2017 ‘奇门遁甲’ Directed by Yuen Woo-ping
The world is on the brink of catastrophe in a chaotic age where evil demons roam. In order to keep evil at bay, a mysterious organisation from the pugilist world emerges. A new constable and a young girl with a mysterious past are also drawn into this group, and the group embarks on an incredible adventure.
The miracle fighters, Хилядата лица на Дунджия, Qi man dun jia, Las mil caras de Dunjia, 기문둔갑, Qimen Dunjia, As 1001 Faces de Dunjia, Тысяча лиц Дуньцзя, ผู้พิทักษ์หมัดเทวดา, Ngũ Hiệp Trừ Yêu, 奇門遁甲
China
USA
Hong Kong
China
Hong Kong
USA
I wish someone would slap me with such enthusiasm.
This Yuen Woo-Ping joint surprisingly has almost no kung fu, instead it's all crazy visual effects spectacle. The story is confusing but the monster design is pretty cool.
This has almost everything I want in a movie. It's fun, fast, and kick-ass. I didn't always understand what was happening and why, but that's a small price to pay for a good time.
What’s not to love about the idea of Men In Black, directed by Yuen Woo-Ping, written and produced by Tsui Hark, with everybody channeling Stephen Chow? Alas, at some point, it takes an abrupt left turn into Marvel-esque territory, and things become interesting to look at, but a dozen times more conventional. At least the film never loses its sense of humor. Since the majority of the action includes uncovered, un-CGI-ed faces, there is always room for reaction shots. Which allows for organic character-based laughs rather than forced one-liners[1].
Unless I am missing a lot of dialogue that explains things or isn’t subtitled, there is zero fucking around. It’s just off to the races and if you keep up, great.…
What started as a fun Chinese MIB rip-off fell apart during its second half. The film tended to drag quite a bit between the big set pieces and the whole thing has a feel of a condensed TV Show. Not bad but I wanted better from Woo-Ping Yuen/Hark Tsui.
Rewatching again because it’s been almost 5 years and there’s no word of a sequel, even though they set it up to have one, just like League of Gods. Another bid budget CGi fest from China that sets up a sequel that came out a year prior that still has no prospects in line.
According to Wikipedia and IMDb this movie is supposed to be a remake of another Yuen Wo-ping Xianxia Action epic, The Miracle Fighters, but after reading the synopses, they don’t sound similar at all. 🤷♂️ I guess I’ll just have to find a copy and find out for myself.
I actually think this movie is fantastic. Plus I love the English title, it just sounds so…
If you're up for a stupid, fun, tonally inconsistent mess of occasional comedy and beautiful CGI with a kinda Lovecraftian villain and bad guys from the trashy side of classic wuxia (think DEADFUL MELODY), then you could do worse. Ni Ni is great but they wrote her character without nuance.
The Thousand Questions Dunjia Left Me With
The Thousand Faces Of Dunjia is a convoluted mess but does not deserve all of the harsh ratings because it's a fun convoluted mess, the story is hard to follow and the film drags quite a bit in the second half but the first half is glorious and the reason why you should watch.
The first half of Dunjia is a lot of fun which is largely thanks to the CGI. China and other eastern countries have somewhat of an infamous reputation when it comes to bad CGI and there is plenty of bad CGI in The Thousand Faces Of Dunjia but to me that's a good thing because it gives the film…
A true fever dream of a movie that would have been so much better if the action scenes were a little bit longer and if the ending wasn't the most rushed and anticlimactic thing I've ever experienced in my life.
Silly fun stuff. As others have noted, it's quite a bit like Men in Black, but also like Ninja Scoll, Zu Warriors, and tons of other things. My mind tends to wander during excessive CG segments, but the ones here are so bizarre that they held my attention (for the most part). I'm a bit of a fan of Zhou Dongyu, and I was happy to find her character's role was pretty important after all. No complaints.
Ein ganz seltsamer chinesischer Fantasy-Actioner directed by Altmeister Yuen Woo-ping und written by Tsui Hark. Hier werden in sekundenschnelle Mythen etabliert und Kreaturen mit teuflischem CGI direkt aus dem siebten Höllenkreis beschworen, bis man es nicht mehr hinterfragt wenn plötzlich rosane Tentakel aus Menschen wachsen die dadurch irgendwelche telephatischen Fähigkeiten erlangen. Dabei wären Action und vor allem die Creature Designs gar nicht so schlecht, wenn sie eben nicht in den tiefsten Wäldern des Uncanny Valley verborgen hausen würden. Aufgrund der ein oder anderen charmanten Figur und der allgemeinen Absurdität irgendwie spaßig, aber worum es geht habe ich auch nicht wirklich mitgekriegt. Ganz schön eigenartig.
ni ni if you read this i'm free on thursday night and would like to hang out, please respond to this and then hang out with me on thursday night when i’m free.
