Inner Senses

Inner Senses Is a horror flick set in modern Hong Kong. Is the lovely young student, Yan (Karena Lam), really able to see ghosts, or is she just a fruit loop? That's what Dr Jim Law (Leslie Cheung) must decide, he is a shrink, her professor and might end up as her lover as well - now that's multi skilling!

Like a less turgid Lovecraftian tale the focus shifts from Yen to Jim, and we are also offered the chance to look at the story from the point of view of Yen's cousin and that of her husband, Jim's colleague. This clever three-sided look at each story reinforces the ambiguity of the plotlines holding the watcher's interest.

The story switches back and keeps us guessing, when Yen makes her halting admission, "I can see ghosts," We immediately think Sixth Sense Is she dead? Is Jim a ghost? But the answers are not so clear and the tension is maintained throughout. It's edge of the seat until the final minutes. A well made example of modern horror, it pulls off a couple of jump out of your seat moments, quite successfully, but its true strength is subtle psychological needling, and disturbing - really disturbing - imagery.

All the cast give great performances, but as I watched the dramatic denouement I felt genuinely affected, chilled, particularly by Chueng's performance as psychiatrist Dr Law. How more chilling to read that this was his last performance before a suicide, the film being released in Hong Kong two years later.

From the unsettling morphing montage of images in the titles to the sting in the tail Inner Senses is a truly scary movie. If your horror palette is a little jaded this could just be the tonic you need.