MONSTER HUNT has broken the all-time box office record in the booming domestic market, and officially it is the highest-grossing film in China, with an estimate $391.2 million. So it really piques my curiosity and decided to give it a try (since I rarely watch Chinese films nowadays).
Flagrantly branded as a film made by "the father of Shrek", which the slogan is blatantly printed in all its posters, its director Raman Hui is just a supervising animator of SHREK (2001, 7/10) and SHREK 2 (2004, 7/10), and the co-director of the substandard SHREK 3 (2007, 6/10), so I assume Dreamworks might have the right to sue the overblown statement.
Probing into the film itself, one possibly finds it is a cringe-worthy journey from the very start, thanks to the kids-friendly creations of the monsters by the so-called "the father of Shrek", 2- dimensional and cartoonish in the worst way, which betrays its overt ambition to exploit the lowest common denominator at its maximum. The storyline fictionalises a world where humans and monsters (who can hide among men with a human skin) co-exist in ancient China, after an internal war between monsters, the pregnant monster queen lams with two protectors Zhu Gao and Pang Ying (whose human shapes are played by Tsang and Ng). And our hero is a young cripple Tianyin (Jing), living with his lunatic grandmother (Jin) in a remote village. He chances upon a monster hunt Xiaolan (Bai), and farcically becomes pregnant with the monster baby from the dying queen.
This role-switch between man and woman might turn out to be the most recommendable part in the story, after giving birth to the baby monster, later named as Huba, a surrogate nuclear family is formed, while Xiaolan takes on the tough father's role and the limp Tianyin becomes the protective mother. Then the narrative navigates inevitably to a predictable standard mainstream product, Huba's life is hanging by a thread (with an uncomfortable reference of Chinese people's non-selective culinary fetish) and a final battle between the good and the evil, with a stiff twist doesn't make any sense for the villain's motivation, it is par for the course Tianyin have to progress into a valiant monster slayer (bad monsters only), conforms to the traditional value of preserve a man's dignity, despite it is Xiaolan who is the real heroine in the whole escapade and Bai is the best thing among the cast, the most bankable Chinese actress presently.
Trying to blend as many genres as possible, action, comedy, fantasy, romance, even musical (it is utterly mortifying to watch the tasteless and jejune music numbers jammed into the story), in addition with a cast complemented with a string of household names with special appearances, namely Wei Tang, Chen Yao and Ni Yan, along with child stars from a topical reality TV show, MONSTER HUNT is meticulously calculated to its core, in order to cash in on viewers' attraction, but at the expense of dumbing down the story to a frag-mental absurdity. But a dispiriting truth is that this picture IS the record-holder, bearing that in mind, one must wail for the future of Chinese cinema rooted deeply in the unhealthy soil, and one day, hope not too late, this seemingly prosperous bubble will burst and a wake-up call is imminent, but right now, undeniably it is rather difficult to be a true cinephile in China.
Flagrantly branded as a film made by "the father of Shrek", which the slogan is blatantly printed in all its posters, its director Raman Hui is just a supervising animator of SHREK (2001, 7/10) and SHREK 2 (2004, 7/10), and the co-director of the substandard SHREK 3 (2007, 6/10), so I assume Dreamworks might have the right to sue the overblown statement.
Probing into the film itself, one possibly finds it is a cringe-worthy journey from the very start, thanks to the kids-friendly creations of the monsters by the so-called "the father of Shrek", 2- dimensional and cartoonish in the worst way, which betrays its overt ambition to exploit the lowest common denominator at its maximum. The storyline fictionalises a world where humans and monsters (who can hide among men with a human skin) co-exist in ancient China, after an internal war between monsters, the pregnant monster queen lams with two protectors Zhu Gao and Pang Ying (whose human shapes are played by Tsang and Ng). And our hero is a young cripple Tianyin (Jing), living with his lunatic grandmother (Jin) in a remote village. He chances upon a monster hunt Xiaolan (Bai), and farcically becomes pregnant with the monster baby from the dying queen.
This role-switch between man and woman might turn out to be the most recommendable part in the story, after giving birth to the baby monster, later named as Huba, a surrogate nuclear family is formed, while Xiaolan takes on the tough father's role and the limp Tianyin becomes the protective mother. Then the narrative navigates inevitably to a predictable standard mainstream product, Huba's life is hanging by a thread (with an uncomfortable reference of Chinese people's non-selective culinary fetish) and a final battle between the good and the evil, with a stiff twist doesn't make any sense for the villain's motivation, it is par for the course Tianyin have to progress into a valiant monster slayer (bad monsters only), conforms to the traditional value of preserve a man's dignity, despite it is Xiaolan who is the real heroine in the whole escapade and Bai is the best thing among the cast, the most bankable Chinese actress presently.
Trying to blend as many genres as possible, action, comedy, fantasy, romance, even musical (it is utterly mortifying to watch the tasteless and jejune music numbers jammed into the story), in addition with a cast complemented with a string of household names with special appearances, namely Wei Tang, Chen Yao and Ni Yan, along with child stars from a topical reality TV show, MONSTER HUNT is meticulously calculated to its core, in order to cash in on viewers' attraction, but at the expense of dumbing down the story to a frag-mental absurdity. But a dispiriting truth is that this picture IS the record-holder, bearing that in mind, one must wail for the future of Chinese cinema rooted deeply in the unhealthy soil, and one day, hope not too late, this seemingly prosperous bubble will burst and a wake-up call is imminent, but right now, undeniably it is rather difficult to be a true cinephile in China.