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它 看 見 的 東 西 你 一 輩 子 不 會 想 看 見

兩 個 瞳 孔 的 眼 睛 ， 能 看 到 什 麼 ？

這 可 能 … 根 本 不 是 人 做 的 事 情

一 切 源 自 於 「 神 秘 」 的 傳 說

《 雙 瞳 》

12 月 5 日 誰 該 下 地 獄 ？

< 案 件 一 > 太 豐 董 事 長 死 於 非 命 ， 警 方 瞠 目 前 所 未 見

< 案 件 二 > 鬼 火 焚 身 ， 燒 死 立 委 情 婦

< 案 件 三 > 先 剖 腹 抽 腸 ， 再 畫 上 血 符 咒 ， 牧 師 陳 屍 ， 全 台 沸 騰

接 二 連 三 的 離 奇 命 案 ， 令 台 北 市 的 警 方 束 手 無 策 。 三 名 受 害 者 的 身 分 彼 此 沒 有 關 連 ， 但 卻 同 時 在 他 們 的 體 內 發 現 一 種 神 秘 的 黴 菌 ， 判 定 他 們 都 是 經 歷 幻 覺 的 情 況 下 死 亡 。 縱 然 這 三 宗 案 明 顯 是 同 一 連 續 殺 人 犯 所 為 ， 但 警 方 卻 毫 無 頭 緒 ， 在 市 民 的 壓 迫 下 ， 警 方 只 好 求 助 於 美 國 的 聯 邦 調 查 局 (FBI) 。 FBI 於 是 派 來 此 方 面 的 專 家 凱 文 萊 特 ( 大 衛 摩 士 飾 ) 來 協 助 調 查 。

本 來 已 被 調 出 刑 事 科 的 黃 火 土 ( 梁 家 輝 飾 ) 今 次 竟 因 美 國 的 介 入 而 再 次 被 重 用 ， 雖 然 他 知 道 自 己 處 於 一 個 極 不 討 好 的 位 置 。 FBI 的 參 與 令 案 情 有 了 突 破 性 的 發 展 。 萊 特 與 黃 火 土 發 現 原 來 嫌 疑 犯 是 按 照 一 種 古 老 罕 見 的 道 教 圖 來 殺 人 ， 藉 著 將 惡 人 送 入 五 獄 ( 寒 冰 獄 、 火 坑 獄 、 抽 腸 獄 、 挖 心 獄 和 拔 舌 獄 ) 來 達 到 長 生 不 老 的 神 仙 境 地 。 所 以 除 了 這 三 宗 離 奇 謀 殺 案 外 ， 亦 預 示 了 尚 有 兩 名 受 害 者 還 未 出 現 。

這 是 否 暗 示 冥 冥 之 中 有 股 超 自 然 力 量 在 操 控 一 切 ？ 但 對 於 重 視 實 用 主 義 科 學 的 萊 特 來 說 則 是 另 一 種 啟 示 。 到 底 他 們 尋 找 的 是 一 個 連 續 殺 人 犯 還 是 一 個 為 求 成 仙 的 邪 惡 靈 魂 ？ 當 另 一 宗 兇 殺 案 出 現 時 ， 大 家 不 得 不 接 受 這 兩 種 假 設 的 可 能 性 ！

何 謂 雙 瞳 ？ 一 個 眼 睛 擁 有 兩 個 瞳 孔 ， 歷 史 名 人 項 羽 就 擁 有 橫 的 雙 瞳 ( 兩 個 瞳 孔 橫 著 長 於 一 眼 內 ) ， 而 舜 則 擁 有 直 的 雙 瞳 ( 兩 個 瞳 孔 直 著 長 於 一 眼 內 ) 。 有 雙 瞳 的 人 ， 其 五 臟 六 腑 異 於 常 人 ， 通 常 擁 有 三 到 四 個 腎 臟 ， 且 能 看 到 常 人 看 不 到 的 神 鬼 ， 並 有 能 力 使 用 幻 術 咒 語 ， 遊 走 陰 陽 兩 界 。

《 雙 瞳 》 打 破 台 灣 史 上 驚 慄 片 紀 錄

《 雙 瞳 》 首 周 在 台 灣 上 映 時 ， 做 成 前 所 未 有 的 撲 飛 熱 潮 ， 各 地 戲 院 大 排 長 龍 ， 就 連 早 場 的 千 人 大 戲 院 也 賣 剩 前 兩 行 ， 這 已 是 近 十 年 來 難 得 一 見 的 盛 況 。 而 且 它 的 首 周 票 房 更 直 逼 四 千 萬 ， 創 下 台 灣 有 史 以 來 的 驚 慄 片 票 房 紀 錄 。 它 的 官 方 網 站 更 暴 增 至 廿 五 萬 人 收 看 ( 台 灣 本 土 ) ， 它 的 圖 文 書 刊 { 雙 瞳 研 究 讀 本 } 更 賣 到 缺 貨 ， 《 雙 瞳 》 在 台 灣 可 說 已 製 造 了 一 個 獨 特 的 社 會 現 象 ！

集 各 地 精 英 傾 力 攝 製 製 作 媲 美 荷 里 活 大 製 作

導 演 ： 陳 國 富 ( 台 灣 )

曾 執 導 《 只 要 為 你 活 一 天 》 、 《 我 的 美 麗 與 哀 愁 》 和 《 徵 婚 啟 事 》 ， 香 港 觀 眾 對 這 位 台 灣 導 演 應 該 不 太 陌 生 。 《 雙 瞳 》 最 初 的 構 思 並 不 是 由 陳 國 富 執 導 的 ， 最 後 只 是 無 心 插 柳 柳 成 蔭 。 正 如 他 自 己 說 ， 過 去 他 所 拍 的 都 只 是 女 性 主 導 的 電 影 ， 但 今 次 卻 是 一 部 男 性 為 主 的 懸 疑 驚 慄 片 ， 所 以 他 從 沒 想 過 導 演 這 職 責 會 落 在 自 己 身 上 。 他 認 為 驚 慄 片 總 是 反 映 人 們 內 心 最 深 的 恐 懼 ， 接 拍 這 部 電 影 後 ， 他 逼 自 己 一 定 要 相 信 冥 冥 中 不 可 知 的 力 量 ， 竟 然 到 了 最 後 ， 他 真 的 沈 浸 在 這 些 超 自 然 的 靈 異 現 象 中 。

美 術 指 導 ： 葉 錦 添 ( 香 港 )

憑 《 臥 虎 藏 龍 》 奪 得 奧 斯 卡 最 佳 美 術 的 葉 錦 添 ， 今 次 已 是 第 二 次 與 陳 國 富 合 作 。 他 認 為 《 雙 瞳 》 是 一 部 「 心 理 驚 慄 片 」 ， 所 以 美 術 就 得 表 現 角 色 的 內 心 變 化 。 他 參 考 了 日 本 的 恐 怖 片 ， 他 覺 得 整 個 日 本 文 化 對 死 亡 有 很 多 想 像 力 ， 他 們 有 一 種 「 很 快 死 亡 、 死 完 會 再 來 」 的 觀 念 。 《 雙 瞳 》 是 用 另 一 個 世 界 的 東 西 擺 在 現 實 裡 ， 讓 人 覺 得 恐 懼 ， 所 以 在 環 境 設 計 上 ， 葉 錦 添 選 用 一 些 熟 悉 的 氣 氛 ， 但 內 容 上 卻 有 些 不 同 ， 像 背 光 、 抽 掉 顏 色 和 混 亂 環 境 等 。 他 相 信 這 部 片 的 視 覺 主 題 應 該 是 「 幻 覺 」 。

攝 影 指 導 ： 黃 岳 泰 ( 香 港 )

一 開 始 黃 岳 泰 便 想 ， 如 何 把 一 個 靈 界 實 體 入 侵 世 界 的 感 覺 表 現 出 來 ， 最 後 他 決 定 運 用 「 拉 大 景 深 」 。 他 的 執 行 度 是 非 常 徹 底 的 ， 幾 乎 每 個 鏡 頭 都 會 去 注 意 。 這 在 執 行 上 是 一 個 很 大 的 工 程 ， 光 是 打 燈 已 相 當 複 雜 ， 因 為 要 打 很 多 燈 才 能 做 到 這 效 果 。 當 大 家 看 到 出 來 的 結 果 也 十 分 滿 意 ， 就 連 葉 錦 添 在 美 術 上 也 做 了 調 整 ， 令 整 部 電 影 更 見 風 格 化 。

演 員 ： 梁 家 輝 ( 香 港 )

