Sight (2024) * *

 

Directed by:  Andrew Hyatt

Starring:  Terry Chen, Greg Kinnear, Mia Swaminathan, Fionnula Flanagan, Jayden Zhang

Sight is based on the true story of Dr. Ming Wang, who survived the Cultural Revolution of Mao's China to become a world-renowned eye surgeon.  He mastered a procedure to restore sight using placenta along with Dr. Misha Bartnovsky (Kinnear).   Their first patient is an abused Indian girl named Kajal (Swaminathan), who despite her trauma provides inspiration and hope to Dr. Wang.  Wang, however, is still Haunted By His Past, and no wonder.  Ming wants to follow in his father's footsteps and become a doctor, but the revolution makes that difficult with the threat of closing universities looming. 

Wang also befriends a classmate who becomes his girlfriend.  One day, the revolutionaries take her away and she is never seen again.  Wang, however, thrives when the universities reopen and is able to procure a scholarship in the United States.   When Sight opens, he is a famous surgeon with a Nashville practice when Kajal is brought to him.  In the prologue, we witness the harrowing abuse which causes Kajal to lose her sight.  This is not uplifting stuff, but Sight tries its best. 

Terry Chen gives us a Dr. Wang still troubled by his upbringing forty years earlier.  While his family relocated with him to Tennessee, he still walks around as if lead weights are tied to his ankles.  His friend and partner Misha is far more positive.  Sight itself is a gloomy picture that can't lift itself up off the mat even when Dr. Wang successfully performs the surgery which will restore sight to numerous patients in the ensuing years.  Sight attempts to lighten things up with talk of inspiration, faith, and healing, but the results are a mixed bag.  

The real Dr. Wang appears at the end of Sight to implore people to "pay it forward" and buy someone else's ticket to see Sight, a marketing campaign which worked for Angel Studios with Sound of Freedom from last year.  I don't think Sight will achieve the same box office.  You can only dip into that well once, and Sound of Freedom was a better movie.