What's the worst in Re-Cycle is an absence of story. Purposeless journey, groundless twists, meaningless dialogs, loose ends all way round. To avoid misunderstanding, the script isn't simple or stupid, it nearly doesn't exist.

The only thing, which shines are creative, scary, stylish, surprising visuals/sets. Those sets with recycled books, rotten town, waiting deads almost took my breath away from either visual or creative points of view. Worth mentioning, last time it happened to me with Silent Hill. Extra marks.

Special effects and scares are not novel for those, who have seen previous Pang brothers features, but they are mixed in quite a fresh way. Across the movie one may also experience feelings resembling The Cell, Silent Hill, and even Matrix.

Avoid if looking for traditional horror movie, but watch rather to widen your imagination and to have several strong scares. Provision yourself with patience to neglect the absence of the story.

This film from the Pang Brothers stars Lee Sin-Je (also known as Angelica Lee), who becomes more assured with each film. She plays Ying-Tin, a successful novelist who is experiencing writer's block. As she begins to write her novel, strange things happen. She gets phone calls which are just noise, she sees visions. She goes out of her apartment and into another world entirely, which looks life a post-apocalyptic Hong Kong. What once appeared to be heading for a straight horror film becomes more of a supernatural thriller. There are many interesting images and the film looks great. The outcome of the story itself is tied to an old relationship she had, and you'll understand the message of the film as you go along. If you like films like this and/or like Ms. Sin-Je, you'll find this very watchable. Ms. Sin-Je, who looks great, gives a good performance, carrying the film on her shoulders pretty admirably.

The premise of this film is startling: Imagine a place where everything abandoned and forgotten, all the thrown-away toys and the unwritten books, the unfulfilled plans, the dead and the unborn are still somehow present. This is a premise that easily attracts all kinds of stories and images, emotions and philosophical ruminations. What would you find in the Re-Cycle? What would you seek, and what would you come across that you were not thinking about? It is quite hard to make a totally bad film from this premise.

And "Re-Cycle" is not a totally bad film. It just misses most opportunities the premise offers. The Pang Brothers decided to film it as a mixture of horror and computer game, and the good stuff is struggling under the load of annoying genre conventions. It is sad to watch when the heroine has to solve some superfluous task ("Cross the bridge without breathing, or the dead will chase you"), when there is so much more interesting and meaningful that could happen instead. How else could you turn a person's inner self into a series a landscapes? Also, the relation with the little girl never gains the substance it needs to make the ending convincing. Sure, there is some amazing imagery here, and some of it even makes sense. But the film left me longing for a remake by somebody who handles both the imagery and the complexity of the idea.

By the way, if you feel the same, check out "After Life" by Hirokazu Kore-Eda. It is very low-key visually, but explores a similarly striking idea in great depth and with great humanity.