影 帝 梁 家 輝 飾 演 在 片 中 最 關 鍵 的 角 色 ─ 台 灣 警 察 黃 火 土 。 這 是 他 從 影 以 來 最 具 挑 戰 性 的 角 色 ， 因 黃 火 土 的 性 格 是 一 個 充 滿 恐 懼 、 孤 獨 及 自 我 救 贖 的 一 個 人 ， 他 婚 姻 狀 況 有 問 題 ， 常 常 把 自 己 鎖 在 某 一 個 空 間 裡 不 願 離 開 。 對 梁 家 輝 來 說 ， 他 很 享 受 這 個 角 色 ， 因 為 他 經 歷 了 一 次 別 人 感 受 不 到 的 狀 態 。

演 員 ： 大 衛 摩 士 David Morse ( 美 國 )

第 一 次 參 與 中 文 電 影 製 作 便 獲 金 馬 獎 提 名 最 佳 男 配 角 的 大 衛 摩 士 ， 在 片 中 是 唯 一 的 外 國 演 員 。 這 位 荷 里 活 演 員 曾 參 演 《 天 黑 黑 》 和 《 綠 里 奇 蹟 》 等 不 同 類 型 的 電 影 ， 今 次 在 《 雙 瞳 》 中 ， 他 飾 演 那 名 由 美 國 派 到 台 灣 的 FBI 探 員 。 這 角 色 與 現 實 的 他 也 很 相 似 ， 是 個 來 到 陌 生 地 方 的 外 來 客 ， 很 想 更 投 入 地 參 與 自 己 的 工 作 ， 但 事 實 是 他 只 是 一 個 配 角 而 已 ─ 不 過 是 一 個 恰 如 其 分 的 出 色 配 角 。

演 員 ： 劉 若 英 ( 台 灣 )

這 已 是 劉 若 英 第 三 次 和 陳 國 富 合 作 ， 彼 此 間 已 有 了 很 好 的 默 契 和 信 任 。 從 《 少 女 小 魚 》 、 《 徵 婚 啟 事 》 及 電 視 劇 《 人 間 四 月 天 》 ， 她 也 是 飾 演 一 個 性 格 堅 毅 、 在 愛 情 裡 百 般 掙 扎 的 「 怨 女 」 ， 但 在 《 雙 瞳 》 裡 ， 她 飾 演 黃 火 土 的 妻 子 清 芳 卻 是 個 堅 強 善 良 的 女 人 ， 她 不 斷 向 丈 夫 提 出 離 婚 並 不 是 為 了 救 她 自 己 ， 反 是 為 了 拯 救 全 家 人 。 雖 然 清 芳 這 角 色 戲 份 不 多 ， 但 正 如 劉 若 英 說 ， 其 實 每 個 角 色 在 影 片 裡 也 有 她 的 功 能 性 ， 縱 然 戲 份 不 多 ， 卻 也 不 能 刪 掉 。 就 像 本 片 中 ， 清 芳 的 出 現 稍 稍 調 和 了 那 些 疲 於 奔 命 的 男 性 ， 讓 影 片 添 多 了 一 點 「 情 」 。

《 雙 瞳 》

12 月 5 日 誰 該 下 地 獄 ？

COLUMBIA PICTURES FILM PRODUCTION ASIA
PRESENTS

A NAN FANG FILM PRODUCTIONS
PRODUCTION

A CHEN KUO-FU FILM

DOUBLE VISION
(SHUANG TONG)

STARRING

TONY LEUNG KA-FAI DAVID MORSE RENE LIU
DAI LI-REN YANG KUEI-MEI

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY ARTHUR WONG
ART DIRECTION/COSTUME DESIGN TIM YIP
WRITTEN BY SU CHAO-PIN and CHEN KUO-FU
PRODUCED AND DIRECTED BY
CHEN KUO-FU

Color
In Mandarin and English
Ratio: 1:2.35

DOUBLE VISION

SHORT SYNOPSIS

Taipei, the teeming capital of Taiwan, is a city in which the high-tech trappings of modern life compete with beliefs that reach back four millennia into Chinese history. It is a place where ghosts are considered as real as skyscrapers, and in which one troubled police officer comes up against an evil so dark that it threatens not only his life, but his very soul.

Ace detective Huang Huo-tu (Tony Leung Ka-fai) is falling apart. As payback for blowing the whistle on corruption in the force, he's relegated to the do-nothing job of Foreign Affairs Officer. His fellow policemen have turned on him, and his wife, Ching-fang (Rene Liu), is filing for divorce.

But, then, three grisly murders shake up the department. The victims are unrelated, but the Coroner (Yang Kwei-Mei) finds a mysterious black fungus in their brains, along with evidence that they had all died in a hallucinatory state. Clearly there's a serial killer on the loose, but it's the first in Taiwan's history, and the police are unequipped to handle the case. With the public on the verge of panic, the high command grudgingly calls on the country's closest ally-the United States-for help. The FBI sends its top expert, Kevin Richter (David Morse).

Now that a foreigner is involved, Huang actually has something to do, though he finds himself in a tough spot. His former partner, Li Feng-bo (Leon Dai), warns him that if he helps the American solve the case, he'll embarrass the department again, and Li won't answer for the consequences. But Huang's instincts as a detective are stronger than his political skills, so he and Richter get to work, and the pair makes fast progress.

Then the shocker. They find a pattern to the murders in an ancient and obscure Taoist diagram. It is a formula for achieving immortality, which entails sending perceived evil-doers through five gruesome levels of hell. It also predicts that more victims are yet to come. To Huang, it suddenly seems possible that a supernatural force is at play, an idea that the pragmatic Richter refuses to entertain.

Are they looking for a cunning killer or an angry spirit? An increasingly bloody trail of evidence leads in both directions.

DOUBLE VISION

LONG SYNOPSIS

Huang Huo-tu (Tony Leung Ka-fai) was once an ace homicide detective on the Taipei police force. Now demoted to the all-but-useless job of Foreign Affairs Officer, he is in "exile" for having blown the whistle on corrupt fellow-officers, including his wife's cousin. When Huang's revelation exploded into a national scandal, the cousin cracked: first he held Huang's little daughter at gunpoint, then shot himself.

Betraying the police brotherhood is touchy anywhere. But in Taiwan, the highest virtue is loyalty to one's country, community and family, in that order. Huang had brought shame to all three, and enduring trauma to his daughter. Guilt-ridden, he has sunk into such a depressed stupor that his wife, Ching-fang (Rene Liu), has filed for divorce.

The only one on the police force who will talk with Huang is his former partner Li Feng-po (Leon Dai). Li is a tough, no-holds-barred cop, and he shields his old friend from the worst of their colleagues' harassment.

Li is called to investigate the baffling death of one of Taipei's most prominent corporate CEOs. According to the Coroner (Yang Kuei-Mei), the man appears to have drowned in icy water without ever having left his office. Soon thereafter, the notorious mistress of a politician reports a fire, and is found burned to death in a room untouched by flames. Though Li can't find any connection between the victims, the autopsies yield two grisly links: a mysterious black fungus is embedded in their brains, and there are signs that both had died in a hallucinatory state.

Next, the Reverend Lorenzo -- a prominent American cleric and go-between for U.S. arms sales - is found eviscerated. On his crudely re-sewn belly, a talismanic symbol has been painted in blood, and the same black fungus is found in his brain.

This last murder makes clear that Li is up against Taiwan's first-ever serial killer. The story has hit the international press, and police officials grudgingly conclude that they don't know how to handle a crime of this nature, and need the help of the FBI. Serial killing is, after all, an American specialty, and the U.S. and Taiwan have a long-standing, if uneasy, alliance. And now, with the FBI's arrival and an American in the morgue, the reluctant Foreign Affairs Officer, Huang Huo-tu, is dragged onto the case.

The FBI has assigned Agent Kevin Richter (David Morse), the Bureau's expert on profiling serial killers, and a man who has made a science of understanding evil. Before his departure, Richter pays a last visit to the one criminal that has him stumped. Anthony Wayland, once a pillar of society, is on death row for strangling nine runaway boys, all of whom had died smiling. Richter just wants to know how he made his victims want to die, but Wayland will only reveal that he has a "power to make people see things."

Landing in Taiwan, Richter is given a decidedly cool reception. Huang is uncommunicative, and the other detectives on the case, afraid of losing face, are disinclined to help him beyond the minimum their Chief has required.

Richter and Huang get to work, and the two make fast progress. Richter finds a small pellet in or near the air conditioner at each of the murder scenes, and the crime lab determines that these are sophisticated devices, created to disseminate the fungus. Then, Huang discovers that all of the victims had been written about in the newspapers in the days prior to their death.

To find the meaning of the painted symbol on the Reverend Lorenzo's belly, they bring photos to a social anthropologist at Academia Sinica, Taiwan's top university. Professor Sheng (Lung Shihung) immediately connects the picture with a recent archaeological discovery in mainland China. At an ancient Taoist edifice, the True Sage Temple, an engraving had been found with the identical marking. It is a goudie, a death curse from Yama, the King of Hell. Sheng gives them photos of the excavation, including reproductions of a number of ancient diagrams found there.

