09-29-2020, 10:18 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-29-2020, 10:22 PM by Drunk Monk.)
A Chinese Ghost Story: The Tsui Hark Animation (1997)
I remember when this came out. Hong Kong cinema was on fire because that was the year of the handover. I remember seeing posters for it in Chinatown but I was living in Svale then, across the street from Lam Kwoon, so I could only make it up to SF for a few HK films. I never saw it until now.
It's closest to AGCSIII with the monks Baiyun and Shifang. But this is a completely different take. Here, the Buddhists are evil, or at least in opposition to the hero's goals. Ning is a tax collector but he walks into the yaoguai world to meet Xiaoquan. It's a lot like Spirited Away, so much so that at first I assumed this was derivative, however it was earlier so maybe it was the other way around. Once in the yaoguai world, the story is very different. There's the tree demon and Butterfly, and then there's Mountain Evil, a rock star like spirit that holds a concert. And there's a dog. Man, it's killing me but that dog reminds me of another cartoon dog sidekick from a popular cartoon - I'm struggling to place it.
At first the animation put me off. It's a mix of early CGI and conventional, and it just wasn't working. Chinese animation was crude back then, like old anime, and the color schemes were unpleasant. But then it started to grow on me because the story wemt such a different direction with a dragon reincarnation train and Red Beard, a Daoist exorcist who rode this giant transformer-like machine with temple bells for arms, a drum for a body and barrels for feet.
More magical Daoist sword action. Not particularly DOOM recommended. It's really all about the first two films.
This deep dive was brought to you by Den of Geek, who have commissioned me to do a piece on this for Halloween.
I remember when this came out. Hong Kong cinema was on fire because that was the year of the handover. I remember seeing posters for it in Chinatown but I was living in Svale then, across the street from Lam Kwoon, so I could only make it up to SF for a few HK films. I never saw it until now.
It's closest to AGCSIII with the monks Baiyun and Shifang. But this is a completely different take. Here, the Buddhists are evil, or at least in opposition to the hero's goals. Ning is a tax collector but he walks into the yaoguai world to meet Xiaoquan. It's a lot like Spirited Away, so much so that at first I assumed this was derivative, however it was earlier so maybe it was the other way around. Once in the yaoguai world, the story is very different. There's the tree demon and Butterfly, and then there's Mountain Evil, a rock star like spirit that holds a concert. And there's a dog. Man, it's killing me but that dog reminds me of another cartoon dog sidekick from a popular cartoon - I'm struggling to place it.
At first the animation put me off. It's a mix of early CGI and conventional, and it just wasn't working. Chinese animation was crude back then, like old anime, and the color schemes were unpleasant. But then it started to grow on me because the story wemt such a different direction with a dragon reincarnation train and Red Beard, a Daoist exorcist who rode this giant transformer-like machine with temple bells for arms, a drum for a body and barrels for feet.
More magical Daoist sword action. Not particularly DOOM recommended. It's really all about the first two films.
This deep dive was brought to you by Den of Geek, who have commissioned me to do a piece on this for Halloween.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse