Friday 7 August 2015

Monster Hunt - Barrie Pattison reports on the Chinese mega-hit and its low key debut here

Note MONSTER HUNT ( Zhuoyaojì) the biggest grossing ever Chinese made film getting a super soft local launch. It turns out to be a kung fu E.T. This is not without precedent. Think the not so good Stephen Chow CJ7 in 2008.

Director Raman Hui worked on the Shrek films and managed to team up with veteran Chinese producer Bill Kong (CROUCHING TIGER) to get this mix of live action and digital animation together. For a while there it looked as if they’d burned thirty million dollars, when their star got busted for pot smoking and was unofficially banished from Chinese screens. They say that his fellow doper was back in movies after a payoff.

However Hui took the high road of sorts and reshot with singer Jing Boran in the part, near doubling the budget, a colossal gamble which paid off. The result is a progressively more winning mix of live action and digital animation, already their industry’s biggest earner.


Also in the cast is Baie Baihi who the more diligent will have seen in Feng
Xiaogang’s PERSONAL TAILOR, Jiang Wu (TO LIVE, SHOWER & TOUCH OF SIN) and veteran comics Eric Tsang and Sandra Ng who are always welcome.

It’s possible that this will enter the popular movie repeater canon and its also possible that it will never become available again. I’d suggest doubling off to your Multiplex for its one session a day - just in case. 

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