I normally steer clear of reviewing movies because I don't like imposing my opinions on other people, but my Mongol colleague, who's sitting next to me right now, has been pestering me to watch it ever since it came out and I finally caved, just so he could shut up about it. Now, having spent nearly three hours of my life and 25 bucks of my life savings to properly appreciate how millions of dollars could be translated into a steaming pile of garbage, I registered an IMDB account just to post everything that was so obnoxiously wrong with this movie so that you, the reader, don't have to suffer my fate (and a passive-aggressive response to his harassment).
One of the first things that I want to make absolutely clear to you, as my Mongol colleague has been making absolutely clear to me, is that in the Mongol community this movie is considered Mongolian instead of Chinese, because not only the director, the main cast and the brain trust are all Mongolian, the storyline and the main characters are also Mongolian [?]. My Mongol colleague also made it clear that the fox lady's actress is half Mongol and half Russian, which makes her more appealing than an actress who is "only" of Chinese descent [??]. So yeah, if you are looking for an exquisite example of excellent Chinese cinema, don't bother, because that apparently wasn't the intention.
There are also the technical aspects, which my Mongol colleague insists must be "very good and advanced" because the production teams are all Hollywood veterans based in Hollywood while the special effects were done by Weta. They weren't, and that he cannot envision a purely Mongolian production being state-of-the-art would have been somewhat depressing, had the production value been any good. As it is, I was surprised to hear that the movie should have come out around 2019, because the production looked standard for something that came out around 1979 (not that I'm comparing it to Alien, because back then Ridley Scott had imagination and this film's director clearly doesn't).
The script was also especially bad, though I'm not sure whether it's actually bad, or the translation is bad, or the direction is bad. I'm not sure because though I had trouble following the plot and the dialogue, I have the feeling that the actors also had trouble following the plot and the dialogue, since they either looked confused or embarrassed; even their overacting lacked conviction. The elements that I did grasp - the many, many patricides and the recurring theme of youngsters dancing while half-naked - seemed bad taste, but what do I know about Mongolian culture.
My Mongol colleague was also convinced that I would like the film because some guy named Kris Phillips played a major role, because 1) he is half white, and I am white, so that would endear him to me [????], and 2) he is a Broadway megastar, despite not being famous. Unconvinced, because I, indeed, didn't like his acting very much just because he was half white, I looked him up online, and saw his biggest role to date was an unnamed extra in Miss Saigon; great for him to land a main role in a million-dollar production, but not-so-great news for the production if that's the biggest "Hollywood" help they can boast.
I think the only people who actually derive pleasure from this traumatizingly bad movie probably don't really exist, or else just love the scenes where the young people danced half-naked. Honestly, any movie looks like Godfather II next to it, including Shazam II or even, God forbid, Godfather III. FBI should take note; this Mongol movie, with its unintelligible story and dialogue, expensively cheap special effects and disgusting but childish direction at nearly three hours of running time, can be re-imagined as a torture device that even the most hardened criminals would crack when exposed to.
Maybe me posting this review, and my Mongol colleague possibly seeing it, would end our "friendship". Maybe that'd be a good thing.
One of the first things that I want to make absolutely clear to you, as my Mongol colleague has been making absolutely clear to me, is that in the Mongol community this movie is considered Mongolian instead of Chinese, because not only the director, the main cast and the brain trust are all Mongolian, the storyline and the main characters are also Mongolian [?]. My Mongol colleague also made it clear that the fox lady's actress is half Mongol and half Russian, which makes her more appealing than an actress who is "only" of Chinese descent [??]. So yeah, if you are looking for an exquisite example of excellent Chinese cinema, don't bother, because that apparently wasn't the intention.
There are also the technical aspects, which my Mongol colleague insists must be "very good and advanced" because the production teams are all Hollywood veterans based in Hollywood while the special effects were done by Weta. They weren't, and that he cannot envision a purely Mongolian production being state-of-the-art would have been somewhat depressing, had the production value been any good. As it is, I was surprised to hear that the movie should have come out around 2019, because the production looked standard for something that came out around 1979 (not that I'm comparing it to Alien, because back then Ridley Scott had imagination and this film's director clearly doesn't).
The script was also especially bad, though I'm not sure whether it's actually bad, or the translation is bad, or the direction is bad. I'm not sure because though I had trouble following the plot and the dialogue, I have the feeling that the actors also had trouble following the plot and the dialogue, since they either looked confused or embarrassed; even their overacting lacked conviction. The elements that I did grasp - the many, many patricides and the recurring theme of youngsters dancing while half-naked - seemed bad taste, but what do I know about Mongolian culture.
My Mongol colleague was also convinced that I would like the film because some guy named Kris Phillips played a major role, because 1) he is half white, and I am white, so that would endear him to me [????], and 2) he is a Broadway megastar, despite not being famous. Unconvinced, because I, indeed, didn't like his acting very much just because he was half white, I looked him up online, and saw his biggest role to date was an unnamed extra in Miss Saigon; great for him to land a main role in a million-dollar production, but not-so-great news for the production if that's the biggest "Hollywood" help they can boast.
I think the only people who actually derive pleasure from this traumatizingly bad movie probably don't really exist, or else just love the scenes where the young people danced half-naked. Honestly, any movie looks like Godfather II next to it, including Shazam II or even, God forbid, Godfather III. FBI should take note; this Mongol movie, with its unintelligible story and dialogue, expensively cheap special effects and disgusting but childish direction at nearly three hours of running time, can be re-imagined as a torture device that even the most hardened criminals would crack when exposed to.
Maybe me posting this review, and my Mongol colleague possibly seeing it, would end our "friendship". Maybe that'd be a good thing.