sc8031 Hrmm, I don't know about this one. An American criminal investigator from the FBI is sent to assist a Taiwanese police group to figure out a bunch of creepy murders. How and why this guy is assisting them is sorta unexplained, but okay. The first half of the movie builds up the suspense pretty well, but the rest of it gets kind of clunky and includes a lot of CG clipshows and gore, segway that relies on music, unnecessary (and yet somehow predictable) plot twists full of tepid villains or lazy pacing.I do like the Taoist mysticism they try to throw into the whole thing, but it ends up being a lot less cool or scary than "Ghostbusters" by the end. The mysticism isn't explained in very much detail, which I suspect is to deliberately cover up its lack of depth. There are a few points where the movie is a launchpad for typical conversations about mysticism/religious belief vs. science. *snore* Tony Leung's main role is pretty cliché'd, at least as far as western cop dramas go. Some event from his past haunts him, isolates him from colleagues, his family, blah blah blah. David Morse is okay, but there's no real point to him being there. We also get almost zero character development out of him. And the script's attempts to get one-liners or sarcastic quips from his character are pretty poor.Seriously, if you hadn't seen these characters already a million times before in better movies, you'd be pretty damn confused by their stories and motivations. The flashbacks and home movies and whatever else you see here, they're so random, they're given almost no introduction so you have no idea what you're seeing or why it's relevant to the story.So it's a typical cross-cultural cop-drama, which mixes with light mysticism and horror instead of comedy or martial arts, and with somewhat choppy editing and pacing. Don't get me wrong, I really loved getting to see Taiwan and all the Taoist symbolism and what-have-you. It just wasn't implemented that well. It's like the movie couldn't decide on what to be. Oh, and the ending is poorly thought out too.The '80s flick "Black Rain" with Michael Douglas does the serious cross-cultural cop-drama thing much better. That one has finer ambiance, a cheesy soundtrack with charming characters as well as a better look into the customs of Japanese law enforcement and organized crime.

jesscat88 This is an amazing film. *minor spoilers*Gory, depressing and goddamn confusing at times, but it had the power of keeping me balanced on the edge of my seat for about seventy per cent of it. Seriously creepy stuff.As a warning though, there is nothing uplifting, hopeful, happy or optimistic in this film, so NOT something to watch if you like happy, resolved endings or need an emotional boost. It's more something to watch when you want your brains racked.Oh yes, it's an 18 due to a highly graphic fight between police and a cult. Numerous limbs and heads go flying. You have been warned.***** for suspense *** for comprehensibility and * for optimism

dromasca I am not a fan of Asian action movies, and I was concerned when I rented this film. It actually proved to be something very different - a mix of many well known themes with exotic (for us) Taiwanese culture flavor, and all is quite well done. We have a lot in this film - the righteous cop who pays for his integrity with the cost of his family life, the cop partners who hate one another, and learn later to work together and respect each other, the clash between the American and local (in this case Taiwanese) cultures, the X-files like conflicts between science and super-natural, between believers and skeptics. It is like the Taiwanese movie industry (which I know very little about) tried to catch back with all these themes in one single film. Surprisingly it works not bad, mostly because of a director who know how to keep the balance, and to direct the actors in this maze of themes. At the end the films fails to be memorable not because it is over-charged, but because the ending plays too much tribute to the mode of the openness to bizarre and as in many other films recently it is too long and too elaborated. However, it is worth seeing, and a different experience for the mystery-action films fans. 7/10 on my personal scale.

NIXFLIX-DOT-COM DOUBLE VISION is quite a good movie for its first 2 acts, but all of that goes out the window when a brutal massacre scene pops up to signal a shift to a bloody third act. The movie works as a psychological thriller, a film about cops chasing a killer who may or may not be supernatural, but it falls flat when the answer is given, and the answer proves to be wholly silly.David Morse gives a good performance as an American FBI agent befuddled by the political climate of a Taiwanese police force that asked for his help. Tony Leung is outstanding as a cop whose family has left him. The two men work well together.Of note is the film's delving into Taoism, which really takes up a lot of the movie's time, but seems to have little reason to do so. Nothing the character learns actually affects how the case is eventually solved, so the endless talks about Toaism seems like an advertising for Taoism, but nothing more.6 out of 10(go to www.nixflix.com for a more detailed review of this movie or full-length reviews of other foreign films)