The Eye 2: Pro-Choice?

After reading the recent blogs on Deadgirl, I was thinking about my favorite horror films and trying to see if there was any feminism in the stories. I’m partial to Asian horror films and one of my favorites is The Eye 2 from Hong Kong. This isn’t exactly a sequel though. The Eye* is about a blind woman receiving a cornea transplant and is seeing ghosts. The Eye 2 does not follow the same characters as the original, rather it also deals with seeing ghosts and is also written by the Pang brothers.
[Warning: May Contain Spoilers after the jump.]


Joey is a woman who is having an affair with a married man. Because her love life is going nowhere she decides to commit suicide. She checks into a hotel and tells them to give her a wake-up call. If she doesn’t answer, she tells them to come into the room. She takes a bunch of sleeping pills and while still awake calls her lover. She wasn’t dead when the hotel workers found her so she was rushed to the hospital. While there Joey finds out that she’s pregnant.
She considers abortion but ultimately decides to be a single mom (the story wouldn’t go anywhere if she did get an abortion). She starts seeing a ghost follow her around, as well as other ghosts following every other pregnant woman she sees. She learns that because she was at the edge of death, she has gained the ability to see ghosts. The one who is following her belongs to the wife of her ex-lover. When Joey called him during her suicide attempt, she overheard and jumped out the window. But it isn’t revenge that the ghost is after, it’s after life. She is going to be reincarnated into Joey’s baby.
It is explained that the soul can’t enter the body until it’s born. There is a creepy scene showing one of Joey’s friends from birthing class, having her baby and the soul entering the baby’s body. I’m saying this is pro-choice because the anti-choice movement says that a fetus has a soul. This movie shows that it doesn’t until it’s born.
Of course, cultural differences may be shadowing my view of it. I don’t know anything about the politics of abortion in Hong Kong. Since reincarnation isn’t a widespread belief here as it is in Hong Kong, it’s not something you really here about when talking about abortion. I’m unsure about differing opinions on the matter. Do some people believe that the reincarnated soul enters the body during pregnancy? If so, wouldn’t that be used in arguments against abortion? If that is the case then are the Pang brothers are the arguing that it’s just a fetus until birth?
*I have not seen the American remake, so this is all based on the original.

Disclaimer: This post was written by a Feministing Community user and does not necessarily reflect the views of any Feministing columnist, editor, or executive director.

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