03-20-2021, 09:17 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-20-2021, 09:25 PM by Drunk Monk.)
The Yin Yang Master (2021)
The Yin Yang Master is a completely different film from The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity. Different story, different production, different director, different cast. Dream of Eternity is allegedly based on a Japanese manga called Onmyoji (Yin Yang Dao in Chinese). The Yin Yang Master is allegedly based on a videogame, based on that manga. It's kinda the Dante's Peak / Volcano scenario (I read about that somewhere recently) but weirder.
The Yin Yang Master is epic. There's some cheesiness with the CGI yaoguai (yokai) but there's enough visionary spectacle in other CGI scenes that this can be forgiven. This is yaoguai done right, hallucinatory, comic, absurd and magical. With Chen Kun and Zhou Xun as the leads, it's got decent acting chops, although those are obscured by the concepts and visuals. Great demoness in Cici Wang (a Snow Queen that almost matched Tilda). Great vision of the demon city, like the Tatooine cantina on steroids. Great evil hand that's a mash up between the film version of the Addams Family's thing, Glove of the Blue Meanies, with just a sprinkle of Lovecraftian tentacles.
Flying magical sword fights with demons. DOOM recommended. Just make sure it's not the Dream of Eternity - that one is more than 2 hours. This one is under 2, only just.
I read some rumors that the director of Dream of Eternity, Guo Jingming, had to apologize for plagiarism in a 20 year old novel. I wasn't the only one to call the poach of Doctor Strange and there's consequential rumor that the movie has been pulled from all PRC theaters because of this.
The Yin Yang Master is a completely different film from The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity. Different story, different production, different director, different cast. Dream of Eternity is allegedly based on a Japanese manga called Onmyoji (Yin Yang Dao in Chinese). The Yin Yang Master is allegedly based on a videogame, based on that manga. It's kinda the Dante's Peak / Volcano scenario (I read about that somewhere recently) but weirder.
The Yin Yang Master is epic. There's some cheesiness with the CGI yaoguai (yokai) but there's enough visionary spectacle in other CGI scenes that this can be forgiven. This is yaoguai done right, hallucinatory, comic, absurd and magical. With Chen Kun and Zhou Xun as the leads, it's got decent acting chops, although those are obscured by the concepts and visuals. Great demoness in Cici Wang (a Snow Queen that almost matched Tilda). Great vision of the demon city, like the Tatooine cantina on steroids. Great evil hand that's a mash up between the film version of the Addams Family's thing, Glove of the Blue Meanies, with just a sprinkle of Lovecraftian tentacles.
Flying magical sword fights with demons. DOOM recommended. Just make sure it's not the Dream of Eternity - that one is more than 2 hours. This one is under 2, only just.
(02-06-2021, 10:39 PM)Drunk Monk Wrote: At first I thought this owed a huge debt to Doctor Strange and his mystic circles.
I read some rumors that the director of Dream of Eternity, Guo Jingming, had to apologize for plagiarism in a 20 year old novel. I wasn't the only one to call the poach of Doctor Strange and there's consequential rumor that the movie has been pulled from all PRC theaters because of this.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse