Zhongkui: Snow Girl and the Dark Crystal (Peter Pau, Tianyu Zhao)

[Stay Puft]

ZHONGKUI: SNOW GIRL AND THE DARK CRYSTAL
Dir(s). Peter Pau and Tianyu Zhao



IMDb page

[Stay Puft]

So the Chinese box office set new records during the Lunar New Year, with a slate of new release Chinese blockbusters vying for the top. Jackie Chan was the ultimate winner. This film, Zhongkui: Snow Girl and the Dark Crystal, came in third. It is a $30 million VFX fantasy extravaganza, and to my surprise, the Cineplex theatre at YDS screened it in an UltraAVX 3D theatre. I think this is the first time I've seen a Chinese blockbuster get premium screen booking over here. It's certainly the first time I got to wear 3D glasses for one (Tsui Hark's films don't even get this respect). So, obviously, I hurried down to experience my first Chinese blockbuster the way the gods intended.

And, oh, was it lousy.

To its credit, this has some of the best special effects I've seen in a mainland production. Peter Pau acts as a co-director, cinematographer, and visual effects supervisor, to ensure a coherency in the film's visual design and expression. There are moments in this film that made the whole experience almost feel worthwhile. Some of the images Pau conjures are remarkable, and this is honestly some of the best use of 3D I've seen. It even accomplishes the same goals of Cameron's Avatar. I remember Cameron saying that 3D would help the audience accept CGI as a more natural part of the moving image, or something like that (an argument I am probably simplifying and butchering) and that's certainly the case here. There's a tracking shot across a corridor that reveals a perpendicular entrance, with Snow Girl floating towards the camera, that made me gasp. I won't lie, some of this movie is pretty fucking cool. Pau is a real talent.

Unfortunately, these moments are incredibly few and far between. Being one of the most impressive mainland blockbuster productions going is small praise when the bar is set as low it is. Zhongkui is a film that claws its way towards being a Hollywood blockbuster better than any mainlaind film before it, but still regularly stumbles through the same pitfalls and growing pains as its predecessors. The special effects are horribly dodgy at times, and some of the art direction in this film is lazy as fuck (the depictions of Hell and the demons who reside there are uniformly bad). There's also something hilariously baffling about some of Pau's beautiful nature photography suddenly being interrupted by a giant CGI character running and jumping all over the place, like my brain just can't reconcile the disparate visual elements I'm seeing. It feels like two completely different movies crashing into each other sometimes.

And for all of that, the other elements are garbage. Story is totes awful, performances are eh whatever, nothing really coalesces on a narrative level. Not enough time is spent developing the characters and the central relationship, and the plot twists are too obvious and too dumb. It's a whole lot of clearly talented people putting in a lot of effort and money to throw a bunch of tired garbage at the audience. What a shame.

[Skitch]

Have you seen Jet Li's Sorcerer and the White Snake (2011)? The trailer looks similar, astounding effects, probably lousy everything else. I'm going to give it a shot though...

[Stay Puft]

I have not, but I do have a copy of it. It got released here last year, I think. I'm going to give it a shot because it's Jet Li and Siu-Tung Ching and on paper that's a great combo but at the same time, yeah, gonna keep my expectations thoroughly in check...