Huang spends the night in his office poring over the diagrams. After hours of study, he detects a pattern in which a character from each murder victim's name appears. Clearly, this is how the killer has been picking his targets. If Huang is correct, "Wang" will be part of the next victim's name. Following that, the pattern indicates a "non-believer," and then, curiously, "May through July."

The next day, as a team of police officers frantically check on anyone in the newspapers with the name Wang, the FBI lab reports back on its post-autopsy tests: The fungus is a rare type which attaches itself to heat-seeking mites. When placed in the air-conditioner of a closed room, the mites swarm toward the warmth of a human body, enter the nose and implant themselves in the brain. The victims' hallucinations are caused by the addition of extraordinary quantities of seratonin and dopamine.

At same time, a man named Chen Liang-wang enters a modern office tower, where, hidden on the fifth floor, is a magnificent Taoist Temple, with an inscription that reads "True Sage Temple." Chen is there for a ritual in which he will temporarily descend into hell to contact his dead parents. But in the midst of the elaborate rite, and surrounded by chanting acolytes, a priest suddenly plunges a knife deep into Chen's back.

Hours later, Li picks up Huang, and they head off to join Richter at the investigation of a newly-reported multiple homicide. On the way, Li hands Huang a news story about a Chen Liang-wang, headlined "Elderly Couple Commits Suicide Over Son's Filial Impiety."

When they get to the crime scene, it's mayhem. A mobster is lying dead on the street; another is dismembered. They find Chen's body in an abandoned commercial van; stuck to his shirt is a sheet of paper bearing the same symbol found on Lorenzo. Richter notices that the van windows and upholstery are lined with special insulation, and he removes a sample.

At dinner with Huang that night, Richter expresses surprise that in, Taipei, a modern city, people seem so attached to ancient superstitions. Huang explains that in Chinese culture, the presence of evil spirits is very real. Richter, a man who believes only in science, suddenly understands that this clearly talented policeman thinks they might be hunting for something other than a mere criminal.

That same night Huang wakes Professor Sheng at home to show him the correlation between the diagrams and the names of the victims. Stunned, Sheng now recognizes that the killer is on a quest for immortality. He explains that, going far back into history, Taoist thinkers have claimed that it is possible for one's spirit to become immortal. Some early Taoists described a method that involves a path through five hells - Frigid Hell, the Pit of Fire, the Hell of Disembowelment, Heart-Extraction Hell and Tongue Extraction Hell. The sixth path is the final step to immortality.

Huang asks about the "May and July" on the diagram. Sheng points out that these characters also mean fire ("huo") and earth ("tu") - as in Huang Huo-tu's own name.

Meanwhile, Richter learns that the insulation in the van at the crime scene is typically used for transporting integrated circuit units. Indeed, the next day, the director of an industrial park identifies the name on the van. The two owners of an integrated circuit company had become obsessed with mysticism and religion, and had sold their company some years before. The director had heard that their sect had attracted followers, and had spent a fortune transporting a temple from mainland China. It looks like Richter and Huang have found the killers.

Li locates the True Sage Temple, but as he leads in a squad to arrest the two leaders, a swarm of disciples launches a brutal attack. When it's over, there are bodies everywhere, Li is injured, and one of the leaders is dead. Picking through the carnage, Huang and Richter find a trap door, under which lies a comatose teen-aged girl in a wooden casket. On her abdomen, beneath a pure white dress, is a large ulcerated wound, rife with fungus.

When Richter exits the building, a crowd of reporters hounds him about rumors of a supernatural element to the murders. He emphatically replies that man is worse than any figment of the imagination.

As for the girl from under the floor, Hsieh Ah-Li (Lin Han), the skin on her stomach had been scraped in order to cultivate the deadly fungus, but she will live. In any event, the surviving Temple leader has confessed, and the case is officially closed.

But as Huang and Richter head off to celebrate their success, they forget that there were two more steps on the killer's path to immortality. Completely off-guard, they are drawn further into an uncanny battle with an enemy that neither of them understands.

DOUBLE VISION

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

A serial killer is loose, and victims are piling up faster than clues. An FBI agent and a disaffected local cop pair up to hunt for the killer and are forced to overcome turf problems and mutual distrust to become friends. Sounds like a traditional police thriller? It's not.

With Double Vision, award-winning Taiwanese filmmaker Chen Kuo-fu pierces the veil of the expected. He has taken a classic Hollywood story line, infused it with millennia-old Chinese mystical beliefs, and placed it in the sweat-soaked, politically charged atmosphere of 21st-century Taiwan. Working with Oscar-winning production and costume designer Tim Yip (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), and Arthur Wong, one of Hong Kong's greatest cinematographers, Chen Kuo-fu takes danger and suspense to a new level.

In fact, just making the film was a venture into new territory. Produced by Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia (CPFPA), the Hong Kong-based production division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, Double Vision represents several important "firsts" for Taiwan: it is this tiny nation's first suspense thriller; the biggest-budget film ever made there; the first to be made with an international cast and crew, including a world-class special effects team; and the first to go on foreign location - in this case, Australia.

Like CPFPA's four-Oscar-winning hit, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Double Vision brings together a remarkable array of talent, both in front of and behind the camera.

The cast is led by Hong Kong superstar and heartthrob, Tony Leung Ka-fai -- among whose 70 film credits are Jean-Jacques Annaud's worldwide box-office hit, The Lover, and 2000's award-winning gangster comedy The Triad Zone (Jiang Hu Gao Ji). In Double Vision, as troubled police detective Huang Huo-tu, the native Cantonese-speaking actor plays a demanding role in both in Mandarin and English.

Acclaimed American actor David Morse co-stars as FBI Agent Kevin Richter. Double Vision is the first Asian film for the graceful, azure-eyed performer, whose thirty feature credits include The Green Mile, Proof of Life, Dancer in the Dark, and most recently Hearts in Atlantis. Morse was included in Entertainment Weekly's "It List" for 2000, and Vanity Fair's influential "Legends of Hollywood" issue in 2001.

The supporting cast includes four multiple-award-winning Taiwan stars: Rene Liu, called an "an actress of extraordinary subtlety" by The New York Times; Leon Dai (aka Dai Li-Ren), a ruggedly handsome actor with fifteen films to his credit; Yang Kuei-Mei, known worldwide for international hits such as Eat Drink Man Woman and Tsai Ming-Liang's The Hole; and the venerable Sihung Lung, who also starred in Eat Drink Man Woman and appeared as Sir Te, to whom the Green Destiny sword was given by Chow Yun Fat's Li Mu Bai in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

BACKGROUND

For many years, the film industry of the small island-nation of Taiwan has distinguished itself to film-lovers and critics worldwide as the source of some of Asia's best "art-house" fare. Filmmaker Chen Kuo-fu started out on the road to Double Vision with the intention of creating a kind of film that had never been made in Taiwan before.

A veritable "institution" in the Taiwan industry, Chen has run the gamut from influential film critic, magazine editor, author, teacher and festival director, to award-winning filmmaker; in each of his endeavors, his trademark has been to push the limits of imagination and creativity both for himself and for his collaborators.

With his finger clearly on the pulse of the local film world, in 1998 he was hired by CPFPA to develop film projects. In this context, in early 1999, he called Su Chao-pin, a computer engineer turned screenwriter, whose first feature film, The Cabbie (Yun Zhuanshou Zhi Lian ), had recently been released. This comedy about the trials of a Taipei taxi driver went on to win a special Jury Award at Taiwan's 2000 Golden Horse Film Festival, and was selected for the 2001 Berlin Film Festival.

Their discussion led to the idea of collaborating on a suspense thriller which would aim for broader appeal than the usual small Taiwanese drama. Su laid out a plot involving serial killings and the supernatural. "It's very stereotypical in American films," notes the writer, "But there has never been a real-life serial killer in Taiwan, and the fear of ghosts is very real here, so I thought I could twist the idea in a new way."

Chen and Su worked together to flesh out the characters and the details of the story. Of course, says the director, "It had to be a story that reflected Taiwan, with our way of thinking and looking at things. It's ironic, though, that since the police here have no experience with serial killers, we had to bring in the FBI and write a lot of the dialogue in English, otherwise the story wouldn't be realistic. And Taiwan does have a strong, if sometimes uneasy, relationship with the United States."

Thus, while Hollywood filmmakers have long used Asian characters and locations for "exotic" flavor, Chen and Su turned this on its head: a typical American plot-line and a typical FBI guy became the "exotic" elements in a story that explores a man's confrontation with evil and, by extension, with his own culture and himself .

When Chen presented the finished script to CPFPA in 2000, Barbara Robinson, the division's founder and managing director, jumped on it. "This was one of the most original scripts I'd seen, and when I passed it on to Columbia in Los Angeles, we received the same reaction."

