WARNING: This Review May Contain Spoilers
I mentioned in a previous article that I’d been waiting a while to watch the original of The Eye mainly because as all of you already know I love my foreign horror films, but also because I’ve been planning to write this article for a long time…
Opening and Closing Narration
This is something that features in both versions of the film, however there is a slight difference in the tone of each narration. In the remake it comes across as more of an introduction to our lead character as it mentions her losing her sight at the age of 5 and how she has come to cope with this whereas in the original both the opening and closing narrations come across much more spiritual.
Mun vs Sydney
I think we are supposed to understand that Mun already lived with her grandmother and sister from a young age, so it was only natural that she would be living with them her after the operation – especially as she was unable to read or write. Sydney on the other hand, lives alone and her sister flies in to stay with her following the operation.
Another difference is the fact that Sydney’s interactions with the spirits come much earlier than Mun’s does. She actually questions the dark figure, who I have come to assume is Death, about where he’s taking Mrs Hillman. Her premonitions and dreams seem to start much earlier as well. As the film goes on, the dark figures also seem to interact with her, like growling at her when it takes the blonde woman away, whereas they seem to ignore Mun completely.
Imperfect Vision
What is clever about the original film is that Mun’s vision isn’t perfect straight away. Even the spirits she is seeing with her new eyes are blurry to begin with. All she sees of the elderly woman is a dark shape, and only we see her clearly when she is standing behind Mun. Gradually, throughout the film as her eyes settle they become clearer. I was expecting to say the opposite regarding the remake, however thankfully they kept it blurry in the beginning – exactly as it should be.
Spirits Among Us
I mentioned before that Sydney seems to interact and have dreams much earlier than Mun in the original film. Having said that, her interactions with the spirits seem to be further apart than in the original film – it seems to take a while before she meets the young boy who lost his report card following the death of Mrs Hilllman. It also seems that in the remake, the premonitions are more front and centre than the spirits as by around an hour in Sydney has only met 4 even though Mun had met the majority of hers by this point.
She Sees Dead People
I had always believed that Mun’s ability to see the dead came from the new eyes, that they were possessed in some way. However, I became a little confused when watching the original film. She mentions to Wah that her grandmother told her she was very special from a young age and to me that meant if she hadn’t gone blind, she would always have been able to see the spirits. As the film comes to its conclusion however, it seems that she can only see them because Ling, the cornea donor, was able to see them.
Genius Twist
It’s completely understandable that a blind character won’t recognise their own face in photos or reflections because they’ve never seen it before. However, what’s clever is that the reason Mun doesn’t recognise hers is because it’s not her own face she’s been seeing reflected back at her! Unfortunately when this is revealed in the remake, it doesn’t have as much of an effect because we have already been introduced to this young woman, and how she dies, at the very beginning of the film.
Happy Ending
I don’t want to say the original has a sad ending because for Mun and Wah it doesn’t. Yes, Mun is blind again but they’re both alive. Unlike the people caught up in the explosion at the end. In the remake however, it is a happy ending all round – Sydney and Paul survive along with all the people stuck in the traffic on the Mexican side of the border as they save them all before the petrol tanker explodes.
In Conclusion
I think it’s becoming more and more common that I’m saying I quite like both versions of a film. I was honestly expecting the remake to be a cheesy frame by frame version of the original but it isn’t. It actually makes quite a bit of sense, as the lead characters have the eyes of someone who clearly has visions, for the premotions to be front and centre than seeing the already deceased.
