Chroniques du Royaume des Esprits

The synopsis for "Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe" (aka "Jiu ceng yao ta") does make this sort of feel like a mixture between the traditional Asian martial arts movie mixed up with a hefty doze of "Tomb Raider" or "Indiana Jones". And this is also what the movie turned out to be, to some extend...

Visually then "Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe" was indeed a nice treat for the eyes to behold on the screen. Lots of great things, details in the scenes, props, costumes, etc. to look at. But the story just failed to have all that shine and luster that the visuals had.

The story turned out to be a confusing scramble of an attempt of writing a coherent storyline, and it just lacked that all-important red thread that ties it all together. And on that account, the movie just became something of a visual presentation of various effects and Visuals, more than it was a story-based and story-driven movie. Which ended up being a hindrance for the movie.

Now, whether this was the fault of director Chuan Lu or the fault of writers Chuan Lu, Bobby Roth and Nick Roth, I can only guess of course. But I am prone to lean towards the writers.

The characters in the movie were well enough details and chiseled out on the screen, but they just were run over by the confusion of the entire movie, which overshadowed everything. And it should also be noted that they had indeed managed to get together a good ensemble of acting talents to star in the movie, just a shame that they had virtually no script or storyline to work with.

There are far better forays into the adventure genre, even in Asian cinema, and as such, then "Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe" is hardly the type of movie that you will watch more than a single time.

So...I watched 60 Minutes last night about the Chinese market for big budget movies. This movie popped up for a 10 second example of "monster" movies finally being made in and available to the Chinese public. While the visual aspect of this movie is up there with any big budget American film of this time, the story is unbelievably bad (really bad). It is obvious that millions were spent on this film but they could not seem to be able to spend $500 on a script. I do believe it is worth watching for the CGI eye candy and the acting isn't half bad, but WOW, they still have a way to go as far as story goes. This is like Transformers 4 on steroids with a worse story (if that is possible).

It will be interesting to see how this Chinese/US cinema relationship takes us. Hopefully this us just the start of something a bit (much?) better.

I also have to admit that I liked the use of minimal blood and no bad language and still have an entertaining movie. This shows you don't have to have heads chopped off and the F bomb every 30 seconds to entertain people. This is one aspect of the new Chinese "blockbuster" style movies that I do like.

This movie is a prime example on how a few good individual parts alone can't make a great movie. It has arguably one of the better animations from Chinese films, gorgeous cinematography and intriguing occult mystery premise, yet the plot is thin and superficial. If a comparison could be made, the movie resembles video game, it literally jumps through outlandishly eye-catching set pieces and while they might look attractive, the working narrative is extremely disjointed.

Story mainly follows Hu Bayi as a member of archaeology team sent to uncover ancient secrets. He then meets with Yang Ping, the love interest and soon enough become the reason he volunteers for more dangerous mission. Eventually, the team finds creatures, relics, disasters and all sorts of oddities that the movie barely explains. Characters are ridiculously plain. Hu Bayi himself mostly follows order and narrates the plot while the heroine Yang Ping is depicted as mysterious female.

These personalities are lacking depth, especially when the movie introduces a couple of comic reliefs that don't matter much for story. The plot has the same problems from Jackie Chan's The Myth from years ago, it's too flamboyant for the sake of fantasy appeal that it doesn't have much continuity or clarity. It merely throws around some over-the-top fantasy gibberish to usher in new shiny sequences.

Fortunately, it does have some flashy spectacles. There's a clear investment on the visual presentation. The scenes are gorgeous, be it may the blue horizon from snow mountain or the trek across the desert. It's set in the right era with good nods to ancient trinkets and modern vibe, almost looking like The Mummy franchise for costume and design. Cinematography takes full advantage of the exotic location, the lightning, buildings and even details like banners or furniture add to the atmosphere.

Special effect is top notch, there are a few moments when the cameras pan to the beasts and you can see the fur waving around in the wind or how the chains rattle on their neck. It's a definite improvement from stiff CG many Chinese movies used even in last year. There's a bit of imperfection with the editing and practical effect, but when the overall scene looks so inviting, it's entirely forgivable.

In the end Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe will leave audience with many aesthetically pleasing stages and also unsatisfied feeling on the story.

Well now, this was rather interesting - almost like a cross between Indiana Jones and Journey to the center of the Earth (not that I enjoyed the latter). Although the visual effects are not award-winning, they were rather well done and added significantly to a thoroughly enjoyable action adventure. Some effects - like the attack of the demon beasts in the desolate town - were incredibly good. I enjoyed the fact that they did not add cheesy humor as most Hollywood films of this genre do, and the love interest was subtle and not overbearing. The music was great, too. This is just plain good old-fashioned fun with great modern effects.

It's interesting to watch foreign movies that attempt to compete with Hollywood blockbusters, because sometimes you can find some entertaining movies that do things differently while being entertaining. However, there are definitely times when these foreign films can be as bad as the worst to come from Hollywood, and "Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe" is one such movie. I didn't have a problem with the Chinese propaganda (every national cinema has films that trumpet their culture). And even though the special effects were kind of erratic, I didn't really have a problem with them as well.

However, I did have a big problem with the script. The first fifteen minutes are pretty coherent, but after that point, the movie becomes extremely muddled. There are a ton of unanswered questions and mysterious plot developments. Some of these head-scratching moments are eventually answered (kind of), but new murky touches come up to take their place. I don't know if the confusion was due to translation problems, a necessity to know Chinese culture well, or simply bad writing... though I suspect the third possible explanation is the answer.

The movie is well shot, fairly fast-paced despite its length, and it never gets to the point of being boring. But with such a muddled narrative, it's hard to care for the characters or what is happening. As a result, the movie is very unsatisfying. I would be willing to see these filmmakers do another movie, but only as long as they were working with a much better script.