Chen Kuo-fu's previous works, in particular his most recent film, the highly-acclaimed The Personals, have been small, elegant dramas which concentrated on intimate character study - and primarily on women, so the idea of making a big, effects-filled police story was novel. Though it had always been his intention to produce the film, he had to be convinced to take on the directorial challenge. "This project is so much bigger than anything that's ever been done in Taiwan, and I knew that producing would be a big job on its own," he notes. At the urging of Columbia, however, he finally agreed. Barbara Robinson recalls, "We thought Kuo-fu was the best choice. He has great visual style, and a talent for character development that would add a lot of dimension."

Indeed it was the notion of this "art film" director taking on a thriller that eventually attracted the top notch cast and crew. Echoing the sentiments of the entire creative team, co-star David Morse notes, "I took this role because I saw The Personals, which is a beautiful, inward-looking film, and was intrigued to see what Chen would do with a script like Double Vision. I was not disappointed. I've worked with big directors who go off to do the explosions and leave the acting for the second unit to take care of. Chen has a good technical sense, and at the same time he pays careful attention to the little details of human behavior which ultimately make the film interesting."

"I really enjoy thrillers," says Chen, whose very first film review was a controversial political critique of Dawn of the Dead, but he continues, "A filmmaker like myself couldn't make an ordinary thriller. It's not intentional - it's just the baggage I carry. I live in a society with a lot of anxiety about cultural identity and stability. Our relationship with China always looms over us. Also, in 1987, we went from forty years of martial law to real democracy, and it's a big adjustment. Su and I weren't thinking about any of this when we were working on the script -- we just wanted to make an entertaining film. But in retrospect, I see that these anxieties just seeped in subconsciously. To the degree that a good thriller always reflects our deepest fears, it all helps."

THE CONTEXT

The capital city of Taipei is a striking blend of ancient tradition and modern trappings, of superstition and science. One of the world's leading producers of computer components, Taiwan is very much of the 21st century, and Taipei is a bustling city with gleaming skyscrapers and ubiquitous cell phones, Western coffee houses and designer clothes. At the same time, the daily life of most of its people is structured around Taoist and Buddhist beliefs and rituals, with values and practices that can be traced through 4000 years of Chinese history. The city is dotted with elaborately decorated temples large and small, in which people make offerings to a host of deities, hoping they will ward off bad luck, offer answers to troubling questions, or reveal the most favorable dates for important events.

Explains filmmaker Chen, "Taiwan is a traditional Taoist society, and part of the tradition is a strong belief in ghosts and evil spirits. The possibility that one may be wreaking havoc is not far-fetched. The police deal with such cases all the time."

Examples abound. Local cable television features numerous programs in which monks go to the homes of viewers to banish evil spirits. A major international hotel in Taipei lost so much business from reported ghost sightings that a Taoist priest was called in to install immense statues of protector deities in the lobby. And on movie productions, each new location is inaugurated with food offerings, incense, and the burning of "dead people's money," to invoke protection against bad luck and evil spirits on the set.

It is noteworthy that Double Vision is the second of Chen Kuo-fu's films to deal with the supernatural (In his 1994 The Peony Pavilion (Wo de Meili yu Ai Chou), a main character returns after death). Yet, he says, "I am not at all a believer. I've been around people all my life who believe in energy healing, ghosts, and superstitions. I make films about it in an attempt to understand." On the other hand, he laughs, "in order to shoot Double Vision, I had to put myself in the shoes of a believer, so that by the end, I was so absorbed in the 'reality' of the supernatural that I felt like I did believe."

Double Vision deals with a particular aspect of Taoist tradition: the belief that immortality is attainable. Co-writer Su Chao-pin explains, "From way back, Chinese people have been concerned with achieving immortality. We are bred to believe in this."

In popular Taoist belief, the dead are reincarnated. The good go to a better next life, and the bad learn lessons in subsequent lives, but it is also believed that, for the truly evil, there are many versions of hell. Immortality, on the other hand, is a spiritual state that is attained through an arduous process of self-purification, at the end of which one's spirit is pure and eternal, and one's body essentially irrelevant. In legend, the immortals have been ascribed with special powers, like the ability to see at night, or to move over hundreds of miles in an instant.

Says Su, "Many theories have passed through the ages about how to become immortal. One says that if you follow a very rigorous set of steps for thirteen years, you can do it. Others say that a person can be brought back from the dead if you treat the body with certain herbs and oils for three years. Nowadays, most people think it's impossible to achieve immortality, though I did communicate with one scientist at the Academica Sinica (Taiwan's top university) who is analyzing the ancient methods. He has a theory that immortality might actually be feasible."

Su adds, "In Double Vision, the theory behind the quest for immortality, and the references we use to Taoist books, beliefs and diagrams are real. But everything about the True Sage cult's practices was our invention." As for the conclusion that Double Vision draws about ghosts and immortality, Su smiles cryptically, "We've left that up to the audience to decide."

Lastly, in Double Vision, there is another important deviation from the usual American thriller, and it is embodied in the character of the hero himself, Huang Huo-tu. Individual rights, creativity, and initiative are bedrocks of Western society, and in American lore - especially in movies - the hero is most often a "Lone Ranger" type, a rugged individualist who is revered for bucking the system, righting wrongs, and then riding off into the sunset.

But in traditional Chinese society, loyalty is to country, community and family, in that order. Any individual initiative that brings shame to the larger group is an act of betrayal. Chen explains, "The hero of a typical Chinese movie is someone who works out his problems in favor of family or country." So, when Huang Huo-tu exposes corruption in his department, and in the process brings down a member of his own family, no matter how right he may have been about the facts, he is at fault. That FBI agent Kevin Richter commends Huang for his courage, is as much an indication of Richter's "foreign-ness" as it is a compliment.

Actor Tony Leung Ka-fai, who plays Huang, clarifies this: "His dilemma is that in one way he feels that he did the right thing, but in another way he knows he was selfish. He didn't think of anyone else before he acted. That is not Chinese. Maybe I wouldn't have done it if I were in his position."

But Huang Huo-tu has to go further. The case of the serial killer is a chance for him to redeem himself, but at the same time it puts him - once again - in the position of potentially embarrassing his department. If he helps Richter solve the case, his department, indeed his country, loses face to the FBI. If he doesn't, a killer goes free. The test ultimately becomes a struggle to save his soul.

THE ACTORS

Leung Ka-fai acknowledges that, "To be honest, it took time for me to like Huang Huo-tu. He and I are completely different people, and I disagree with him a lot. But I decided to try because I really wanted to work with this director."

For the gregarious actor, whose household in Hong Kong includes his wife, twin daughters, assorted relatives, numerous dogs and 100 fish, three months away from home was trying. "I was in Taipei, missing my family, and deep in the head of a frightened, lonely man fighting for his salvation. Personally, it was the most emotionally difficult role I have ever played." This is a remarkable statement for one of Asia's most enduring superstars who, by the age of 42, has made over 70 films, from broad comedy to period drama, and is followed on the streets by adoring females ranging from eight years-old to 80.

The director, cinematographer and every actor on the set unanimously describe Leung Ka-fai as a consummate professional, with superb skills and an instinctive relationship with the camera. Yet, for this film, he embarked on an intense, scene-by-scene collaboration with Chen Kuo-fu. "I asked him to go through dialogue, expressions, body language - everything."

Perhaps this can be explained by the additional hurdle of acting in not one, but two foreign languages. "I'm Cantonese. I speak Mandarin, but had to learn the accent and rhythm of speech in Taiwan. Before I got here, the production sent me a tape recording of all the dialogue, and I worked on it every day. I also had to practice my English, because I don't speak it very often." And, though he has played policemen numerous times, to "become" a Taiwanese cop, the actor paid several visits to a Taipei police station, absorbing work style, attitudes and speech patterns, and accompanying policemen to crime scenes to study their approach.

Whatever internal grappling Leung Ka-fai may have done with his character, he made it his job to help his fellow actors. He and co-star David Morse developed a close friendship - even vacationing together with their families during a hiatus in filming. Says the American, "Off-set, I had a translator, but when we were working, Tony communicated to the crew for me." Rene Liu, the Taiwanese star who plays his wife, recounts with tenderness that "Tony bought two identical pairs of chop-sticks, one for him and one for me. That way, we could remind ourselves that we were married." Even Han Lin, a sixteen year-old making her feature debut, expressed her gratitude, "There was a scene where I felt blocked, and Tony taught me actions and movements that would help me break through."

For David Morse, working in Asia for the first time, real-life and work dove-tailed in a unique fashion. "I was living through the same thing as Kevin Richter - I came to work in a foreign culture, didn't speak the language, and had to depend on others to help me through. Being here alone in front of the cameras and a group of strangers gave a vividness to the role that you don't usually get." And, like Richter, his arrival in Taipei was heralded by enormous attention, though of quite a different sort. Morse, who has always chosen to live far from the limelight of Hollywood, found himself greeted by the entire staff of his hotel, ambushed by paparazzi hiding in bushes, besieged by fans, and covered adoringly by local and international press.

