Re-Cycle (Gwai Wik)
October 2008 Reviewed by: Rad Bennett Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

Hong Kong filmmakers Danny and Oxide Pang have had a bad rap of late. The Pang brothers' recent remake of their own well-received 1999 film Bangkok Dangerous has been severely panned by all the critics. It’s good, then, to have this DVD of an original 2006 movie to remind one that these twin brothers have both talent and vision.

First off, this is not a horror movie, as much of the ill-conceived advertising would lead you to believe. Dickens’ A Christmas Carol falls into that category, so Re-Cycle is actually a ghost story. There are some scary scenes in it, but it never crosses any line that would inspire one to call it horror. The film won new respect for Hong Kong cinema, by the way, when it was included in the in the Un Certain Regard division at the Cannes Film Festival.

Ting Yin (Angelica Lee), a high-profile, successful author of romance novels, is writing her first supernatural story. She has a bad, inconclusive reunion with a former boyfriend and then, as she tries to write, she starts seeing and hearing things. Finally, getting off an elevator, she finds herself in an alternative universe. After a few strange encounters, one with people who have been hanged, she is rescued by a small girl (Yaqi Zeng) who comes riding by on a giant hobbyhorse. The girl becomes Ting Yin’s guide, the one who will lead her to a place where she can get back to her world.

It turns out that Ting Yin has ended up in a land for the lost and neglected. There are discarded toys; ancestors; babies (most the result of abortions); lost hopes, dreams, and romances; and regrets. The bleak images and landscapes the Pangs conjure to represent this hollow land are wonderfully strange, often terrifying, and most original. The movie’s conclusion will distress some and may be interpreted differently. The movie is perhaps an anti-abortion tract, or maybe a treatise against waste, or a warning concerning life priorities. All of these themes are present, and which is the most important will have a lot to do with the viewer and what he or she brings to the movie.

The movie did very well in Hong Kong and was previously released there on DVD. The Image release is its first in the US, and they has done very well by it. The movie is largely dark, with mysterious shadows and revealing light perfectly contrasted. Shadow detail is excellent, and the saturation seems ideal. Since the movie is a high-quality DVD release, I watched it using the new Toshiba XD-E500 DVD player and found the image always pleasing, and more than occasionally startling in its crispness and depth. The sound is a dream for anyone having a good surround system. All the channels are active most of the time, and the mix makes good use of them all. Music and sound effects are mixed to all channels while maintaining a clarity that allows dialogue to be easily heard. The DTS tracks have more punch than the Dolby Digital ones. Subtitles are easy to read.

This movie has CGI as good as any I have seen from a Western film. The seams never show. It is revealing to have comparison shots before and after CGI as one of the extras. The other extras address different production aspects. The "Making of" extras are actually a set of shorter spots that seem to have been created for promotion. There are some inexplicably zany question-and-answer segments from the premiere. One of the interviewers comes across like a dark-haired Joan Rivers on steroids. I’ve never seen one so hyper!

This movie addresses some serious issues in the guise of an entertaining ghost story and is a constant delight for the eye and ear. It is also available on Blu-ray Disc.

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