Zhuo yao ji (2015) Reviews

• Contrasting between mythical bizarreness and action comedy, Monster Hunt is a strangely delightful fantasy drama.

  quincytheodore2015-09-13

  Chinese animation has been through a rough time, it missed the mark so many times when used to create epic legend. However, it seems that the eccentric animation just found its niche with the blend of humor, drama and action fantasy that is Monster Hunt. It shockingly deals with a few eerie themes yet presented in family friendly light humorous way, almost like MIB in ancient China. In a world where monster and human live in inharmonious way, an ordinary man finds himself in a struggle between the monster kingdom and human hunters. It opens up with typical fantasy troupe, then escalates with good comedic tone as well as healthy dose of martial art stunts. The cast works fine, especially with famous names as supporting characters or cameos, some of them are added for comedy relief. The tone might feel awkward, it's often playful but then it displays incredibly creepy prejudice against the monster, even down to eating and torturing them. Granted, some of them look like radish or salad, although the abrupt change of pace can be startling. There are definitely some odd twists here. Fortunately enough, the core drama is light humor, with endearing family value thrown into the mix. It mostly deals with platonic funny theme, and fans of Chinese cinema should find the humor familiar. For a movie that uses animation and action choreography at the same time, Monster Hunt looks amazing, especially in the second half with gorgeous setting. It's one of the best animations Chinese has produced, it's much smoother than the rest and these silly designs are well integrated into the world. The feel of uncanny valley actually works in their favor since the monsters only partially resemble human yet they look harmless enough to be friendly. Monster Hunt has all the elements of Chinese fantasy movie, the visual effect and also the soundtracks enhance the flamboyantly cheesy premise. It's a well-produced action comedy and definitely a crowd pleaser.

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• What a surprise of a movie...

  paul_haakonsen2016-10-15

  "Monster Hunt" (aka "Zhuo yao ji") was sort of a movie that was entertaining in a strange way, especially since it was a combination of animation and live action. Normally that mixture does work well enough, but it was the odd cute and cuddly appearance of the monsters in the movie that just made it weird. The story in "Monster Hunt" was actually surprisingly good, as it is a story which is suitable for both children and adults alike. And the movie itself is also suitable for children to watch. "Monster Hunt" is about ancient China where humans and monsters live simultaneously, although the monsters are banished. The queen of the monster world is pregnant, but is being chased relentlessly. With her dying breath she passes on her egg to a human named Song Tianyin (played by Boran Jing). He is traveling with monster hunter Huo Xiaolan (played by Baihe Bai) and they are being chased by monster hunters set out to capture the royal monster child. With a captivating story, then "Monster Hunt" is already well on the way for being a good movie. But it is really helped along by some great acting performances by Huo Xiaolan, Boran Jing, Wu Jiang, Sandra Kwan Yue Ng and Eric Tsang. And it was a nice treat to have the talented Wei Tang make a short appearance in this movie. The CGI were good, although the design of the monsters was at first somewhat of a difficult pill to swallow for me. They were simply just too cute in their design to be taken seriously. So I guess you will either outright fall in love with them right away (which my wife did), or you will have problems with taking them seriously (as I did). "Monster Hunt" is a fast-paced movie that has both a good storyline, but also has enough action and martial arts to keep the average fan of the Asian cinema more than happy. While it is somewhat of an offbeat movie, compared to the myriad of Hong Kong movies released every year, then "Monster Hunt" certainly is well-worth watching. It turned out to be a very nice surprise and a very entertaining movie, and I can warmly recommend this movie, both if you are a fan of the Asian cinema, but also if you are looking for a good movie for the entire family. "Monster Hunt" scores a rock-solid seven out of ten stars rating from me.

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• it is rather difficult to be a true cinephile in China

  lasttimeisaw2015-10-18

  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.

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• Monster Hunt – The Radish That Has Made $240 Million

  rongrudy2015-07-28

  The Chinese local film "protection week" has been heavily criticized by Hollywood, especially when, the Universal's recent hit, Jurassic Park's run was cut short with gas in the tank. However, this year's protection week finally accomplished something. It gave birth to the top- grossing Chinese film in history – Monster Hunt. The fantasy comedy film that led by, "Shrek"'s creator，Raman Hui sets the new Chinese box office record this week. The movie's production was a huge adventure, itself, with no predecessor Chinese film containing heavy interactions between CGI characters and real actors. It has been generally considered as too risky, considering the comparably big budget and the government's potential intervention. A typical Chinese college love- story film, the genre that dominated the market in the past six months, costs less than one tenth of Monster Hunt's investment. According to the record, our government had not been a big fan of imaginative characters, which can stop the expensive project from going on to the screens. The creative ideas in Monster Hunt, such as the promotion of harmony between monsters and humans, are unorthodox, which could be raised to a political level. However, the producer, Bill Kong -- the producer of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, still wants to take the bet. As a kid, he was a fanatic gambler on horse racing and card games. Later as a movie producer, he gambled on high budget movies and won numerous awards along with billions of dollars. He believes that the market is finally ready for partly animated, largely live-action films and the Chinese visual effect teams are mature enough to make an attractive one. Besides the production method, Monster Hunter is also one of the few movie franchises that were one hundred percent originally created by the production company in China and could be expanded to a collection of movies, books, and TV episodes. It was made to be a commercial movie, but its creative original content and the production team's accurate understanding of the market's favor end up fulfilling the interest of a wide range of Chinese audiences, which won them the praises that exceeds anyone's expectation. The movie begins with a cartoon that mimics the style of wall painting in the era of cave men combining with an unidentified narrator's voice that sounds mysterious and antique. Through the prologue, we understand that the story sets in a world where humans and monsters co-exist, but humans got tired of this and started a war driving the monsters into the far reaches of the mountains. The story's background is familiar to the audiences, since the similar backgrounds were portrayed in Chinese classics "Shan Hai Jin" and "Liao Zhai Zhi Yi". Instead of shouting out the theme of comedy, the movie gives a sense of "Lord of the Ring" or "Harry Porter". However, the mood of a thriller was broken when the camera zooms in on the adorable image of the monster queen and her chubby tummy. When the reckless evil monster revolutionaries try to overthrow the royalty, the queen flees to the land of humans and impregnates a human man with Huba, the cute monster baby. They started an adventure together to escape the capture. I can hear the audiences' hearts melting, when they go AWW during the scene that the radish looking Huba opens his eyes as a lovely baby monster. The casting was another factor that contributes to the success. The movie was originally finished in 2014. However, the protagonist, Kai Ko, was arrested for using marijuana before the movie's release. The movie was banned with his involvement. However, the producer, Bill Kong, still believes that Monster Hunt has to be finished. He invested another $15 million to retake the parts of Kai Ko, which basically is 40% of the movie. Many famous actors and actresses admired Kai Ko's persistence and offered to be guest actors. The movie ended up with an all-star team that covers fans' age group ranging from 15 to the 50s. Monster Hunt is a new break through in the Chinese Movie industry. Creativity is Chinese movie industries' future. We are glad that the protecting good monster's theme was not banned, that Raman Hui found an investor that was persistent and visionary, and that the new attempt of comedy fantasy was widely accepted.

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• Wonderful marriage of state-of-the-art animation technology and charismatic acting

  harry_tk_yung2015-07-19

  If I have one compliant about this movie, it is the misleading title, specifically the use of the word "monster". Right at the beginning, voice-over narration spares no pain in making the point that members of this other race, regardless of how strange they may look, are in every way human's equal. Just like humans, there are good guys and bad guy, and that is all there is to it. And yet, using the word "monster" to denote them completely sabotages the all-too-obvious subtext of racial harmony. Why can't a special, neutral-sounding name be invented? Laziness? The guess I would venture is marketing considerations. Despite the big opening about conspiracy and power conflict at high places in the monster's realm, the plot line surprisingly oozes domesticity. There is no colossal clash of two kingdoms/races as you might be led to expect at the beginning. This is how it works. The obviously pregnant queen in the monster kingdom finds herself on the losing side of a power struggle and escapes into the forbidden human kingdom, hotly pursued by her enemies from back home. We never see the monster kingdom again as the story takes on a culinary flavor. A monster baby of royal lineage, you see, is considered by humans to be multi-star Michelin fare. While there is no lacking in Asian movie stars, many in various degrees of cameos (including lovely TANG Wei), the story is essentially about a guy and a girl who kind of adopt the new born royal monster Bupa (name given only at the end of the movie). The girl is actually a professional bounty monster-hunter with a profit motive. Eventually, they end up saving him from the fate of being the ultimate highlight of a lavish "monster feast". The little twist is that Bupa is physically born by the innocent nerdish guy, having been implanted into him by the dying pregnant monster mother. The girl eventually gets emotionally attached to the guy and the monster baby, in that order. The two leads beautifully deliver their scenes with both outlandish tomfoolery and subtle nuances. BAI Baihe, arguably China's current princess of rom-com, is in equal measures coquettish and cocky, a sheer delight. JING Boran is about the most lovable nerd you can find today for any Asian cast. There are exciting action sequences aplenty, offered up by a pageantry of celebrity stars, with superbly delivered animation blending so seamlessly that sometimes you totally forget that you are watching animation. While not a major part of the movie, the background music contributes. In particular, the songs, whether a tender love duet, an uplifting spirit-raiser or outright comedy, are pitch-perfect (no pun intended), enhancing the moods of the movie at just the right moments. There is a good reason for this success: they came from the pens of a pair that can deservedly be called Hong Kong's Lerner and Lowe (or Rodgers and Hammerstein, if you prefer), Leon Ko and Chris Shum.

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