Land Shark

So I have been on a 'shark disaster' kick the last couple of days and after watching Jurassic Shark 1 and 2 I came across this gem...... The movie is dub'ed into English and it comes out OK.

I won't give away any of the script, and you know you don't care, because it doesn't matter... this is a lower mid range shark movie that is actually worth the time you spend watching it.

Bad, but OK ...get the popcorn and get ready to laugh.

The storyline is like a 90 minute cartoon with carboard characters - The good ones are portrayed as 100% virtuous and without flaw, while the bad guys are sheer evil and without any good characteristics.

The Chinese make films like the Japanese did in the 1950s filled with childish episodes and comic "relief" from a buffoon character and usually an overweight guy to boot! Expect that in spades from this film with the hero's side kick always saying very juvenile lines and falling all over himself whenever the going gets rough. Another typical addition is the cutesy little child who says funny thing from time to time and in this case a child who the sharks wants to eat, but due to bizarre circumstances never seems able to catch!

Special effects are really bad, the shark changes size drastically from screen shot to screen shot. It is under the boat and is well over twice as big as the boat and as it drags the boat it appears about half the size of the craft, but don't be disappoint because within minutes its width fills a four-lane highway and then in seconds is as big as a building!

It is worth 3 stars because it is entertaining and make you laugh more than it make you cringe!

I found this to be a generic killer shark movie that I have seen. The idea of someone modifying the shark gene to develop a new type of drug seems similar to Deep Blue Sea, and even the first part is some characters trapped in somewhat of an underwater facility. That part is somewhat suspenseful with the characters trying to survive against the shark and come up with some good plans for it. In the opening, the movie introduced a land shark that goes underground and can move easily on land. It's a pretty creative thing to have in a shark, and it shows how dangerous this creature is. There's even one scene that attacks a city, but it doesn't last long. Things get worse when the movie introduces a human villain who has a generic motive and wants to keep the shark alive. It's been done before, and here doesn't make it any better. The climax itself is ok, but nothing too big happened during it.

*"Land Shark" is a low-budget disaster that fails to deliver any of the thrills or laughs you'd expect from a creature feature. The concept of a shark terrorizing people on land is absurd, but the film doesn't embrace its campy potential, instead stumbling through a poorly executed plot and amateurish dialogue.

The special effects are laughably bad, with the shark itself looking more like a cheap puppet than a threatening monster. The acting is painfully wooden, and the characters are forgettable, making it hard to invest in anything that's happening. The pacing is slow, and the film drags despite its short runtime.

While some B-movie fans might find it amusing in a so-bad-it's-good way, Land Shark offers little more than a frustrating, unwatchable experience. It doesn't even deliver enough enjoyment to be considered a guilty pleasure."*

I had never heard about this 2020 monster shark movie from China, prior to sitting down and watching it here in 2023. The Chinese cinema has definitely upped their game and pumped out a lot of creature features these past couple of years.

The storyline in "Land Shark" is pretty straight forward, generic actually, even for a shark-themed movie. But it does make for some good old fashioned cheesy fun with a monstrous shark wrecking havoc on people. It is the kind of movie where you just lean back, grab a snack and watch the mayhem on the screen - with the occassional laugh or shaking of the head because of the questionable CGI.

"Land Shark" is essentially just a lazy writing ordeal, and director Cheng Si-Yu delivers a movie that is one-third "Deep Blue Sea", one-third "Jaws" and one-third "Jurassic World". It is a very unoriginal script they came up with here.

I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in "Land Shark". But taking into consideration the nature of the script and the outcome of the movie, then the actors and actresses on the cast list performed as to be expected I suppose.

The main character Song Yi (played by Liqun Luo) is a blatant rip-off of the Owen Grady (played by Chris Pratt) from the 2015 Jurassic World movie, from the mannerism, personality and right down to wearing almost the exact same outfit. Talk about lazy writing.

The movie has some serious goofs. For example, they are 100 meters underwater in the research station, yet when the panorama glass window is shattered by the shark and water rushes in, the room somehow managed not to be fully submerged, which makes zero sense. And there is an issue with the shark's size. The shark is mentioned to be 4 meters, yet when it is lunging out of the water in the flooded room to attack people, it is a mere size of an adult man. And once the shark takes to land, it is very clear that it is length is well beyond four meters. It is ridiculous that the movie makers would get these things inaccurate.

Visually then "Land Shark" was a mixed bag of nuts. Some of the scenes of the CGI rendered shark were actually quite good and looked real, while others were just atrocious to behold and were of toe-curlingly poor CGI rendering and animation. And what was up with the growling sound that the shark was making? I can only assume that they opt to give a shark vocal cords during the genetic alteration, as a shark doesn't have vocal cords given from nature.

Watchable for what it was, "Land Shark" is exactly what you would assume it to be when you sit down and watch it.

My rating of director Cheng Si-Yu's 2020 movie "Land Shark" lands on a five out of ten stars.