Eye of the Storm (2023)

What Eye? There is no eye!

Eye Of the Storm is set in a Taipei hospital that has a SARS outbreak trapping employees, visitors, and patients alike within. It starts off pretty quick introducing all of the main players, while also showing us some suspiciously ill people. The eye of a storm is placid, calm. No one and nothing in this movie was calm. We barely see any time before the SARS outbreak and none after. Can you say poorly named?

The cinematography and flow of the film reminds me of movies from the mid to late 90s when the Coen Brothers were at the height of their popularity. (I've never been a fan of the CBs.) I think it was supposed to give the movie a more realistic and serious feel. Personally, I think that was a failure. It's a hospital with an outbreak. The plodding slow nature of the movie doesn't work. The story is insufficient. It does not concentrate on any one aspect of the story line. There's the treatment of the sick and people on lockdown which is barely explored. The investigation into where the outbreak came from is lacklustre. What's interesting are the main characters and how they navigate the outbreak. Unfortunately, that aspect is not sufficiently explored. Somehow the director managed to take all these skimmed upon topics and made a fairly watchable 2 hour movie. Here's the spoiler... ready? It doesn't end. There is no tidy little ending. No rainbow after the storm. We have no clue as to the fate of the lead characters. We have foreshadowing, but no real answer. END SPOILER

The cast sells the story. They do a great job at emoting and make you care for their characters. Out of our 3 leads: the overly caring nurse, Tai He An (played by Jing Huaa Tseng), the spoiled/selfish surgeon (Edison Wang - never noticed he kind of looks like Gong Yoo), and our intrepid investigative reporter (Simon Hsueh), nurse An is my favorite. I found him admirable and An great a job with this character.

I rarely rewatch, but I can't see anyone wanting to watch this twice. The music was good and supportive.

Eye Of the Storm is not your normal outbreak movie. It's not action pack. Hmm maybe the placid title. It's a character driven hospital drama that does not delve fully into any aspect of it's subject. I don't recommend this to anyone seeking anything like the move Outbreak or even the level of excitement from a typical hospital drama. For all others there's nothing to like or dislike. It just is. It's 2 hours of something if and when you need it.

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Strong beginning; Weak ending

What the description on Netflix and MDL, even the move itself, fail to note is this is loosely based on events during a 2003 SARS outbreak in Taiwan. Unfortunately, this is one of those movies that grabs your attention within the first few minutes and then just leaves you with a very abrupt ending. It just leaves you with too many loose ends and no overall resolution to events. This is sad considering the actors were wonderful portraying their characters. Even with the sudden ending, it had great cinematography and pacing. However, the editing can make viewers uncomfortable which I think was the purpose.

Random Note:
It felt like the writers did not want to fully commit to a sad ending or that they lost steam at the end and gave up.

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