09.26.08 8:00 AM CDT
• TV & DVDs
• Robert DeSalvo
This Tuesday’s impressive home video release of The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration (see page 20 of Playboy’s October issue) is going to understandably overshadow all the other new discs on shelves. One that really surprised us, and is worth highlighting, is the Asian horror film Re-cycle from Image Entertainment, available on DVD and Blu-ray. Directed by the Pang brothers (Bangkok Dangerous, The Messengers and the original The Eye), Re-cycle is about a bestselling romance novelist (played by Angelica Lee, pictured) who decides her next project will be a ghost story. As she writes, Lee unknowingly opens the door to a fantastical alternate realm where everything forgotten and discarded lives, including the dead. Trapped in this netherworld, she must confront a secret from her past before she can return to the land of the living.
Before you can say The Ring or The Grudge, this supernatural chiller starts off with familiar imagery, including the mysterious strands of long black hair lying everywhere that are seemingly required in Far East fright shows. But once Lee enters the parallel dimension, the movie showcases some freaky visual effects that would make Guillermo Del Toro or Salvador Dali proud. If you have an HDTV, you’re missing out if you don’t choose the Blu-ray version because the DVD looks as if you’re watching it through the bottom of an algae-caked fishbowl. None of the detail is lost on the Blu-ray, and your jaw will drop as mountains rise and crumble and our heroine traverses the surreal landscapes while dodging nightmarish ghouls. Presented in impressive DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 sound, the BD has one slight annoyance: the subtitles. Unless you’ve recently brushed up on your Cantonese, you’re going to need them, but the only option seems to be a subtitle track for the hearing impaired. After a while, you’ll start to tune out distracting messages like “phone rings” or “sound of footsteps.” Regardless, this visually stunning work of art succeeds in showing that the Pang brothers—and Asian horror films in general—still have new spooky avenues to explore.
RSS 2.0
http://www.playboy.com/mt-tb.cgi/17182