Ab-Normal Beauty is the latest release from the Brothers Pang, creators of the sub-average Eye horror films. Ab-Normal Beauty takes a different route, being more a psychological thriller than a horror. Horror does have its place in the film, in the form of some pretty excessive violence.

I guess it’s to each individuals taste as to what defines gruesome and violent. The violence in Saw, for example, I found rather weak and far too easy to bare. Those calling it a gruesome, bloody depiction of cruelty obviously haven’t seen much in the way of violence. It’s rather tame in reality. Ab-Normal Beauty doesn’t fare any better, but it does exceed the violence demonstrated in the mentioned film. Women are bludgeoned to death, blood drains from their skulls, pouring down their faces as they’re repeatedly beaten. It’s not a chick flick by any stretch.

Jiney is a rather pretentious artist and photographer (aren’t they all?); where everyone praises her work, she feels disappointed with it, and is looking for something new. In her artsy, self-pithy manner as most artist pertain to, she decides to use death as an object of fixation and inspiration for her work. The trouble with those who think they understand death as art, is that you’ll likely meet someone who verges on extreme psychosis who will give you a lesson or two in the beauty of death. Unless you’re on the verge of death, and still consider your carcass being violently mutilated as beautiful, you probably couldn’t comprehend anything about death as art and feel a pleasure from it.

Our female lead, however, seems to think she does understand, and thus decides to pursue death as a means of a subject matter. She captures butchers butchering chickens, suicidal girls falling to their death; capturing the mess from their open skull spilling the brains on the street, flooded with rivers of blood. She starts to manipulate dead animals as she wants them to be, for her art of course. During this, her friend Jas becomes concerned and wonders why her fixation on death seems to have gotten hold of her like a ghostly possession.

There are some very strange scenes, such as the not quite masturbation, not quite panic attack, rape flash back. You don’t quite know whether she’s getting off on it, or whether she’s actually upset about it. Similar scenes occur throughout, as she develops the pictures of her recently dead victims with a grin and a smile of deep pleasure with her work. Jiney, however, seems to be going through a mental break down, and her friend Jas looks after her, helping her to adjust back to reality.

In the wake of this, Jas confesses her love for Jiney, and although nothing is shown, the implication of a lesbian romance is suggested. It’s a sort of step forward, I guess, with regards to such a subject within the realms of commercial Chinese cinema. So is the demonstration of nudity, albeit in art form; in many sense it’s a rather daring film in a culture where the Government frowns upon freedom of expression.

In many ways, Ab-Normal Beauty echoes a film style not unlike a Western film, with it’s close ups, wide angled shots, claustrophobic and dark filming, and even the use of music is very Western oriented. It doesn’t surprise me, to be honest as the Pangs often seem to pander to a slightly more Westernised methodology in filming. There’s nothing distinctly Chinese about the film, or rooted in tradition that would suggest it could be remade in the US. In that regard, it’s rather mundane, as you’ll have seen similar scenes in films such as Eyes of Laura Mars, Boy Meets Girl, and even Videodrome to name but three examples of where the influences seems to have transpired from. There’s very little in this film that suggests originality.

There are many things I liked about the film, although the acting wasn’t one of those things, the direction certainly was. It’s a credit to the Pang duo that they are certainly improving with every film they make, even if their stories seem to indulge in duality and never quite live up to the expectations they place upon themselves. It’s very arty in its execution, but there are some truly hilarious scenes. The introduction of dramatic action music when a girl contemplates taking out her camera is just rib tickling funny. There’s little in the way of drama conveyed on camera so the music is aptly out of place.

A film of two halves really, Ab-Normal Beauty does a decent job of building up the suspense, but is perhaps a half hour too long on the build up. There’s little to develop for the first 45 minutes that couldn’t be streamlined, but the second half speeds things up and manages to engross the viewer in the on-screen violence that takes place. It’s delicious and disturbing in the same instance, as a leaf out of Silence of the Lambs and other psycho thrillers are taken (I hated Silence of the Lambs). A mixed effort in the end, and not one that I could wholly recommend with conviction.

Verdict: Above average psycho-thriller, with decent direction but average acting. A borderline bag of the good and bad