On the other hand, Morse discovered that the working life of a star is very different outside the United States. In Taiwan, with no trailers, no amenities and no fancy caterers, the actors - no matter how famous - are just part of the crew. "According to American union rules, the production had to find a quiet, separate space for me on the set. It was a little awkward to go into my own room, when there were these big stars sitting on steps." Actress Rene Liu noted, though, that "David was always very generous about inviting us to join him in his hide-away." Morse likens the attitude on the set to American independent filmmaking. "This is a much bigger film than a typical 'indie,' but they approach filmmaking in the same way, with a passion and a sense of mission that you don't see on big budget Hollywood productions."

Of his role - for which he prepared, in part, by talking though the script with an expert at the FBI - Morse says, "Richter starts as a very solid guy, secure about what he knows, and very used to being in command. But in Taiwan, he has to experience everything through Huang Huo-tu, who doesn't want to deal with anything, much less a Westerner. Then he's faced with people who believe in immortality and evil spirits - things he just doesn't believe in. It's all beyond explanation and beyond his experience."

He continues, "The role is very deceiving. In the script, you don't see the transformation that Richter goes through. He's in a very high profile position, and he can't show that he's losing his center. It has to happen internally for him - and particularly from this point of view, Chen was great to work with."

Morse also appreciated the director's openness to new ideas. "We both had a similar sense of who this character was, and there was a trust that we could talk through any suggestions I had. The one odd thing about our relationship was that, there I was, playing the non-believer in his film, when in truth, I believe very much in ghosts. He's the one who doesn't believe."

The respect was mutual. The director notes that "David really dug into Richter's soul and, as we were shooting, he would surprise me with nuances or little bits of the character's life at home, which added dimension to the story." He adds, "I admire him for having come to this foreign place alone. It was very courageous."

The supporting cast is made up of a group of Taiwan's top stars, all of whom not just agreed, but asked to take secondary roles - for the chance to work on Double Vision with Chen Kuo-fu, and for the boost the production would give to the local industry.

The appeal of working with the filmmaker is perhaps best expressed by Rene Liu. Liu is an award-winning actress, the "face" of Shiseido cosmetics, and a major pop star who wrapped the recording schedule of her seventh album around the Double Vision production. This is her third film with Chen, with whom she made her acting debut. She says Chen "knows what he wants, and he pushes everyone he works with to go to the limits of their imagination. He says 'Never act second-hand. If you've seen someone else doing a role that way, you can't use it. You have to act your own way.'"

Liu talks of her role as Huang's wife - which Chen doubled in size once she had agreed to take the part - in a way that many Western women might find hard to understand. "She's a strong, nice woman who is easy to talk with, and she has tried to stay that way for her husband. But since the time that their daughter was taken hostage, Huo-tu has shut down. When she decides to file for divorce, it's not really to save herself. She sees it as a last step in trying to save him, to wake him up. If he doesn't respond, then she shouldn't stay anymore, and she and her daughter will have to face a new life. Chinese women will do anything for their husbands."

The dashing Leon Dai, who plays tough cop Li Feng-po, is a black-belt in Tai Kwon-do who has won awards for acting, theater directing and poetry. But making a thriller was a new experience for him. "I had to think about the fact that this was a movie for very different audience than I'm used to, and had to change my style of acting accordingly. But I trust the director, and he trusts me, so we were able to work on developing the role together." Explaining his character, he says "Feng-po has struggled with his conscience, but he doesn't have the courage to act on it, which makes him angry at himself. That's why he's caught between Huo-tu and his other colleagues, and why they have such a complicated friendship."

Of the three supporting actors, the biggest star of all is Yang Kwei-mei, who plays the coroner. It seems that Chen was embarrassed to ask Yang to play a small part. But the actress - who is revered in her country for bringing new dignity to roles of traditional Taiwanese women, and hailed by critics abroad for her star turns in many of Taiwan's best features - wanted the role because she had long hoped to work with Chen. This despite the fact that she had given up her high school dream of being a nurse when she discovered that she'd have to touch dead bodies. "Actually, I was afraid when I was playing the coroner, because the corpses were gruesome," she admits.

Nonetheless, she was pleased with the experience. "The director is very sensitive to the whole process of acting. He asks for a lot. When he talks about fear, he doesn't want it to show on the face - he wants it to come from the voice, from the eyes." Interestingly, Chen asked Yang not to speak to a real coroner before playing the part. "He didn't want me to be too concerned with technicalities. He preferred that I stay focused on my emotions."

THE LOOK OF THE FILM

According to Hong Kong cinematographer Arthur Wong, a veteran of some 70 films and winner of a dozen awards, "Double Vision is a thriller about spiritual entities invading our world." But how do you show that on film, especially when "Make it realistic but use your imagination" is the only guideline the director gives to his creative team?

Tim Yip, one of Asia's most talented designers for stage and cinema, was brought on as production designer, costume designer, and hair and make-up designer. Possibly the only professional in the film industry to handle the three roles simultaneously, Yip's work on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon earned him the 2000 OscarO for Art Direction, as well as a nomination for Costume Design. This is his second collaboration with Chen Kuo-fu, having designed a special fantasy set for the 1994 film Peony Pavilion.

Yip looked into the heart of the characters for inspiration. He explains, "In many ways, this film is a psychological thriller, so the art direction is meant to show how the characters are moving inside. For me, the visual theme of the film is illusion - everything is just like in real life, but with the colors stripped out."

He elaborates, "When you are happy, you see all the bright colors around you. Here, the main character, Huang Huo-tu, is living a kind of hell-on-earth, and when your mind is in hell, you see things differently. I wanted the audience to feel his state of mind, so I painted the world in greens and blues, a little bit like being underwater. On the other hand, when you see photos from crime scenes, or settings where evil is present, you see all the colors of reality." Likewise, costumes were made in muted colors and devoid of pattern.

The film's palette adds another dislocation: blues and greens are cool colors, and here they create a subtle, slightly "out of tune" contrast to sweat-soaked characters in a story unfolding in the intense heat of Taiwan's summer.

According to Huang Chih-ming, the film's Taiwan line producer, stripping out color was not always an easy direction to follow. "It's hard to find locations where you can control the color, and we had to do a lot of work to get it right. For example, we shot the first murder at a big insurance company. It was an office with nearly 100 employees, and every single one of them had brightly colored files on their desks. We had to hide all the files, then figure out how put them all back in the right place. Also, at the entry to the building, there was an ATM machine with a lot of color. We discreetly pulled off the logo, and then carefully replaced it afterwards."

Yip further mirrors the chaos in Huo-tu's situation with a screen full of details - dense layers of papers, icons, artwork, knick knacks - all of which he found by personally spending months scouring marketplaces in Hong Kong, mainland China and Taiwan, as well as through private collections and prop houses.

Cinematographer Arthur Wong shot the film in wide-screen format and lit to maximize the depth-of-field, both to highlight the layers of details, and to wrap viewers in an encroaching sense of danger. And, as the fear of the spirit world starts to enter the picture, Wong emphasized its contrast with the physical world by changing the rhythm of camera movements and the speed of motion.

In a comment that applies as much to Arthur Wong as to himself, Tim Yip says, "the big difference between me and a lot of the Hollywood art directors who do thrillers is that I believe in ghosts." Adds Wong, "I've seen them several times, but as my mother told me, 'if you haven't done anything bad, you don't have to be scared of ghosts knocking on your door at night.'"

The collaboration between Chen, Yip and Wong turned out to be a meeting of minds. Says Wong, "Kuo-fu is one of the few directors I've worked with who knew how to use me well. The script was filled with meticulous detail, but when Kuo-fu came to meet me in Hong Kong to ask me to work on the film, we never discussed a single shot. We talked strictly about ideas, and from there he let me develop my ideas. Things worked out well. I believe that a cinematographer should adapt his style to the director he is shooting for, and it turned out that we complemented each other in our strengths."

For his part, Chen admits, "I had never worked with such an experienced D.P. before. On two of my four previous films, I chose first-time cinematographers so that they would be open to new ideas. I was honestly a little afraid that Arthur would have set notions about how a film like this should be made, and at first, I questioned his choices a lot. But because of his great experience, he knew how to put me at ease, and after a couple of weeks, I realized that he was right about many things, and that we had a real partnership."

Yip is poetic in his description of the collaboration: "Together, the three of us were trying to create a new language of cinema. This is a mainstream story, not an art film, but you can still use a silent language, beyond the script, to tell the audience many more things about the characters and the world they inhabit."

SPECIAL EFFECTS AND STUNTS

A massive variety of effects were used for Double Vision, from fires and graphic fight scenes, to sophisticated morphs which combine motion-controlled live action with CGI work. Chen brought on three top-notch Australian teams to collaborate on the makeup, physical and computer-generated special effects that went into making the film. The director was insistent on the highest possible quality, noting that "Nothing takes the fear out of a thriller faster than bad special effects."

