Li Bingbing is a snow demon in Zhong Kui: Snow Girl and the Dark Crystal
Production has becon on Zhong Kui: Snow Girl and the Dark Crystal (鍾馗伏魔 雪妖魔靈), a new 3D fantasy film from China starring Chen Kun (陳坤) and Li Bingbing (李冰冰). Zhong Kui will be directed by Zhao Tianyu (趙天宇), who is mainly known for the 2011 romance film The Law of Attraction.
Zhong Kui follows the story of Zhong Kui, a ghost whose job it is to keep other ghosts in line. So basically RIPD. Li Bingbing will play a snow demon, and expect appearances from Winston Chao, Bao Bei-Er, and Summer Jike Juanyi. There is no promotional shots yet as it is still filming, with a release date set for 2015’s Chinese New Year on February 19th.
I’ve had my reservations about some of the big budget Chinese films, as they’re track record is worse than America’s big budget films, but some productions look neat, and Li Bingbing is always amazing in whatever she does. So at worst this will be sort of entertaining, and at best this is either going to be awesome or going to be so campy it becomes awesome by reverse opposite reaction, or something. It’s a Newton Law, it can’t be avoided.
via FilmBizAsia
photo via
Categories: Movie News Tags: Bao Bei-Er, Chen Kun, China, Li Bingbing
The Four
The Four
aka 四大名捕
2012
Script by Gordon Chan Ka-Seung, Frankie Tam Gong-Yuen, and Maria Wong Si-Man
Directed by Gordon Chan Ka-Seung and Janet Chun Siu-Jan
 |
|
Emotionless spends 99% of the film looking at people like this
|
What if X-Men was a confusing mess with too many characters, little character development, and an over-reliance on visual effects vs. telling a good story? Besides X-Men 3, you’d also get The Four! Gordon Chan trades mutant powers for qigong skills in this big budget production that follows the trend of Mainland cinema relying far too much on visual effects to carry weak scripts and bland characters. While The Four does deliver some nice looking sequences, overall it fails to achieve its goal of being entertaining, and even fails to wrap up any plot lines in the film. The Four seems to go out of its way to make sure nothing happens.
 |
|
Don’t worry, the obligatory scene where all the main characters fight for no reason still happens.
|
The latest update of prolific (and troubled) Malaysian writer Wen Ruian’s work, The Four has been adapted numerous times for television in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China. Featuring four male detectives with special powers who work directly for the Emperor and solve problems, this version is distinct for two reasons: It is the first big budget film adaptation, and one of the male characters has been made female. Even China is changing characters around to try to attract broader demographics! In general, I have no problem with that practice. But this specific case causes some problems, as discussed below.
 |
|
I’ll show them, I’ll build a real clockwork orange!
|
|
 |
|
I’ve heard of the Bride with White Hair, but this is ridiculous!
|
Mural (Review)
Mural
aka 畫壁
2011
Written by Gordon Chan Ka-Seung, Lau Ho-Leung, Frankie Tam Gong-Yuen, and Maria Wong Si-Man
Directed by Gordon Chan Ka-Seung and Danny Go Lam-Paau
Mural is another attempt from China to make bigger Hollywood-style pictures, which is both a good and a bad thing. It is good that money is being brought into make epic films. It is bad because the films being produced are all generic garbage. And as the money flows away from Hong Kong into the pack of upstart Mainland production companies, things are changing rapidly in both Hong Kong and Chinese cinema. But this review isn’t about that, it’s about Mural, a story about a guy who goes into a painting full of fairy women.
While Mural certainly looks nice, the story doesn’t hold up to the visuals and things become very bland. The visuals of creatures and monsters make good spectacles, even if the CGI isn’t up to par with Western films yet. Monsters and beauties are the two main attractions to Mural, there is enough of both you can let some things slide. Some good scenes and creativity in monster design help make certain points more memorable, but the underlying uninteresting characters and the obvious conclusion of the main love story cause things to not be so much a journey as just a trip through a museum.
Like Gordan Chan’s prior film Painted Skin, it is a tale from Pu Songling’s story collection Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio. The tomb contains nearly 500 tales, and has been the basis for dozens of films and tv series, including the Chinese Ghost Story films.
There are far too many of the models/actresses/singers playing the fariy women to list them all in the Roll Call, but I should name drop a few, like model-actress Monica Mok Xiao-Qi, Xia Yi-Yao, and Bao Wen-Jing. And now we will never mention them again! Even Eric Tsang Chi-Wai shows up with ear extensions as a goofy monk.
|
Categories: Movie Reviews, Ugly Tags: Ada Liu Yan, Andy On Chi-Kit, Bao Bei-Er, Bao Wen-Jing, Betty Sun Li, China, Deng Chao, Du Shi-Wu, Eric Tsang Chi-Wai, Frankie Tam Gong-Yuen, Gordon Chan Ka-Seung, Lau Ho-Leung, Maria Wong Si-Man, Monica Mok Xiao-Qi, Ngai Sing, wuxia, Xia Yi-Yao, Xie Nan, Yan Ni, Zheng Shuang
