my G@Rdening frenzY: March 2015

23 March 2015

ZHONG KUI: SNOW GIRL AND THE DARK CRYSTAL (钟馗伏魔：雪妖魔灵)

I have always been a fan of and look forward to watch chinese martial arts and fantasy movies but the ones I caught recently were usually very high on CGI graphics and lost the appeal of the original ones I used to see in the 90's. This one is no exception despite the movie starring one of my favourite chinese actor Chen Kun and one of the "bling blings", I mean Li Bingbing, alongside Winston Chao and Yang Zishan.

First, I have to comment on the bad translation in the title from Chinese to English. Snow girl they wrote but it was more snow demoness than anything. The settings are so full of CGI graphics, from the sceneries to the demons that were reminiscent of western movies like the Lord of the Rings. Gone are the forms of the spirits, demons and demoness (妖) that one often reads about and imagines in the chinese novels and watched in movies in earlier decades.

One of the uniqueness of different cultures lie in their different interpretation and depiction of all common things including gods, deities, spirits, demons etc and the influence of western culture on chinese movie-making couldn't be more apparent in chinese movies of late. Food is one big area where the melting pot of eastern and western cultures create a slew of fusion cuisine where the original flavour of food worldwide is starting to taste similar. This is now happening to movies in the east and in my opinion, this is a regression of chinese movie-making and I am absolutely against it.

The movie focused on the story of the legendary demon-hunter 钟馗 in chinese fictional novels and how he met and fell in love with the snow demoness. Like many other storylines before this e.g. Madam White Snake, it told the tale of how a mortal and a demoness became hopelessly in love that not even all forces on the realms of heaven, earth and hell could tear them apart. With the help of their sister(s), the demoness went all out to sacrifice herself to save her man.

Chen Kun once again took on dual roles, where one was an androgynous demon and the other as the heavily bearded demon hunter who became part demon part human. Li Bingbing looked more like a bride in some scenes and it was so obvious that so much technical touch-up was done on her visibly aged face to make her look youthful, radiant and ethereal. Winston Chao looked more bloated than before too and his portrayal of a two-faced deity was quite comical.

So in all honesty, I didn't quite enjoy this movie.

Chen Kun as 钟馗

Li Bingbing as the bride, I mean Snow Demoness

the first encounter between the leads

Winston Chao, the prententious deity

sisters of the demonic world unite

the demon looked straight out from Lord of the Rings

a transformed half demon half human 钟馗

DRAGON BLADE (天将雄狮)

I watched "Dragon Blade" a few weeks back. Directed by Daniel Lee and starring Jackie Chan as Commander Huo An who is the leader of the protection squad of the Western regions of the silk road during the Han Dynasty, the Korea star Choi Siwon as his deputy Yinpo, John Cusack as Roman General Lucius, Adrien Brody as the Roman heir Tiberius and a cameo by Feng Shaofeng, this movie was quite entertaining given its rather interesting cast.

In a very cliche way, it started of in the modern day with a 2 members archaeological team led by Vanness Wu and Karena Lam who found an ancient city buried under the sand and through laser projection and satellites imaging, and managed to reconstruct an image of how the city used to look like before the story progressed into the past.

I am not a fan of Jackie Chan and guess I will never be but I always admire his amazing ability to kick butt and execute all those moves despite his age. Siwon has screen presence but his role was really minor and kind of insignificant, in my opinion. I am not sure why but I do find it a bit strange to see both American actors Adrien and John and their legion of armies in this movie. Of late, Adrien Brody seems to be taking on more baddie roles than before.

The movie ended in the modern day again with both Vanness and Karena marveling at the greatness of this site before deciding to leave the ruins as a part of forgotten history so that it remained untainted by humans.