tantric
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2004
- Messages
- 867
(spoilers)
The first thing you need to understand is that Chinese pop comedy is by and large slap stick and silly. It doesn't fit into what Americans call 'guy comedy' like Dumb and Dumber - it's its own thing.
I liked Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons. The film is based on a classic novel. The plot centers around a young, silly Buddhist monk,Sanzang, who wants to learn to banish demons like Taoist types can. After a few misadventures he encounters a pig demon running running a restaurant where the servers are zombies. He tries to banish the demon but eventually has to be saved by a beautiful female demon hunter, Duan. Duan is impress by Sanzang's selfless ideals and expresses them, but Sanzang rebukes her, not wanting to be tempted from his path to nirvana by romantic love. That's enough set up for you to understand the plot of the movie. Sanzang goes after the Monkey King, a powerful demon entrapped by the Buddha long ago. Eventually he has to get over himself and accept his love for Duan, happy ending.
As a Buddhist and an American, I liked it. It was cute, and the way it address my religion was interesting. The movie itself was funny, the special effects were amusing.
Now, the Mermaid, another movie by Stephen Chow, in the same genre. A nouveau riche billionaire, Liu Xuan, wants to develop a gulf area and has placed sonar emitters in the water to chase off the dolphins. Unbeknownst to him, it's also the home of one of the last colonies of mermaids and the placement of his emitters has effectively trapped them and is now killing them. The mermaids train one of their own to shove her fins into boots, walk on land and then send her to assassinate him. The mermaid, Shan, plans to use a honey pot trap, as Xuan is a notorious playboy, and then let her compatriots do the killing. Of course, the fall in love, amidst much slap stick silliness.
His business partners find out and decide to destroy the mermaids. This is were the movie goes bad - icky bad. What they do is very graphic, shooting and spearing the mermaids, then hanging them on hook to be made into soup. Shan escapes, the uber business woman chases her in a military boat. When they shot a spear throw Shan's tail attached to floaters so she can't dive, I winced. Then the drag her kicking and screaming up to a bloody dock and hang he like a fish. Yes, Xuan rescues her and somehow she becomes human and his wife.
I'm not squeamish - I watch body horror movies and some really graphic documentaries. But if I took a date to see this, I would not expect to be called back - in fact, I'd expect him to tell other people I was Hannibal Lecter material.
The first thing you need to understand is that Chinese pop comedy is by and large slap stick and silly. It doesn't fit into what Americans call 'guy comedy' like Dumb and Dumber - it's its own thing.
I liked Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons. The film is based on a classic novel. The plot centers around a young, silly Buddhist monk,Sanzang, who wants to learn to banish demons like Taoist types can. After a few misadventures he encounters a pig demon running running a restaurant where the servers are zombies. He tries to banish the demon but eventually has to be saved by a beautiful female demon hunter, Duan. Duan is impress by Sanzang's selfless ideals and expresses them, but Sanzang rebukes her, not wanting to be tempted from his path to nirvana by romantic love. That's enough set up for you to understand the plot of the movie. Sanzang goes after the Monkey King, a powerful demon entrapped by the Buddha long ago. Eventually he has to get over himself and accept his love for Duan, happy ending.
As a Buddhist and an American, I liked it. It was cute, and the way it address my religion was interesting. The movie itself was funny, the special effects were amusing.
Now, the Mermaid, another movie by Stephen Chow, in the same genre. A nouveau riche billionaire, Liu Xuan, wants to develop a gulf area and has placed sonar emitters in the water to chase off the dolphins. Unbeknownst to him, it's also the home of one of the last colonies of mermaids and the placement of his emitters has effectively trapped them and is now killing them. The mermaids train one of their own to shove her fins into boots, walk on land and then send her to assassinate him. The mermaid, Shan, plans to use a honey pot trap, as Xuan is a notorious playboy, and then let her compatriots do the killing. Of course, the fall in love, amidst much slap stick silliness.
His business partners find out and decide to destroy the mermaids. This is were the movie goes bad - icky bad. What they do is very graphic, shooting and spearing the mermaids, then hanging them on hook to be made into soup. Shan escapes, the uber business woman chases her in a military boat. When they shot a spear throw Shan's tail attached to floaters so she can't dive, I winced. Then the drag her kicking and screaming up to a bloody dock and hang he like a fish. Yes, Xuan rescues her and somehow she becomes human and his wife.
I'm not squeamish - I watch body horror movies and some really graphic documentaries. But if I took a date to see this, I would not expect to be called back - in fact, I'd expect him to tell other people I was Hannibal Lecter material.