A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

"Jiney" (Race Wong) is an art student who specializes in both painting and photography. One day she happens to hear a car accident not too far from where she is standing and rushes out to take a photograph of the dead man. After exposing the film she begins to have hallucinations which she then incorporates in her artwork. Soon she becomes fixated with blood and death and incorporates these two elements in all of her pictures. And the further she goes the more it scares her girlfriend "Jasmine" (Rosanne Wong)and her new friend "Anson" (Anson Leung). To further complicate the situation, Jiney has a childhood issue she still hasn't quite recovered from and somebody close to her has even worse psychological problems. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this movie had an interesting plot but the director (Oxide Chun Pang) was much too deliberate in his technique which caused the film to drag on much too long in some cases. Be that as it may, I thought that the presence of both Race Wong and Rosanne Wong definitely enhanced the scenery which certainly helped to some degree. In short, it wasn't a great movie by any means but it wasn't that bad either. Average.

This is either brilliant Asian horror or total claptrap. I'm leaning toward the latter.Hmm. I'm split. The first half is totally compelling as we watch a brilliant young Chinese lesbian art student veer off into a fascination with photographing death after witnessing a fatal traffic accident. She's obsessed with capturing the moment of death on her Nikon, be it chicken or fish or a suicide jumper from a tall building. We watch lovely young Jin as she follows her muse into dangerous places.There may be a reason in her past for this obsession. Her lesbian partner is really worried about her. And -- whoa! -- now there's a boy in her life who has obviously fallen in love with her.A lot of interesting elements have come into play. And the Pang brothers are brilliant cinematographers and editors. Sheer beauty on the screen. I cannot stress how magnificently this is filmed.Then comes the last half hour. It is total gibberish. And it's filmed in such deep darkness you cannot see what's going on (I am talking about the DVD version). All you can tell is that it involves bondage and sadomasochism. A woman bound to a chair is screaming her lungs out. Someone unseen is tormenting her.If some truth came out, I totally missed it. Maybe it's a western thing. I like Asian horror movies. But this left me baffled.

The Pang brothers have done some notable work that I've seen. BANKOK DANGEROUS is a GREAT film, THE EYE is loved by many, but I thought it was lame. AB-NORMAL BEAUTY is another predictable and relatively lame Asian horror film, in my opinion. Granted, I'm pretty much a gore/sleaze/exploit fan, so maybe some of the "finer" nuances are wasted on a viewer such as myself, but oh well...that's just how it is.A female student photographer takes pictures of a car-wreck scene that changes her outlook on "art". She becomes obsessed with death and photographing death-scenes and a bunch of boring sh!t happens until the relatively derivative and predictable ending...I got nothing' really to say about AB-NORMAL BEAUTY. I'm sure Asian horror bandwagon-jumpers will probably jizz their shorts over this one, I found it dull and with no real redeeming value, other than some decent photography. I found it to be a mix between SAW and MUZAN E, with neither of the strong-points of either film. If you love everything that Tartan puts out, then have at it. If you've seen enough of this sort of thing, then you probably don't need to see any more...4/10

"It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen" - Richie, "American Beauty" The Asian films are so different from American films. They put a different thought process behind it. They make you think about things, while many American films are just sit in the theater for 2 hours, watching nothing.The heart of this film is everything is beautiful. It can be a purple skyscraper. An overpass. Someone dead in the middle of the street from a car accident. This movie shows the beauty of the latter, which is good, until the character becomes obsessive about these pictures. Then it becomes a nice little thriller. Not jumpy, but it is wince worthy.At times, I almost felt bad for liking this movie so much, but it is now one of my favorite.