01-25-2021, 01:00 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-25-2021, 01:04 PM by Drunk Monk.)
This has been in my queue for some time. It's another take on the Monkey King epic starring Eddie Peng as Monkey. I'm not a fan of Eddie. He's terrible as Monkey.
And this movie is a mess. It's a CGI orgy on crack without any condoms. A mess.
First of all, Journey to the West is near and dear to my heart. I read it cover to cover to Tara as a bedtime story. This is not from that. It's set 500 years prior to that, based on a web novel which are popular in PRC. It's about Wukong (Monkey) and other deities from that tale, Erlang and Tianpeng. But there's a lot of issues, like Wukong's staff. In this film, he has his staff, but how he gets it was actually a chapter in JttW 500 years later, and a great chapter at that. There are so many great chapters. They could've taken any of those, but no, let's make something new that's a total mess.
The costumes, sets and special effects are garishly overdone. This is a big film. Peng is a big star. And it got a lot of noms at azn film fests. But man, what an exercise on how to ruin a franchise.
It might work if you speed it up double or triple time, replaced the soundtrack with blaring trap music, and projected it on a warehouse wall at a molly-fueled rave. Meh...prolly not. It is visual, but not in a fresh sort of way.
There are a lot of cold weapon fights (Wukong's staff versus Erlang's sanjianliangrenqiang, which is a trident-like lance) but there's more magic fights like Erlang's bat-a-rang tornado. Not DOOM recommended.
And this movie is a mess. It's a CGI orgy on crack without any condoms. A mess.
First of all, Journey to the West is near and dear to my heart. I read it cover to cover to Tara as a bedtime story. This is not from that. It's set 500 years prior to that, based on a web novel which are popular in PRC. It's about Wukong (Monkey) and other deities from that tale, Erlang and Tianpeng. But there's a lot of issues, like Wukong's staff. In this film, he has his staff, but how he gets it was actually a chapter in JttW 500 years later, and a great chapter at that. There are so many great chapters. They could've taken any of those, but no, let's make something new that's a total mess.
The costumes, sets and special effects are garishly overdone. This is a big film. Peng is a big star. And it got a lot of noms at azn film fests. But man, what an exercise on how to ruin a franchise.
It might work if you speed it up double or triple time, replaced the soundtrack with blaring trap music, and projected it on a warehouse wall at a molly-fueled rave. Meh...prolly not. It is visual, but not in a fresh sort of way.
There are a lot of cold weapon fights (Wukong's staff versus Erlang's sanjianliangrenqiang, which is a trident-like lance) but there's more magic fights like Erlang's bat-a-rang tornado. Not DOOM recommended.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse