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Leave Me Alone, says Danny ... it's Abnormal for me, says Oxide

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Fresh from their success with horror sequel The Eye 2 (which has topped the box office in several Asian countries) co-directing brothers Oxide and Danny Pang are gearing up to start shooting again, although this time they'll be working on separate movies.

At the beginning of May, Danny starts work on an action drama, Leave Me Alone, which will star Ekin Cheng Yee-kin and Charlene Choi Cheuk-yin. Later in the month, Oxide is scheduled to start directing a thriller, Abnormal Beauty, which was originally set to star Choi's partner in Twins, Gillian Chung Yan-tung, but will now feature both members of rival pop duo 2R: Rosanne Wong Yuen-kwan and Race Wong Yuen-ling.

Both films are being financed by Universe Entertainment and will be shot mostly in Thailand, with some exteriors filmed in Hong Kong. 'Abnormal Beauty is probably best described as a psychological thriller,' says Universe chief operation officer Alvin Lam. 'At least, it's not a horror film. There are no ghosts. Leave Me Alone is an action drama and, stylistically, will be completely different from anything that either of them has done before.'

Leave Me Alone will certainly present a different kind of technical challenge than the Pang brothers' previous films, which made use of special effects to create ghostly images. Cheng will play twin brothers who live in separate countries but meet in Hong Kong and get involved in a case of mistaken identity that spirals out of control. One brother lends the other his car, ID card and driving licence, but the twin with the fake papers has a car accident in which a pedestrian is killed. To claim on insurance, the brothers decide to continue with the deception. Things get complicated when one of them falls for the other's ex-wife. 'There will be lots of action scenes where CGI will be used to allow Ekin to interact with himself,' says Lam.

Oxide's Abnormal Beauty is likely to be less reliant on special effects, but should keep the makeup department busy. It tells the story of a photography student who witnesses a horrific car accident and takes a photo of a woman who has been killed. She becomes mesmerised by the photo and slowly becomes obsessed with the idea of taking pictures at the moment of death. At first, she's content taking photos of dead animals. Soon, she freaks out her classmates by asking them to feign death scenes. Eventually, she attracts the attention of a psychotic killer who finds her behaviour interesting.

Once this chilling project is finished, both Oxide and Danny are set to co-direct a third instalment in The Eye series for Peter Chan Ho-sun's Applause Pictures. Like the sequel, The Eye 3 - Infinity will be based on the theme of people who can see ghosts, but the story will have no direct connection with the previous two films. With a production budget of about US$5 million to US$6 million to allow for more digital special effects, it will be the most expensive film in the series, and Chan says it will be 'the most original and scary Eye to date'.

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