Ab-Normal Beauty (2004) Sei Mong Se Jun

Movie Rating R Contains: Violence Graphic Violence Gore Nudity Mature Situations

Director: Oxide Pang Movie Genre: Suspense, Thriller Country: Hong Kong Ab-Normal Beauty Score Card The following scores are based on a 0.0 to 10.0 rating scale Hover your mouse pointer over the name of each scoring category below for a description Direction: 6.3 Writing: 6.0 Acting: 5.4 Cinematography: 4.0 Sound and Score: 5.5 Functionality: 5.0 Presentation: 4.8 Genre Comparison: 5.0 General Comparison: 4.7 Overall: 5.2 Reviewed 2006-02-01 21:14:42

Ab-Normal Beauty is a dark, surreal thriller from Hong Kong director, Oxide Pang. The story is about Jiney, a young photography student who develops an unhealthy obsession with photographing death after she sees a pedestrian get hit by a car. When Jiney's obsession starts to control her life, her girlfriend, Jasmine, confronts her and helps her to overcome this problem before someone gets hurt. A short time after Jiney gets her life back, she starts receiving videos and photographs of people that are dead and/or dying. Jiney and Jasmine then have to figure out who is sending these images and why.

The narrative of this movie is somewhat indecisive. The beginning tends to drag a bit and there isn't enough character development to establish a strong foundation. The middle of the movie is fairly gripping and, by itself, would have made a great movie about obsession. The only "thriller" elements are presented in the end, but all of the scariness is lost within the muddled plot. The scene in which the culprit's identity is revealed is anticlimactic and more unexpected than surprising.

Ab-Normal Beauty is a dark movie, both in subject matter and lighting. Since the main character is a photography student, the cinematographer, Decha Seementa, decided to use very little lighting so each scene has a darkroom theme. It is easy to see why this was done. The problem is, the darker the scenes, the harder it is to see what is going on. The scenes that aren't overly dark are mostly tinted with green or red filters. This camerawork makes parts of the movie difficult to watch.

The score is modern and surprisingly upbeat. This is quite in tune with Oxide Pang's hyperactive filmmaking style for the most part. And though, at times the score seems out of place, it does work more often than not.

Overall Ab-Normal Beauty is not a bad movie. After having seen The Eye, by Oxide and Danny Pang, I had high expectations for this film. Also, midway through the movie the audio wasn't synched with the subtitles. This is not a flaw with the construction of the movie, but with the production of the DVD. Nonetheless, this flaw considerably diminishes its entertainment potential. The bottom line is: Ab-Normal Beauty is a pretty good movie and it is no more flawed than most movies out there. If you decide to watch it, you won't be disappointed, but you won't be recommending this to total strangers either.