Chasseur de monstres

Whether you're into monsters or not, this adorable film will appeal to a wide audience. Whether you love it for the action, the stunts, the visual effects, or the cuteness of the baby character, there's something here for everyone to adore. I just loved everything about it. I found it incredibly cute and delightful and a pleasure to watch. Some scenes were jaw dropping incredible!!

So this is the highest grossing film in China Right now? Well so far it seems that my local cinema has been given me one of China's blockbusters every week. From Mojin: the lost treasure to Detective Chinatown. I like those movies so I thought a movie about hunting monsters would be a grand slam. This did not happen for me.

I was not expecting a movie so catered for children, which became completely obvious the moment the cute little monsters dominated the screen. For the first ten minutes I thought I was in the wrong theater watching a CGI animated movie. Even the monsters that were suppose to be scary were too cute to be taken seriously.

I also did not know how much watching the non-3D version would lesson my experience as the 2D version was in an English dubbed that seem to be paying homage to Kung fu flicks of the past with it's awfulness. It's not funny when you're doing the bad dub on purpose, and I think the whole story may have fallen out of whack because of it.

The Chinese seem to be making these big budget films that can rival American blockbusters and I'm into it, just not real into Monster hunt. I found this adventure to be real boring to the point where it got painful to get through.

As someone who often enjoys Chinese movies, and lives in China, I thought I would be able to appreciate this film. I was wrong.

This movie is somehow boring, sappy and stupid at the same time. The plot is inconsistent, the characters are flat, and the baby monster is simply annoying.

While the movie makes an attempt to include a blossoming romance, again everything is inconsistent and often ridiculous.

More often than not, I found myself getting upset at how terrible the writing was.

I would not recommend this movie for anybody older than five. Forget that. I would not recommend this movie to anybody at all.

This is a Chinese film aka Monster Hunt. In ancient China, mankind had driven the monsters into the remote mountains after once living in harmony. There is a civil war within the monster world. The old king has been killed and the pregnant queen is on the run. Song Tianyin is the young mayor of a small village. His grandmother claims the family to be monster hunters. Huo Xiaolan (Bai Baihe) is a mercenary monster hunter. Song is shocked when Huo reveals two travelers to be monsters in disguise.

The basic premise is good. The story structure is fine. The characters are good. The creature designs are a little creepy. The small eyes and the tentacles make them look like part monkey and part octopus. The baby's radish look is good but again the tentacles bother me. I can't see these creatures being sold as cuddly toys. I would get rid of the tentacles. There are other creepy things that happen. Whether it's the pregnant dude or eating monsters, some of this is off-putting especially in the western sense. Sure, Arnold got pregnant in Junior but it wasn't a monster and Junior wasn't actually liked. The sashimi monster is disturbing. Of course, the reference is clear. It's especially compelling since exotica animal meat trade seems to be the genesis of the recent viral outbreak. Nevertheless, the creep factor is on the high side for a family film. This is generally good but some of the absurdness gets creepy.

There is one scene that makes the whole movie worthwhile, when they say goodbye. It has such an Asian feel to it: it's all heartbreaking but inevitable.

Other than that, it goes from weird kung-fu action against cuddly 3D animated monsters to fart jokes, birth jokes, marriage jokes and family problems, then back again so fast that you don't really know what you're supposed to be watching. And occasionally they just randomly start singing, fortunately not too often.

The story follows a hapless young man and a young female "monster hunter" in the context of a monster hunt. On orders from a very powerful man, all hunters are on the lookout for the monster queen and then her infant offspring. These are all very powerful kung-fu masters, but somehow they get thwarted by the power of youth and love and after much adventure and a twist, a happy ending.

My conclusion is that this film combines a lot of classic Chinese concepts: the humor, the fighting style, the overlaying culture of it all. My guess is that it was aimed at young Asian children and, while it will probably be enjoyed by children everywhere, Western adults might find it crass and infantile.