Inner Senses (2002)
Cheung Yan, a young woman with a history of mental illness, sees ghosts in her new apartment. She goes to see a psychologist named Jim who tries to help her and ends up falling for her. As Cheung Yan’s symptoms fade, Jim starts having some unnerving experiences of his own. A study of inner torment with an emotional punch. Leslie Cheung’s final feature.
Director: Bruce Law Chi-Leung
Script: Yeung Sin Ling
Producer: Derek Yee Tung-Sing
Action: Yuen Bun
Leslie Cheung Kwok-Wing, Karena Lam Ka-Yan, Waise Lee Chi-Hung, Valerie Chow Ka-Ling, Norman Tsui Siu-Keung
Country: Hong Kong
Language: Cantonese
Running Time: 104 min
Merit:
• Nominated 22nd Hong Kong Film Awards for: Best Director (Law Chi-leung), Best Actor (Leslie Cheung), Best Actress (Karena Lam), and Best Sound Design (Tsang King-cheung); Winner of Special Award – Outstanding Young Director (Law Chi-leung)
• Nominated 39th Annual Golden Horse Awards for: Best Actor (Leslie Cheung)
• Hong Kong Film Critics Society Film of Merit
Reviews
“Inner Senses finds itself working with far more emotional weight than the typical horror film. The final scenes are ones of immense sadness, with a ghost becoming a symbol of a bad memory that lingers too long – that haunts, if you will. There’s a great pain here, lending the film a delicacy that’s both surprising and quite remarkable in its impact. There are, of course, some great cringe-inducing moments, thanks to some eerie ghost imagery, a few well-timed jump-scares, and plenty of unsettling atmospherics (the “creaking” sound of a moving ghost is brilliant), so if you’re looking for a good scream, Inner Senses will do just fine. But this movie is more than that. It’s concerned with the creation of ghosts, with the reasons for their being, with the inner horror they create. By internalizing spirits, Inner Senses becomes a horror movie that hits deeper and harder than most entries in the genre.”
—David Cornelius, Amazing Colossal Website
“Law works to create a spiral of fear and madness that looks like it’s going to send everyone straight to hell.”
—Ross Chen, LoveHKFilm.com
“Inner Senses gives off such a stylish ambiance. Every second, every frame of this movie is luminous. ”
—Dellamorte, Classic-Horror.com
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