Kûkai

The spirit of a murdered woman takes the form of a black cat and wreaks havoc upon a Tang dynasty city, collecting debts along the way. The cat even enters dreams. She was abandoned by a heartless person whose greatest happiness was to control others. Historical figures including a famous poet, Bai Juyi, and a visiting Japanese monk, Kukai, attempt to appease the woman's restless, vengeful soul.

A real city from the past was built as the set. It took over five years and $200 million! Chen Kaige, present for this world premiere and director's cut seen at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival, remarked that it takes eight hours to walk completely through this city. The film is worth watching for the set alone, plus the elaborate, colorful and beautiful costumes and people. I love one of the main themes of the film, which is standing up for human dignity. Legend of the Demon Cat is fast paced, which is both its weakness and its strength. Based on a bestselling novel by Baku Yumemakura.

Initially I have to say that "Legend of the Demon Cat" (aka "Kûkai") turned out better than I had anticipated it. Sure, I hadn't even heard about this 2017 movie from director Kaige Chen before now in 2020, when I sat down to watch it.

I read the synopsis and weren't overly impressed. But still, it was a Chinese movie, and one I hadn't already seen, so of course I found the time to sit down and watch it.

The storyline was interesting, and it was a nicely character driven story. Needless to say that the characters in the movie were good, because otherwise the movie wouldn't have worked out as well as it did. And they had some talented actors and actresses on the cast list.

I found the story to be entertaining, although I have to admit that the steam started to seep out of the kettle after the movie hit the 1 hour mark. Then it seemed that the storyline started to clutter and made less sense - or becoming a bit more confusing. Either way, the movie was much more enjoyable in the first hour.

"Legend of the Demon Cat" mixes a couple of genres well together, and makes for an enjoyable and entertaining movie. I am rating it a six out of ten stars.

In fact I was reading recently a bit about Japanase buddhism and Kukai, the founder of Japanese Shingon Buddhism. So I felt excited when I learned there is a recent high budget film with him as the main protagonist as it seemed.

My expectations turned out to be utterly misplaced. Neither he is important, nor his buddhism. If not for his robes, I could have overlooked he's a monk. It doesn't even play any important role in the plot he's a Japanese in China. Perhaps I'm missing some important hints, but to me all the film seemed to be composed of such disjonted pieces.

And when stripped of them, the plot becomes just a decent historical ghost story overusing and overexposing the computer generated special effects at the expense of telling a coherent story and portraying a least a few somewhat believable characters. In the end even the "demon cat" itself failed to convince me with its overcomplicated and overexalted story, failing at the most crucial point of the whole movie in the simple task of telling a believable tragedy.

The story is a drag and could have been better...then this movie would have been awesome!..

Legend of the Demon Cat is a colourful Sino-Japanese fantasy movie. It follows a former Chinese government official and poet who teams up with a Japanese monk to investigate strange events at court leading to injuries, illnesses and deaths. The dynamic youngster and the calm intellectual soon realize that all those events are related to a vengeful cat. They need to figure out the secret behind the mysterious animal in order to stop further catastrophes.

This movie convinces on several levels. The costumes are colourful and eye-catching. The locations look diversified and elegant. The two different lead characters complete each other in a balanced way. The first half of the movie sets a mysterious tone but also has solid pace.

Things get worse in the dragging and disjointed second half. The second hour mostly consists of lengthy flashbacks and the two intriguing main characters simply become listeners or spectators. The story also becomes more predictable and one would have hoped for a more spectacular outcome.

In the end, this movie should please to fans of colourful fantasy movies and those interested in traditional Asian culture. The mysterious parts of the story vanish in the second half, the dramatic elements become predictable and the crime elements are replaced by complicated flashbacks. It's regrettable that a movie that showed much promise in its first half changes so drastically in its second half. The director and scriptwriter tried to experiment and innovate but a fluid pace and clearer structure would have been the better options in this case.