La technique du Chinois

If the description:

...then the angel flew into the tree demon's mouth, and her golden staff turned into a gatling gun wielding robot which proceeded to shoot down the evil demon birds...

sounds intriguing, then this is a movie for you!

This CGI infused tale travels between the realms of fantasy and science fiction with a very confusing, but ultimately enjoyable result. The plot follows the exploits of a young monk traveling with an ugly demon, and the love that blossoms between them. Their quest to rescue one of the monk's companions takes them from earth to heaven through time and space.

The story is fairly confusing, mainly due to the ever stranger plot twists, so its best just to sit back and watch without trying to make too much sense of things. The movie relies heavily on CGI effects, but no more than the Matrix or Star Wars movies. The two leads are likable, and they encounter many interesting characters along their journey. There are a few tongue in cheek moments, but thankfully the characters don't interact with their audience.

Make no mistake, this movie is often very weird, and goes beyond the realm of 'serious' fantasy movies, but it stays away from being too silly, making it a pretty enjoyable experience.

Is this a game FMV or a movie? In all honesty, I watched this one out of "choice-less-ness". It is a very big waste of time and money.

It seems HK movies are heading in the opposite direction of the rest of the world.

Try to put more effort and money into a production and make us want to watch, rather than something you want us to watch.

The graphics are so horrible than they looked like something out of the early to mid-90s low resolution games (in comparison to today's).

The way they made this movie is almost exactly what they did in the 90s' Wing Commander game, namely the third installment of the series. Stop regressing and make us Asian look so bad at this compared to the big guns in Hollywood.

Sure! They have big budgets and better actors. But we have some of the oldest histories, the myths and the legends, the best technophiles and possibly the largest computer graphic talent base in the world! So what went so very very wrong? Did you start using the same old companies that have been working with you for so many films?! Please stop wasting our time and money. This is the reason why HK movies are heading downhill so rapidly. Didn't you claim to be the Hollywood of the Orient? Guess not.

Another go round with the monkey king going west....sort of.

Beginning in the middle of some action the movie just goes from the first frame onward.

A monk and his three disciples go to a town to get the sacred suras that will bring peace to the world once they are translated and spoken to the world.But an evil force has intervened and kidnapped all of the children of the town. The evil force wants the monk because if you eat him you will live forever. The retainers battle the forces of darkness before forcibly sending the monk off for safety (The monk thinks he can win simply by reasoning with the bad guys). The monk ends up with a bunch of lizard imps who plan at some point eating him... however the bad guys arrive and he's off an odyssey with the ugliest of the lot.

Can a movie that starts off the rails go off the rails? Don't get me wrong I really liked this movie but its so scatter shot and all over the place that plot and logic simply fall away as some scenes simply pick up mid action with no way of knowing how we got there (The final battle to rescue the disciples is completely out of left field). This is one of the messiest movies I've seen in a while, but it made me laugh and smile like no get out. The movie starts and you have no idea where things are and then whats on screen is either interesting or funny and you just go with it. How do we get from thing to thing is often beyond me. Its full of odd asides and strange references as we go from heaven to the ocean to space to the rib cage of some mythic beast to god knows where. This movie floats all over the place which helps keep it fun since you don't know where it will end up (and is the reason"m keeping details to a minimum) And its funny. Very very funny at times.

And the action is very good, even if a good chunk of it is unabashed CGI animation (which provides for some cool images, the golden staff, the spider attack formation, the angel in flight...) And its very touching. Action and comedy aside this is actually a wonderful love story. Its the story of an ugly imp and a monk who end up falling in love (and having other complications). Its a interesting look at the nature of love and what is true love. You will be moved.

However much I enjoyed it I was still annoyed by its scatter shot construction. The films inability to hold its ideas together and to tell a complete story really hurts the film and takes away from the enjoyment every time we get to a bump in the road. the bumps take you out of the movie itself and make you realize how much is being cribbed from other sources.

Absolutely worth seeing since it does have many choice moments, just be prepared for some bumps and you'll have a good time.

STORY Chinese Tall Story tells the story of righteous monk Tripitaka, who, along with his guardians Monkey, Sandy and Pigsy make their journey west on a quest to recover ancient Sutras, finally, they reach the final leg of their journey in Shache City But all is not as it seems when the city is attacked by evil tree demons. Monkey tries his best to battle them but is overwhelmed, knowing his master is in grave danger, he uses his trusty golden staff to thrust Tripitaka to safety.

