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James Mottram

3.5/5 stars
Voyeurism and surveillance take centre stage in Singapore director Yeo Siew Hua’s slow-burning film.
Unveiled in the competition strand of this year’s Venice International Film Festival, Stranger Eyes can sit comfortably alongside such classic voyeuristic thrillers as Rear Window, Blow Up and The Conversation, even if it never quite touches any of those masterpieces.
A film that unfolds gradually, you would be hard-pressed to call it a thriller; an anti-thriller might be more appropriate, given the way Yeo toys with our expectations.


The film begins with a couple looking at images of their child, Little Bo. This could be delightful home-video footage, but it takes on new meaning as we learn the girl has gone missing in a Singapore park.
Worse still, somebody is filming the couple’s intimate moments at home and tormenting them by sending DVDs (a very old-school format, it is noted). Of course, this feels like a cinephile’s dream, evoking memories of Michael Haneke’s Hidden and David Lynch’s Lost Highway.
The police investigation, led by veteran Officer Zheng (Pete Teo), sees them install surveillance equipment around the house.

But it is not enough to placate the volatile Junyang (Wu Chien-ho), who is desperate to see the safe return of Little Bo, even to the point where he attacks a British tourist, a professor from Oxford University no less, in a shopping centre, simply because he is pointing a camera in his direction.
Anxiety surrounding being watched plays a huge part in Stranger Eyes, a film that subtly reflects on Singapore’s own proliferation of security cameras and the state-sponsored crackdown on crime.
“We police don’t have to play hide and seek or go undercover like in the movies any more,” is a statement in the movie that feels ominous in today’s society.

Yeo, whose 2018 debut A Land Imagined won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival, shows great skill and care in the way he builds atmosphere.
With much of the film set in shadowy darkness, characters observe from close range, with windows becoming portals into other lives.
Lee Kang-sheng – a regular collaborator with Malaysian-Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang – gives a strong performance in a role that is best left to be watched.
The film also makes smart use of the song “Endless Love”, by Taiwanese singer Tsai Chin, in a scene set in a convenience store. It is an unforgettable harmony that resonates throughout the rest of the movie.

By the time the film moves into its surprising third act, Stranger Eyes will have you feeling both hooked and ill at ease.
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Venice 2024: Stranger Eyes movie review – unsettling Singaporean drama about surveillance

A still from Stranger Eyes. Photo: Akanga Film Asia

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Yeo Siew Hua muses over Singapore’s use of security cameras in his voyeuristic anti-thriller about surveillance of a missing child’s parents


Yeo Siew Hua muses over Singapore’s use of security cameras in his voyeuristic anti-thriller about surveillance of a missing child’s parents.


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Review | Venice 2024: Stranger Eyes movie review – unsettling Singaporean drama about surveillance

Yeo Siew Hua muses over Singapore’s use of security cameras in his voyeuristic anti-thriller about surveillance of a missing child’s parents