for instance, start off "straight" and suddenly veer (sometimes totally unexpectedly) into supernatural territory. What's unusual here is that a fright film morphs into a fantasy. While some of the fx look not unlike something you'd find in a video game, the cheesier fx are kept to a minimum. This part of the movie takes place in the Ghost Land fantasyscape and the "unreality" of it all can be attributed (if one finds one must make allowances for borderline fx) to that aspect of the story. The Pang brothers handle fantasy as well as they do fright and the mix isn't bad. Checker out.