Snow Girl and the Dark Crystal (2015) by Peter Pau & Tianyu Zhao

[cranefly]

This garbled mess of a movie is worth seeing just for the visuals. It’s based on a myth that DM is more familiar with than I am, something having to do with a brilliant young scholar who fails the imperial examination simply because he is too ugly. Of course, for the film treatment, they dropped the ugly aspect and just had him fail due to conspiracy and corruption. Anyway, despondent, he kills himself, only to be brought back to life (sort of) by a minor god. Something like that. Again, DM could explain it better.

Now, this is a fairly complicated story, only parts of which I followed. So I’ll tell as much as I understand, without spoilers. A precarious balance of power exists between Heaven, Hell and Humanity. Hell currently holds the Dark Crystal of the title. On a particularly inauspicious day that comes only in a great while (think DM’s birthday), hellions will boil from hell to threaten the souls of humans. To prevent this, the minor god who brought the scholar back to life instills him with enough powers to steal the Dark Crystal from hell. If humanity can then hold onto the Dark Crystal for three days, all the lost human souls will come back. But hell is hellbent on retrieving the Dark Crystal within that timeframe.

The major players from hell are the Snow Girl of the title, a gigantic humanoid with horns, and Kim Kardashian. From heaven, there’s the minor god who deus-ex-machinas every now and then. Fighting for the humans, the scholar pretty much goes it alone.

That might sound like a fairly straightforward plot. But things aren’t necessarily as they seem. Also -- and this is the kicker -- while the Dark Crystal appears to be black with glowing inclusions of blue, every now and then one of the main players will gaze upon it and become convinced it is white and gold. That causes them to morph into CGI land. The scholar becomes a giant warrior with lava coursing through his body. Snow Girl becomes this freaky ice queen who casts icicles like arrows. Kim Kardashian becomes a large frill-necked lizard. And so on.

The pacing is uneven, and the story sometimes stalls, especially when the main characters see white and gold. But there’s just enough black and blue running through this movie to make me recommend it. But be aware: your optical illusions may vary.

[Drunk Monk]

I'm glad you CFs made the trek to join me for the film. The 3D was awesome, yes?

I had a lot of issues with it personally. In Chinese, this film is called Zhong Kui, after the titular mythological character, one of my personal favs from Chinese and Japanese myth (Shoki is the Japanese version). In the Chinese myth, he always wears a red robe, a Putuo hat (a Tang dynasty scholar hat akin to a graduation mortarboard cap, but with floppy ears). He usually carries a jian sword or a fan and is accompanied by a mischievous bat. And he's ugly, so ugly that after achieving the highest honors on the imperial exams, he gets blackballed.



In the film, Zhong Kui is played by the smolderingly handsome Chen Kun, who's only bit of ugliness is that he's a dreadlock. The attire was all wrong. And there was no bat.



At least he had a fan.

I was also disappointed that Chinese hell was depicted like a big lava pit and the King of Hell was just a Balrog with medusa-hair sprouting from his back. Most of the demons were just mini-Balrogs.

The Chinese King of Hell has a very specific look and mythology:


And the demons of Hell also have a specific look and mythology. Like Cerberus, there are hell gate guardians, specifically horse head and ox head:



Instead, like the CFs so astutely commented, the film went all Hobbit. But it was good to have them there as they weren't as familiar with the myths so they were as put out.

[Drunk Monk]

...but I couldn't help but compare it to Painted Skin 2 (<!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://brotherhoodofdoom.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1425">viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1425</a><!-- l -->), which captured Chinese myth in a far more effective manner. SG&tDC definitely had its moments of total eye candy, but like 47 Ronin and part 2 of the Hobbit, I just couldn't get past the deviation from the awesome original source material.

Fant-ASIA is one of my fav genres and with 3D CGI, the genre has been revitalized. I anticipate getting the new redux of The White-Haired Witch soon. Hopefully that one will be stronger.