The Makeup Effects Group, based in Melbourne, created a huge variety of effects -- creepily life-like silicone replicas of actors, limbs designed to fly off bodies in precise trajectories, prosthetics that had to integrate invisibly onto actors' bodies, and hours of makeup work that make the supernatural look real. The company, which has handled effects on films including The Matrix and Babe, spent six months in preparation for filming.

According to Paul Katte, co-owner of the Makeup Effects Group, "This was a big job, and conceptually pretty advanced. The approach we took was to create a heightened version of reality. We used the Japanese animation style called Manga or Japanimation as our influence, which is very dark and underground in its feel - like film noir in cartoon form. Everything is very stylized and choreographed.

Working on a Taiwanese project was a new experience for the group, and had its periods of trial and error. Recalls Katte, "We had to make a sculpture of a newborn baby. We got everything right with respect to look, skin tone and hair. What we didn't realize was that babies of European descent are much larger than Chinese babies, so when we sent our first sample, they were horrified at how big it was."

Although, for the sake of realism, director Chen Kuo-fu wanted to keep as much of the film in live-action as possible, extensive CGI work was still required. This was handled by Sydney-based Phenomena, under the supervision of visual effects designer Paul Weeb, whose long list of credits includes Batman Forever, Super Mario Brothers, Baz Luhrman's Romeo + Juliet, and television's "Star Trek: The Next Generation." Of particular note was the work done to give the mysterious black fungus a "live" quality, and a long dream-like sequence in which the character of Huang Huo-tu is lost between reality and illusion.

While Western audiences associate Asia with martial arts films, for Double Vision, Chen Kuo-fu opted first, to keep fighting to a minimum, and second, to keep it in a natural style. Nonetheless, he called upon one of Hong Kong's top action directors, Leung Siu Hung, to coordinate. A veteran of over 200 martial arts films, Leung describes the Temple fight scene: "I was told 'No karate or Tai Kwon-do, not even fist-fights.' It had to be mostly pushing, hitting, and some sword-swinging. Also, the temple disciples have to fight as if they're in a trance - they've been brainwashed to carry out this battle without feeling any pain. It's very hard work to make it look natural."

Leung Siu Hung had an additional challenge. Years ago, Taiwan had some 300 members in its stunt association, but as both the local film and television industries turned their attention to dramas, the need diminished. There now remain only ten professional stuntmen on the island. The Temple fight scene required nearly 50 men and women, so the production scoured athletics institutes and the Chinese Opera school (at which all students are trained in acrobatics and the martial arts), and Leung had to give the recruits a concentrated training program. "I had only a week, so I worked a lot on reactions, timing and safety."

On the plus side was cinematographer Arthur Wong. "Many times on Hong Kong films, the action director designs the fights and the camera angles. With Western directors, I sometimes even run the camera myself. But Arthur and I both started out at the same time, working for the famous Shaw Brothers studio. He has tremendous experience with action scenes, and we think alike."

THE LOCATIONS

Some forty locations were used in Taiwan, with an additional site in Melbourne, Australia, which doubled for the United States.

Taipei exteriors were shot on the crowded streets in and around the city. Interiors were shot on locations that themselves seemed to beg the question of the existence of ghosts.

The principal location was an abandoned cigarette factory in central Taipei, masterfully built by the Japanese in the 1930s. Wandering through, one can still hear echoes of the hundreds of workers who once filled long, eerie corridors and cavernous rooms, now primarily inhabited by a pack of wild dogs. (Curiously, there were always dogs that sat themselves in the middle of the sets, but never once, in three months of shooting, ever interfered with a shot).

This was a perfect place in which to build the sets for police headquarters, as many of the institutional buildings in Taipei were constructed in the fifty years preceding World War II, when Japan ruled the island. With its high ceilings and hundreds of rooms large and small, it also served as an ideal place for other sets, including some hospital interiors and the bedroom of the Reverend Lorenzo. Also, the compound includes enormous, once-beautiful gardens - now wild and overgrown - which buffered the production from the din of the city.

Securing this location took intense maneuvering. Though the cigarette factory has been unused in recent years, it is considered a national treasure. It also occupies the largest plot of undeveloped land in Taipei, a city that has enjoyed a frenzied construction boom in recent years. Several government offices have been grappling over who controls the property, and whether it should be sold to developers or turned into a museum. Furthermore, there is not enough production in Taiwan to have generated procedures for the licensing of film locations and no one knew how to handle the producers' request for use of the site. After weeks of wrangling, the President of Taiwan finally granted permission. However, one condition applied: shooting there had to be kept an absolute secret until the film wrapped.

Additional locations included, among others, a military hospital, an industrial park, a church (now Baptist) built during Dutch rule of Taiwan in the 17th century, the country's top university, and a spanking new middle-class housing development where bright lights turned on at 4 a.m. prompted a few residents to get up and get ready for work.

The most elaborate set construction in the movie is the True Sage Temple. Built on the largest stage in Taiwan, an hour out of the capital, it took some three months to build, and was approximately 90'x180' (30m x 60m) in size. To serve as a guide, the production design team bought several pieces of a razed 200-year-old wooden temple in mainland China. Intricately carved statues were reproduced by hand in Taipei, along with twenty foot columns and an enormous roof. Murals depicting the punishments of hell were painted on the walls. Authentic statues of deities, and enormous incense burners were borrowed from some of Taiwan's top collectors.

Production designer Tim Yip makes clear, however, that his goal was not to recreate an authentic temple. "The layout is not accurate to tradition, because the True Sage cult in the film calls itself Taoist, but it is really evil disguising itself as religion. Taoists will recognize the changes."

A real temple also appears in the film. In the story, disciples of the True Sage Temple slaughter and dismember a couple of gangsters who get in their way. A perfect narrow side street was found on the outskirts of Taipei, on which also happened to be a small, brightly decorated neighborhood shrine to local deities. Chen Kuo-fu and cinematographer Arthur Wong together decided that both visually and contextually the temple was too good to leave out. Chen had the temple dressed for a festival and brought in some 50 extras to take part. At the conclusion of the segment, when Huang, Richter and Li arrive at the crime scene, they find the local priest ringing a bell and saying prayers over the bodies of the dead, to chase away evil spirits.

Of course, every region has its advantages and disadvantages for location work. Taiwan's principle advantage is its enormously driven, hard-working crew. On the minus side is the weather. The hot, humid summer begins in mid-April, and few of the locations had benefit of air-conditioning. This worked well in front of the camera - actors needed little extra "spritzing" to get the sweaty effect the director was seeking. Behind the camera was a different story, particularly on the True Sage Temple set, which required extensive lighting, a lot of smoke, and was the stage for a massive fight scene involving some 50 actors and extras. To keep things cooler, the schedule was moved to nights for the two weeks it took to shoot. All the same, temperatures rose well above 100oF (around 40oC).

Locations in and around Melbourne, Australia doubled for scenes in the United States. For a movie dealing with ghosts and evil spirits, there could have been no more apt location than Pentridge Prison, a grim 19th-century stone edifice, complete with torturous isolation cells, and 100 year-old dreams of freedom scratched into the walls. Here, the prison scenes between Richter and American serial killer Anthony Wayland were filmed. A lecture hall at Monash University doubled as an FBI training facility, where Richter teaches a course on psychological profiling to a group of international corrections officers. Eighty "students" from over a dozen countries were needed for this scene, and Australia's wide cultural diversity enabled the extras-casting that Taiwan's more homogeneous population could not.

DOUBLE VISION

ABOUT THE CAST AND CREW

TONY LEUNG KA-FAI
(as Taiwan Detective Huang Huo-tu)

Tony Leung Ka Fai is one of Asia's most enduring superstars, and one of a handful of Hong Kong actors also to achieve renowned success in the West. Chameleon-like in the range of characters he has portrayed, Leung has appeared in some 70 feature films since his debut in 1983, traversing the spectrum from art-house drama, to comedy, to martial arts and action.

Leung began his professional life as a journalist (a trade he plies to this day). His move into acting was pure serendipity: While interviewing director Lee Han Hsiang, the noted filmmaker asked Leung to join him on a film in mainland China. "I accepted, assuming he wanted me to work on the crew," recalls Leung. "But, when I got to the location, he handed me a script and the lead role." The film was 1983's Reign Behind a Curtain, and Leung's performance as the last emperor of China garnered him the prestigious Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor of 1984.

A new career was launched. He made 20 films over the next eight years, and became especially well-known as a serious dramatic actor. Along the way, he was nominated for two Hong Kong Film Awards - for Fire Dragon (Fo Lung) in 1987, and for Farewell China (Ai Zai Ta Xiang De Ji Jie) in 1990 - and won Taiwan's Golden Horse Award for the latter. In 1991, he co-wrote and starred in the acclaimed King of Chess (Kei Wong).

