Double Vision is definitely one of the best Asian horror films I've seen in the last few years, and definitely the best out of China/Taiwan.A dark film with a good storyline (though yes, the last part of the film is a bit hazy), and excellent characters and actors. A real unexpected pearl, far better than what I had expected from promotional material when it was first released.A very refreshing change to the usual Korean/Japanese/Thai ghost films, it is genuinely frightening without being deliberately gratuitous.The temple scene mid-way through the film remains my favourite scene, so fast and well done that you're left utterly shocked by the time its over.For a good dark supernatural horror film, or for something completely different to the increasingly done to death Asian ghost/horror film with long black haired ghosts, see this one.

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.

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)

The reason I went to see the movie was because simply: I liked the concept. The nine gates of hell has always held my interest and few films have taken advantage of the possibilities that celluloid offers.Needless to say, I saw this with very high hopes, and thus my opinion may seem somewhat opinionated.Let me just say that the movie is not scary... leave the concluding scenes (which didn't make much sense anyway). No jump in your seat thrills, no creepy buildup, and hardly any characters that were actually scary. But this is not necessarily bad for some movies (let me emphasize 'SOME MOVIES') as it can help segue the genre into a totally different and unexpected one. This script tries to do that, but fails miserably. What we have here is a hybrid of a detective and horror story, or maybe the worse parts of both. Characters are one dimensional, most characters are expendable and hardly matter, and try however hard I wanted, but I could not feel sympathy for any characters. And amazingly enough, the main character who spoke very little English, and when he did it sounded very heavily accented, but apparently, he must have been fluent in English... after all, he spews big words in lines which left the actor seeming confused.Most of the scenes were utterly miserable and unnecessary, and after the movie, I wondered if the screenplay was made by an amature screenwriter.Take my advice: Do yourself a favor and skip this one.