ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

p-stepien The brothers Pang, mostly known for relatively crisp horrors such as "The Eye" plus both "Bangkok Dangerous" movies bring forth a visual spectacle, which surprises unexpectedly those tuning in for an Asian hair ghost flick. After some stunning build-up with ghostly spectres around every corner gloomily injecting fear (some of the best Asian horror sequences to date) the movie takes a drastic turn into Dantean territory of descent in the beyond. Reminiscent in style of movies such as "The Labirynth", "The Cell" and "What Dreams May Come", albeit way darker, more startling and creepy (but simultaneously awkwardly camp) concept.The story focuses on a writer Angelica Lee (Tsui Ting-Yin), a renowned author of romance novels (famed for her love trilogy). After getting rid of one demons, those of the heart, Lee decides to indulge into horror and researching the supernatural. Stating that she finds it pivotal to experience happenings first hand, she soon starts experiencing encounters with shadows lurking just outside the peripheral vision and finds long dark hair laying around her apartment. Soon she realises that ideas and concepts created for her book are taking on a life of their own and blurring the distinction between fiction and reality. What's more these occurrences are increasing not only in volume, but also in intensity and brutality...Featuring a Danteian descent into another reality started off with taking a inconspicuous elevator Angelica soon immerses into a terrifying realm, where friends are few and far between. Thus enter a visual extravagance across this ghastly underworld. Despite however these cinematographic strengths and frightful promise of terror initially suggested "Recycle" soon ventures into different story quadrants. Much like "The Eye", who starts off as a horror, but ends too close for comfort to "The Sixth Sense" territory. This time around influences regarding the highway to hell are evident, although the twist to the tale does the movie little favour. As it turns out the reality into which Angelica ventures is more a state of limbo, a graveyard for discarded ideas, thoughts, memories and things, where aborted foetuses grow and thrive and stuff of the mind lingers, when no longer remembered. Hellish connotations are rampant with forgotten dead waiting for remembrance and the journey increasingly going downward, nonetheless this is more a sort of purgatory of ideas, then a turtle-house for the evil.The biggest issue however is the unrelenting melancholic melodrama overwhelming the otherwise intriguing tale. Whenever characters interact you can be more than sure that a moment of zen awaits you. Severely hindered by such poor dramaturgy the spectacular and at times horrific background fails to fill in the void. Moreover the whole journey into limbo is fraught with poorly executed horror frights with extremely low believability levels (which is saying much given we are left floating through a dream world).

thisissubtitledmovies The Pang Brothers (Danny Pang Fat and Oxide Pang Chun) have struggled in recent years to build on the success of their hit Asian horror film The Eye, which has spawned two inferior sequels, as well as a Hollywood remake. The pair made their directorial debut as a team with Bangkok Dangerous, but arguably their most imaginative and striking film is 2006's effort Re-cycle.Minor niggles disappoint, but Re-cycle is still a minor classic that deserves a lot of respect. You will be scared. You will be blown away. You will be touched. When a film manages to deliver such transports of delight, it's foolish to ignore such entertainment. DW

Jan Strydom RE-CYCLE is a visually stunning and also a thought provoking film, it certainly makes you wonder about the things you discarded, as it is set in a world created by things and ideas that people abandoned over the years, the story begins when a novelist decides to write a horror novel and unknowingly opens the door to an alternate dimension that is home to all the things people have rejected in life.The film gets you thinking in an odd way about as I said before about things people discard, directed by the Pang brothers who also did the better version of THE EYE, it is a very well made film, it may start off as a scary horror film but as soon as the main character enters this other world, the film strays from its horror elements and becomes more of an ALICE IN WONDERLAND story only its not for kids, you can also tell that one of the films influences is SILENT HILL, as you might notice a few nods towards a few similar ideas.The storyline is of course very original and extremely intelligent, I recommend this film to any horror or film fan in general, you will certainly be treated to a visually gripping film

sitenoise One of the reasons the Pang Brothers' films are so engaging is they have an excellent grasp of sound design and good taste in music. Both this film and Diary (an Oxide solo effort) reached operatic proportions at times. They are not content to hire up a few jingles and play them over and over throughout the film in some sort of branding effort. Each scene has its own soundtrack. Often times the soundtrack seems to lead the scene. I hesitate to call it music video-like because that smacks of demotion, but it is like a music video in the sense that the music is as important as the video.Re-cycle reminded me of Terry Gilliam's work, but not as desolate or oppressive. It's a beautiful film made edgy by the Pang Brothers tendency to genre hop, mixing in horror as well as melodrama. I think most would agree the Pangs are quite skilled and creative in the visual department but seem to lack a command of the story telling part. I say, "so what". I'm happy to be fully engaged while the film is playing and my only after thoughts be fond memories. I don't always need to have a deep philosophical discussion of what a film was trying to say.There may be better ruminations on the basic idea of this film, and it's a good one--exploring a place where all that's forgotten or abandoned congregates--(Spider Forest comes to mind), but few will be as engaging as this multimedia masterpiece. I had no idea this film was going to take off into fantasy land. And stay there for the duration of the film. It came as quite the surprise, and kept surprising me.I really liked Angelica Lee's man-shoes, and ... is there anything more adorable on this planet than an eight year old Chinese girl? Big round of applause for Yaqi Zeng!