Then, in 1992, the film The Lover was released, and Leung became an international sensation. French director Jean-Jacques Annaud (Enemy at the Gates) cast him as a Chinese aristocrat in colonial Vietnam, embroiled in a torrid affair with a French schoolgirl. The film sparked controversy across Europe, America and Asia, and became a global box-office hit. Leung's critically praised performance turned him into a bona fide sex symbol. As recently as 1999, America's Cosmopolitan magazine ranked The Lover among the "The 10 Steamiest Movies of All Time," alongside films such as The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Risky Business.

But Leung actually credits the 1992 Hong-Kong comedy, 92 Black Rose vs. Black Rose, as the breakthrough film of his career. A satire of classic Hong Kong detective films, it showcased the broad range of his talents, won him his second Hong Kong Film Award, and made him one of the most in-demand actors in Asia. The pace of his work in the following years became so intense that in 1999 he decided to limit the number of roles he would accept, in order to devote more attention to his family. Notably, Leung is one of the rare Hong Kong actors to have maintained his status as a star and sex symbol despite public knowledge that he has a wife and children.

Among his recent works are Love Will Tear Us Apart, which he both produced and starred in, and which competed at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival; The Triad Zone (Kong Woo Gap Gou), which this year garnered him his eighth Hong Kong Film Award nomination; and the recently-completed English-language, mainland-Chinese production The Treatment (Gua Sha). Last year, he starred in the Hong Kong stage production of "The Red Boat," produced by Jackie Chan.

Throughout his film career, Leung has continued to write for newspapers and magazines, and two books of his selected articles have been published to date. He currently writes a weekly column for the Hong Kong Daily.

DAVID MORSE
(as FBI Agent Kevin Richter)

From the Hollywood screen to the New York stage, multiple-award-winner David Morse is recognized as one of America's outstanding actors. He has appeared in some 27 feature films, dozens of television programs, and scores of theater productions.

In the past three years alone, Morse's film work has included critically-acclaimed co-starring roles in The Green Mile, opposite Tom Hanks; with singer-actress Bjork and Catherine Deneuve in Lars von Trier's controversial musical-drama, Dancer in the Dark (the Cannes Film Festival's Palme D'Or winner for 2000); with Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan in Proof of Life; with comedy star Jamie Foxx in the action film Bait; with Melanie Griffith in Antonio Banderas' Crazy in Alabama; and with Anthony Hopkins and Hope Davis in Hearts in Atlantis. In addition, he paired with Holly Hunter to play the voices of the title roles of the television series, "Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided," for America's prestigious public television network, PBS.

All of this work has not gone unnoticed. The editors of Vanity Fair, one of the most influential magazines in the U.S., included Morse in its April 2001 "Legends of Hollywood" issue. And Entertainment Weekly, America's most popular entertainment magazine, put Morse on its "It List" of people who "represent the cutting edge of Hollywood…[and] the future of entertainment."

A native of Massachusetts, Morse was trained in the theater. He began his acting career with the Boston Repertory Theatre, appearing in some 30 productions. He then moved to New York, where he became a member of off-Broadway's Circle Repertory Company - one of the top theater companies in the United States. He made his first film appearance in Richard Donner's acclaimed drama, Inside Moves. For this co-starring role, he was named one of 1980's "Most Promising New Actors."

Since then, this prolific artist has gone on to play starring and co-starring roles in such films as Sean Penn's dramas, The Indian Runner and The Crossing Guard, the latter of which earned him a nomination for an Independent Spirit Award; F. Gary Gray's The Negotiator; Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys; Robert Zemeckis' Contact; Renny Harlin's The Long Kiss Goodnight; and Michael Bay's The Rock, among others.

In addition to Double Vision, upcoming films include Scott Hicks' Hearts In Atlantis with Anthony Hopkins; Alex and Andrew Smith's Slaughter Rule in which Morse appears opposite Ryan Gosling and Clea DuVall; and Eugene Martin's "Diary of a City Priest."

He has also made his mark on the small screen, becoming a household name for his portrayal as Dr. Jack "Boomer" Morrison in "St. Elsewhere." A groundbreaking series that ushered in a new form of television drama, "St. Elsewhere" won numerous Emmy Awards and top ratings from 1982 to 1987. Other television works include ABC's series, "Our Family Business" and sitcom, "Big Wave Dave's," guest-starring roles on numerous network series, and starring roles in some twenty television movies.

Morse has accumulated a list of top awards for his work on stage. He won a DramaLogue Award for his Los Angeles Stage role in "Of Mice and Men." Other stage appearances include the Off-Broadway productions of "The Trading Post," "Threads" and "A Death in the Family." He starred in the Seattle Repertory's world premiere presentation of "Redwood Curtain." He made his Broadway debut in the role of Father Barry in the theater adaptation of "On the Waterfront," and, in 1997, made a triumphant return to the Off-Broadway stage in Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, "How I Learned to Drive." For his starring role, Morse won the Drama League Award, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Drama Desk Award and the Obie Award.

RENE LIU
(as Ching-fang)

In the span of seven years, Rene Liu has emerged both as one of Taiwan's top actresses, and one of the country's most successful pop singers. She is also a well-known spokes-model, recently becoming the first non-Japanese woman in 20 years to be the "face" of Shiseido cosmetics across Asia.

Liu started out as a musician. A native of Taipei, she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Classical Music with a major in Vocal and Piano, at the University of California at Fullerton. On her return to Taipei, she signed with Rock Music, Taiwan's top recording label. But, before she had had a chance to make her first record, she was introduced to Chen Kuo-Fu (director of Double Vision). Moments after their meeting, the filmmaker decided to cast her in the lead role of his production, The Peony Pavillion (Wo de Mei li Yu Ai Chou). The film, released in 1994, was selected by two of the world's most important film festivals - Toronto and Berlin - gaining Liu her first international exposure.

In the same year as she made Peony Pavillion, she was also cast by Taiwan's award-winning director, Sylvia Chang (Chang Ai-Chia), for the film Siao Yu (Shao Nu Xiao Yu). Liu collected two 1995 Best Actress Awards for her starring role - from Taiwan's Golden Horse Film Festival, and the Asia-Pacific Film Festival.

Since that time, she has made ten more films, among them, Sylvia Chang's 1996 Nobody Goes Home Tonight (Jin Tian Bu Hui Jia); Lin Cheng-Sheng's 1998 Cannes Film Festival-winner Murmur of Youth (Mei Li Zai Chang Ge), for which Liu won the Tokyo Film Festival's Best Actress Award; and Hsu Li-kung's 1999 Midnight Run (Ye Ben).

She also collaborated for the second time with Chen Kuo-Fu, when she starred in The Personals (Zheng Hun Qi Shi). In 1998, this film was invited to festivals around the world, including Cannes and Toronto, and Liu won a Taipei Film Festival Award for Best

Actress and a Special Jury Award from the Golden Horse festival. This year, the film had a U.S. art-house opening, earning rave reviews. Liu was singled out by The New York Times as "an actress of extraordinary subtlety." The Los Angeles Times noted that "(S)he beautifully plays … in a singularly demanding role."

She has made several television series, most notably 1999 's "April Rhapsody" ("Renjian Si Yue Tian"), and last year's "Living Under the Cross" for which she won Taiwan's Golden Bell TV Award for Best Actress.

Liu's music career has been equally successful. As a singer, she is one of Rock Music's best-selling artists. During a break in her Double Vision production schedule, she recorded her seventh album.

LEON DAI (Dai Li-Ren)
(as Taiwan Detective Li Feng-po)

Before 1999, Leon Dai had appeared in supporting roles in seven films, and several television movies. But that year, he won Taiwan's Golden Horse Film Award for Best Supporting Actor, and then in 2000, he picked up a Golden Bell TV Award for Best Actor. Suddenly, the press was paying attention, and he became a household name. Since then, his star has continued to rise. He has appeared in seven more films in the past two years, and is one of the main characters in Taiwan Public Television's highly-rated series, Da Yi Yuan, Xiao Yi Sheng (trans: "Big Hospital, Little Doctor").

His Golden Horse was awarded for his role in Yiwen Chen's A Chance to Die (Xian Si Chen Xian Zai), and the following year, he was nominated for another - for his work in Hsu Li-Kung's Midnight Run (Ye Ben). Among his recent films are: Edward Yang's Yi Yi (A One and A Two), an international hit that collected a Director's Award in Cannes, the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Film, and more; The Cabbie (Yun Zhuan Shou Zhi Lian), co-directed by Chang Hwa-Kun and Chen Yi-Wen (and written by Double Vision co-writer Su Chao-Pin); and Lin Cheng-Sheng's Betelnut Beauty (Ai Ni Ai Wo), winner of two major awards at this year's Berlin Film Festival.

