Chroniques du Royaume des Esprits

1979 in a distant area near Mongolia, huge monster skulls are discovered. The exploration team finds a way to the ghost temple, where dangerous beings can get through a portal. Not only the big "hell hounds", but also the tiny "fire bats", whose mere touch burns human beings to ashes. Hu Bayi (Mark Chao) survives and reads occult literature to understand better what has happened to the team. The movie continues with the second expedition probably in 1988, not "present day" as many reviewers wrote mistakenly, because we see a 1985 calendar and then get a subtitle '3 years later'. Also Hu Bayi is not an old man yet. Anyhow, he meets his lost love Ping, who now calls herself Shirley and pretends not to know him. The second expedition takes them to a destroyed desert town, and then the monsters reappear. What will happen when the portal gets opened again?

This fantasy movie is a bit complicated, not telling the events chronologically, but jumping between 1979, 1985 and 1988 (?). It's not too easy on the audience, but it's worth paying attention. The 3D effects work well, especially in the cave scenes when you really feel you can look down into the depths. I'm not entirely satisfied with the monsters, as the jumps don't look real. For the weight they must have, they jump much too high, looks a bit like rubber balls. Anyhow, the story satisfies, and the effects are still pretty good apart from minor grudges.

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.

Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe is a fantasy movie based upon Tianxia Bachang's novels about a nurse and a soldier that team up to raid tombs. It's interesting to note that another movie about the novels entitled Mojin: The Lost Legend was released less than three months after this movie. There are actually two different production companies. One owns the rights for the first few novels, the other for the more recent novels. That's why both movies aren't directly connected and even slightly contradictory at times. This movie here focuses on the first novel and shows us how the two main characters actually meet.

Many contemporary Chinese fantasy movies suffer from terrible special effects that look extremely artificial and wooden. This isn't the case for Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe. The action sequences are captivating, the costumes, landscapes and relics look stunning and even the monsters look rather scary.

The movie has a very strong introduction that develops a mysterious atmosphere that makes me think of Indiane Jones or Tomb Raider video games. Our two main characters discover the remnants of a mysterious and dangerous civilization in an ancient tunnel system in northern China. It's quite gripping to watch our main characters discover creepy skeletons, face aggressive butterflies and run away from a massive avalanche in a very fast-paced way.

The movie loses some significant momentum after these opening sequences. The story shifts several years forward multiple times which is slightly confusing. The story also gets quite predictable. Some terrifying monsters related to the mysterious civilization have escaped and attack an oil town in a desert. Our main character will go on the mission to find a mysterious professor, fight the monsters and prevent the evil ancient civilization to break its curse and enslave mankind.

The last third of the movie quickens up the pace a little bit. The fight scenes in the oil town are gripping and the clashes between the ancient civilization and those who accompany our protagonist are entertaining, intense and include a few minor twists. The conclusion itself is somewhat disappointing though because several questions are left unanswered. Since the movie is based upon a novel that had numerous sequels, it seems probable that there will be more movies about this story line in the future. If you want to watch a single movie with a coherent story line from the introduction to the conclusion, you shouldn't watch this film in the first place.

While the movie has a mysterious atmosphere, a solid pace and great special effects, it's lacking in the acting department. Mark Chao's acting performance as the protagonist is average at best as it doesn't leave a deeper impression. Chen Yao as female lead isn't quite convincing even though her character has more depth. The romantic relationship between the two characters happens so quickly and unexpectedly that it's not credible. The supporting actors and actresses are doing a solid job but there isn't one performance that really stands out.

Despite the movie's flaws concerning the acting performances and a story that is too closely inspired by numerous other archaeological fantasy stories, Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe is still an overall entertaining and convincing film thanks to its atmosphere, pace and special effects. The film should get more praise than it gets. It might not be the most innovative genre movie but it's clearly more interesting than Hollywood's fantasy reboots in the key of Kong: Skull Island and other shallow flicks.

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.

The special effects and acting in this are pretty good as is the directing. The script is another matter. Stupid on toast. One can't even account the absurdity to modern re-telling of ancient Chinese lore, as this is totally modern fiction. It has a plot, sort of, it has a story line, sort of. I'm giving it 5 stars because it's a somewhat interesting watch and keeps ones attention all the way through, but the longer the movie goes the more ludicrous it gets and the ending is a total let-down. Plus, the werewolf like monsters have been seen before and seem to be right out of Daz 3D. I'm a fan of Chinese cinema. This was a disappointment.