The monk ends up being knocked out when he land and when he wakes up he finds himself in the presence of a young lizard imp named Maiyan who takes quite a shine to our young hero, after many verbal misunderstandings Maiyan becomes convinced Tripitaka loves her, so when the monk decides he must rescue Monkey and the others, she insists on accompanying him. So the mismatched pair begins their adventure together.

REVIEW Okay, so, it's another Journey To The West movie, which isn't a bad thing to me since I love the story and the characters associated with it, so I was a little excited to get my hands on the DVD. So I think I'll start off my review with the story, which is all over the place, at first it was your standard fantasy film, then it became a ridiculous comedy then suddenly became full blown sci-fi, if the director Jeff Lau was experimenting with mixing genres then he did a pretty scatological job with this movie. I think it's a pretty unique approach by having the story centre on a character other then the infamous Monkey King, especially taking a character as pacifistic as Tripitaka and then putting him into what is at it's core a love story. So overall, I liked it.

The acting is for the most part solid, with leads Nicholas Tse and Charlene Choi putting in some really good performances, though Ah Char does spend most of her screen time behind some rather ugly make up. The supporting cast is nicely put together, it includes all the usual EEG main stays so Boy'Z and Isabella Leong make appearances, one actor I'd like to mention is Wilson Chen, who plays the Monkey King, he did a good job with the limited material he seemed to have been given, he played a version of the Monkey King who was subdued yet arrogant, I had a feeling he'd be retreading Twins Effect II territory but fortunately that's not the case here. I hope he gets to do a follow up to this with himself in the central role, since the film does leave itself open for a sequel.

Okay, so let's get down to the directing, which again is kinda all over the place, Lau gives too much time to the Stephen Chow-esquire nonsense comedy, which includes a scene where Tripitaka in order to toughen himself up, dresses up as Spider-Man, which I assume lead to many a head scratching moment since the film is meant to be set in Ancient China. He does create some really nice and tender moments between the two leads and does delve into sappy territory but this reviewer does enjoy a bit of sap on occasion so it didn't bother me in the slightest.

Right, now onto the CGI, which for the most part is quite bearable, there are a lot of moments which probably belong on a PS2 like many other reviews have stated but there are some cool moments particularly the scene in which Monkey battles a flying minion. A lot of the CG gags are provided in the form of the golden staff which turns into a range of different things, ranging from a giant fly swatter to a mech suit straight out of The Matrix Revolutions. So yeah, it sounds crazy but I guess you'd have to see it to believe it.

Right, so in closing A Chinese Tall Story isn't a movie without it's flaws but it keeps itself together long enough to be able to entertain and generally be a overall enjoyable movie. If all of the above doesn't swing you to see it how about I put it this way, it's much better then Twins Effect II.

I sat down in 2022 to watch the 2005 Chinese action comedy "Qing Dian Da Sheng" (aka "A Chinese Tall Tale") for the second time since first watching it back in 2005. I only remembered the movie by its title and movie's cover. Oddly enough I had entirely forgotten the contents of the movie.

But with good reason, because writer and director Jeffrey Lau delivered a massive dung heap of a movie here with "Qing Dian Da Sheng". The entire storyline was just one random scene after another put together in what assimilated being a storyline and faked coherency. I was seriously looking for a sign of a red thread as this movie trotted on for 106 minutes. Trust me, this movie feels and looks like a collection of random ideas and concepts put to the screen.

And as if a lack of an actual storyline or any sense of coherency wasn't enough, then the CGI effects in "Qing Dian Da Sheng" have aged like stale wine. The visual effects are pretty horrible to look at. And even by 2005's standards, the effects were something from a computer game in the early 2000s. It wasn't great then, and it sure isn't great now.

I will say that the props and costume departments that worked on "Qing Dian Da Sheng" definitely managed to deliver something worthwhile amidst the heap of rubbish that is the rest of the movie.

The movie is starring Nicholas Tse and Charlene Choi in the two leading roles, and I wonder how proud they are of this particular accomplishment.

If you enjoy Chinese folk tale movies, then do yourself a favor and stay well clear of the 2005 movie "Qing Dian Da Sheng".

My rating of "Qing Dian Da Sheng" lands on a very generous three out of ten stars.