SeeQuant
Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction
Invaderbank
The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.
Sarita Rafferty
There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.
Jessica Carvalho
Winnie Leung spends her days in her apartment making wooden dolls, cooking and writing in her diary. She is very lonely since her ex boyfriend, Seth Lau, left her. She doesn't have much success trying to contact him, and one day, after going to his job to see if she sees him, she meets Ray Fan, a guy who is very similar to Seth. Winnie decides to invite Ray Fan to her apartment to have a meal, and there, she tells him how similar to her ex boyfriend he is, and tells Ray that Seth died in a car accident. Eventually Ray and Winnie starts to date and live together, but never looking a real couple, since Ray doesn't show much love towards her. One night, when they both are having dinner, Winnie says that Seth died of cancer, making Ray feel confused and have a discussion with her. To prove she is right, Winnie starts to read her diary in the day that Seth died, but she discovers a bizarre and dark secret that will change everything.''Mon seung '' is a very nice movie, that makes you feel very surprised with the end. The movie starts being slow and a little boring, and then, after Winnie reads her diary, everything turns upside down, showing not only a different behavior from the characters, but also things that you would never imagine about them.I didn't like very much the story not being linear, because in some parts I felt a little lost, needing to watch them again to understand what was happening or if it was a present, a future or a past act.Ps: In the beginning of the movie, you really can feel Winnie's solitude and eventually have pity for her.
Claudio Carvalho
Winnie Leung is a lonely woman that likes to make puppets and write her diary, and she misses her boy-friend Seth Lau, who left her after breaking up their relationship. Winnie leaves messages in his mail box and unsuccessfully tries to contact him in his job. When she meets Ray Fan, she tells him that his resemblance with Seth is amazing. Ray moves to her place and when Winnie's next door snoopy neighbors calls the police because of the smell in her apartment, a dark secret is disclosed in her diary."Diary" is a claustrophobic, almost theatrical and impressive movie directed by the stunning Oxide Pang Chun and certainly among his best works. The story is very well tied-up in spite of having many twists, with the last one showing the reality, in a magnificent screenplay written by the Pang brothers. The fantastic performance of the lead actress Charlene Choi, who builds the process of insanity of her fragile, depressive and scary character without any need of grimaces like in most American movies, gives total credibility to this sinister tale. The cinematography uses of black and white and a limited range of colors prevailing the green to give a gloomy and very sad atmosphere. I regret that only a few viewers have had the chance to see this great "little movie" since there are only 92 votes in IMDb. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): Not Available
ebossert
Charlene Choi is a schizophrenic woman obsessed with another man (played by Shawn Yue) in this film by director Oxide Pang. The condition of schizophrenia is given ample attention and the script is exceedingly well-written and complex. The visuals are dark with limited (yet effective) use of CGI to communicate important elements to the viewer. There are a lot of twists and turns within this originally structured storyline, but in the end they are all logical extensions when the film is studied and understood properly. This is one of the best horror films I've ever had the pleasure of watching. If Gillian Chung had her breakthrough performance in Beyond Our Ken (2004), then Charlene Choi has now officially had her breakthrough performance in Diary (2006). She's practically unrecognizable from her previous roles. She's psychologically fragile, obsessive, desperate, subtle, and very unstable. In other words, she's fantastic.The cinematography and settings are gorgeous, using a variety of techniques to create a dim, murky atmosphere. Some scenes are in black-and-white, while others are shot with restricted colors. The overall feel of the film reminded me of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's work, absent the ambient soundtrack – Oxide uses his trademark horror beats to great effect here. The limited CGI is very fantasy-like, which is interesting considering the fact that it occurs within an apartment. Basically, Diary is eye candy from minute one.It is ironic that all of the great storytelling that was lacking from Re-Cycle (2006) has miraculously appeared in Diary. It's almost as if the Pangs decided to sacrifice the former for the latter, because Diary simply could not be written more effectively. It acts like a mystery that slowly reveals itself until the very last frame. There is a significant focus on character perspective and subjectivity that ultimately provides the driving force.Most of the reviews I've read have been positive. However, some have taken issue with the structure that Oxide chose to use. Needless to say, it's wacked out and totally different than most movies. I don't want to get too specific, but all I will say is that I thought the movie had ended a number of times before it actually did. Fortunately, all of those "extra" scenes were the best parts. I personally think that the critics are misguided, since the weird format works very well.Let's put it this way. I've seen over 200 East Asian horror films, and Diary ranks among the top 5. Rating: A magnificent 5 out of 5.
Shawn K
Its one of those oddball hits you don't expect when you first pop it into the player. Starring EEG Canto-pop stars Charlene Choi and Isabelle Leung you'd expect this film to be a stinker; and you'd be very wrong. Very well done atmospheric suspense film about a girl who has apparently been dumped by her boyfriend for no reason. She broods on this for a long time (its implied early on she has mental issues, she even goes so far as to decide he must have died), until she finds a new guy who looks a lot like him. She keeps on mixing up the two men, so one night she reads her diary and discovers...Id strongly suggest you just watch this film first Reading too much about it beforehand will spoil it
