Il regno di Wuba

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.

I watch animated films once in a while and I watched this right after another foreign animated film, Hero Quest (on Netflix). In contrast to the muddled, flat, at times horrific Hero Quest (probably a 3.5 rating out of 10, 4.1 on IMDb), Monster Hunt is a thoroughly enjoyable film. It fits more with the animated humor of the Dreamworks genre (more so than Pixar). Not surprisingly, Raman Hui, who worked with Shrek and other Dreamworks productions takes his energy and infuses Monster Quest into a well-done tale.

Overall, it's one of the best foreign animated films but does fall a bit short of Pixar's and Dreamworks' top 10 films. So it has a bit of Monsters Inc or Shrek or How to Train Your Dragon but falls a bit short. Nevertheless, it should rank in the middle of the pack of the better CGI animated films of the last two decades. The strength of the film is actually(!) the human characters: the lead Boran Jing who plays the bumbling Tianyin. And Baihe Bai who plays Xiaolan, the Monster Hunter and Elaine Jin, the grandmother were the strengths of the film with comedic acting that's among the best anywhere. For that, the human comedy roles get a 9.5/10. And some of the gags were terrific humor such as when Tianyin plays hide-and-seek with the Wuba, the baby king, to lure him into the cage. The chemistry between Boran Jing and Baihe Bai is terrific, it rarely gets better.

However, the storyline gets a bit complicated and it's easy to lose track. Then the couple songs in the film just don't really make the grade. In addition, it's hard to really warm up to the monsters except maybe the Baby King (Radish). The monsters had faceless qualities and never really developed strong characters unlike Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, or Sulley or Mike Wazowski (from Monsters Inc). The CGI was fabulous but it had some blandness. It's like looking at some really beautiful and delicious pizza but when you bite in, it does really have a great flavor. Hence, it never really pulls out the emotional connection.

Still, the film is wonderful fun. It just doesn't make the top 15-20 animated film list. Yet, its uniqueness and wuxia antics make it a darling for fans of Chinese films. Hence, it deserves to be #1 in China. It's better than the 6.2 rating, surprisingly low, and should move up with time. I gave a 9 to balance the act but the real rating is 7.2-7.5.

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.

Monster Hunt begins telling the history of the war between mankind and monsters, when the humans won, the monsters have separated themselves from them until years later, their queen escaped while bearing a child who will become the prince and being tracked down by other monsters and a human army. The opening doesn't bring anything fresh within its backstory, the actual plot doesn't get any less original either, when we cut to a young hero who doesn't get any luck after this plot came and other colorful set of character join to his journey. Despite of these done to death tropes and premise, the movie however brought something appealing, and that's definitely how seriously weird it is. It's packed with a lot of amusingly strange ideas which becomes its own personality. It's good if it runs less than two hours. The stock plot doesn't get any better and the climax feels a little too long for its own good. But to what it is, there is something delightful to its weirdness.

So the hero lives in a small village, he lives with a relative anyone but his parents, he feels like an outcast, an underdog, etc. At this point of this film, it's just totally uninteresting witnessing the same tropes, even without trying to make its own spin out of it. And then he discovered that there is more to this world than what he has always knew. There is a girl who is stronger than him... is this even worth paraphrasing? You get the bottom line, however, the film gets better when it shifts to being downright weird. The pregnant queen can transfer her egg to another womb, which is given to the male hero. And this little antic is actually quite amusing. After the laboring, the movie continues to play off the concept as they raise this little monster. It's a delight, but it still doesn't help the plot that much.

Even before the climax comes, it's still felt uncertain where the story is going. It feels a little busy playing around to some of its side villains. Now when it comes to the actual climax, it would have gone better if it was shorter than it was. And then a twist reveals that is kind of generic. There just isn't much to it, the story between the relationship of the monsters and humans remain thin. It's the main characters and the baby prince is the only strong moments in here.

And to be fair, before the climax that eventually wears off, the pacing is kind of nice, making every moment reasonably entertaining. The action scenes are watchable. The special effects are alright, though the only likable digital creature is the prince which is admittedly adorable. The performances seem to be having fun on what they're doing, bringing energy into this film's silly nature of being a cartoon.

That's pretty much what Monster Hunt mostly feels like, a cartoon. Yeah, the tropes and plot are pretty stock, but it really gets more interesting when it's getting weirder and weirder, from a pregnant male protagonist to some dark sense of humor it keeps things entertaining. I sort of wished they establish more of this mythology and how this monster prince can change their world, but the movie doesn't have much of that opportunity. To what it is, it's fun, though I wish it was a little shorter, or spent those other minutes to develop the fantasy stuff. But the main characters eventually become charming, in spite of how faulty the plot is. Monster Hunt is entertaining for the outrageous stuff alone.