Very much his own man, over the years, this ruggedly handsome actor with a Black Belt in Tai Kwon-do, has rebuffed numerous offers for modeling jobs, preferring to devote himself to more creative pursuits. Not only is he a successful film and television actor, but he has enjoyed success in the theater, both as an actor and a director.

Dai is also a writer of growing renown. He was nominated for a poetry award in 1999, and won a Best Script Award in 1995 for his play "Nianshao Qingkuang," which he also directed. Last year, he was awarded a writing and directing grant by Taiwan's Government Information Office, and recently directed his first short film.

YANG KUEI-MEI
(as the Coroner)

Yang Kuei-Mei's list of credits has a impressive distinction: most of the movies in which she has starred have won major awards at film festivals such as Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Singapore, and, of course, Taipei.

Yang has appeared in some dozen feature films. Among them are Ang Lee's OscarO-nominated 1994 Eat Drink Man Woman (Yin Shi Nan Nu); mainland Chinese director He Ping's 1995 Sun Valley (Ri Guang Xia Gu), nominated for the Berlin festival's Golden Bear; two multiple-award winning films with director Tsai Ming-Liang -- 1998's The Hole (Dong), which won Cannes's Grand Jury Prize, and for which Yang earned the Singapore Film Festival's Best Actress Award and a nomination for Taiwan's Golden Horse, and the 1994 Vive L'Amour (Ai Ching Wan Sui), winner of the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion, which brought Yang both a Golden Horse, and a Best Actress Award from the Singapore Film Festival. She made two films - also multiple award-winners - with director Wang Tong, 1987's Strawman (Dao Chao Ren), and 1993's Hill of No Return (Wu Yan De Shan Qui), which won her the Singapore festival's Best Actress Award.

For Taiwan's television audience, Yang is a perennial favorite. She has been in nineteen television series, nine of which were in prime time slots. She is winner of the Golden Bell Best Actress TV Award for the series Tian Gong Teng Hao Ren.

Yang has been called "a symbol of Eastern beauty" by the Taiwanese press. She has played a wide range of roles, from broad comedy to art-house drama, and has often been noted (and appreciated) for the depth, accuracy and dignity she has lent to rural and working-class characters. A native of Taipei, Yang originally intended to become a singer. Early on, however, she was spotted by Taiwan TV (TTV) at a singing competition held by the network, and soon thereafter decided to devote herself to acting instead.

CHEN KUO-FU
(Producer/Director)

Chen Kuo-Fu is one of the leading figures in Taiwan cinema. An award-winning filmmaker, he has also worked as a documentarian, music-video director, producer, film critic, magazine and book editor, author, university lecturer, acting teacher and film festival programmer and director.

Chen made his feature film debut in 1989 with School Girl (Guo Zhong Nu Sheng), which screened to critical praise at the prestigious Toronto, Munich and Locarno (Switzerland) film festivals. His second work, Treasure Island (Zhi Yao Wei Ni Huo Yi Tian), was produced by renowned director, Hou Hsiao-Hsien. It premiered in competition at the 1993 Locarno Festival, and was also shown at the Toronto, Montreal, Nantes and Rotterdam festivals. In 1995, he made The Peony Pavilion (Wo de Meili yu Ai Chou). The film starred his "discovery," actress Rene Liu, in her acting debut. This, too, was invited to major international festivals, including Berlin and Toronto.

His most recent film, The Personals (Zheng Hun Qi Shi), again starring Rene Liu, was invited to the 1999 Cannes Film Festival, as well as the festivals in Toronto, Calcutta, Rotterdam and others. It was honored with Taiwan's Golden Horse Grand Jury prize, along with nominations in five categories including Best Picture and Best Director. Liu was awarded the prize for Best Actress at the Taipei Film Festival.

In 2000-2001, The Personals was released in the United States, receiving high praise from critics. In one of many rave reviews, the Los Angeles Times called the film "unpredictable and remarkably accomplished…[and] one of the liveliest and most accessible films yet from Taiwan."

During the 1980s and '90s, Chen was one of Taiwan's most noted critics. From 1990-1992, he was editor-in-chief of the influential film magazine, "Image Maker." He has four books on film history and film theory to his credit, and has taught university courses on directing, and on the history of film. In past years, he has served as Programmer for the Golden Horse Film Festival, and Director of the Taipei Film Festival.

Chen is President of Nan Fang Film Productions, and also serves as the Executive Producer/Director of the Taipei office of Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia (a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment).

TIM YIP (Yip Kam-tim)
(Art Direction/Costume Design)

In 2001, when Tim Yip won the OscarO for Art Direction, and was nominated for Costume Design honoring his sumptuous work on Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, the world learned a name that film aficionados had respected for years. Yip has been responsible for the look of some of the most renowned films to come out of Asia. Among his credits are John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (Ying Xiong Ben Se), Stanley Kwan's Rouge (Yan Zhi Kou), Ringo Lam's City on Fire (Long Hu Feng Yun), Wayne Wang's Eat a Bowl of Tea, and Clara Law's Temptation of a Monk (You Seng), for which he won the 1994 Golden Horse Award for Best Art Direction. Double Vision is his second collaboration with filmmaker Chen Kuo-Fu; they previously worked together on the 1994 The Peony Pavillion (Wode Mei Li Yu Ai Chou).

Until Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Yip had been on a six year hiatus from film work, waiting, as he says, "for the right film to come along." A Hong Kong native now living in Taipei, he devoted his efforts to a remarkable variety of stage productions in Asia and Europe. In 1996, he went to Austria with Lin Hwai Min, one of Asia's most renowned choreographers, to design the wardrobe for the opera "Rashomon," and in 1997, returned there to work on an Austrian production of "Tristan und Isolde." He has worked twice in France, at the prestigious Avignon Theater Festival and at the Lyon Art Festival's Dance Biennale. Both in Taiwan and Hong Kong, he has collaborated with numerous major dance companies.

In 1997 and 1998, the National Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall and the National Concert Culture Gallery each held exhibitions in Taipei to honor Yip's achievements in performing arts design.

ARTHUR WONG (Wong Ngok-tai)
(Director of Photography)

Arthur Wong is one of Hong Kong's most celebrated cinematographers. Since he made his debut as the youngest-ever director of photography in the Hong Kong film industry --beginning his career at the world-renowned Shaw Brothers Studio - he has shot over 70 features. He developed an early reputation for his work on action films (aided, no doubt, by his own mastery of Kung-fu), eventually broadening his repertory to include virtually every genre.

Wong has worked alongside top-name directors including John Woo, Ringo Lam, Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan, Clara Law, Gordan Chan, Tsui Hark and Ann Hui. His work abroad includes the Hollywood production Knock Off, starring Jean Claude Van Damme, and the recently-completed, English-language production, The Treatment (Gua Sha), which he filmed in the United States with Double Vision's star, Tony Leung Ka-Fai. The 1999 action-packed thriller Gen-X Cops (Tejing xinrenlei), directed by Benny Chan, was released in the United States by Columbia-Tristar. Most recently, he traveled to Ireland to shoot the upcoming U.S./Hong Kong co-production, Highbinders, starring Jackie Chan.

Wong's laurels include five Hong Kong Film Awards and nine nominations, six awards for Outstanding Achievement from the Hong Kong Society of Cinematographers, and one award and four nominations for Best Cinematography from Taiwan's Golden Horse Film Festival.

For twelve of the fourteen years it has been active, Wong has served as Chairman of the Hong Kong Society of Cinematographers, a post he continues to hold.

SU CHAO PIN
(Co-Screenwriter)

Su Chao-pin was educated in a most unusual way -- for a screenwriter, that is. He earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, then went on to get his master's degree from Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute, where he specialized in human-computer interaction. He had just been accepted to pursue another degree at one of the world's most prestigious technology think-tanks, the M.I.T. Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts… when the film bug hit him.

In fact, between finishing his master's degree in 1996, and applying to the Media Lab in 1999, Su had started to work in the entertainment arena, working as a freelance creative director for MTV Mandarin, for which he created cutting-edge, on-air promotional pieces. Once he made his decision to abandon a scientific career, things moved quickly. Su's first produced screenplay was for the television film, A Good Day to Die. The film aired on Toho TV in Japan in April, 2000, and starred Miki Mizuno and Takashi Kashiwabara.

His second produced screenplay was for the feature, The Cabbie (Yun Zhuan Shou Zhi Lian), co-directed by Chang Hwa-Kun and Chen Yi-Wen. The film won a special Jury Award at Taiwan's 2000 Golden Horse Film Festival, and was selected for the 2001 Berlin Film Festival. Variety, the entertainment industry's most important trade publication, called the film "a delightfully out-there romantic comedy full of low key-charm and humor."

Su recently made his directorial debut with the film "Better Than Sex," which currently in post-production under the banner of Chen Kuo-fu's Nan Fang Film Productions.

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