Chinese New Year. Stephen Chow. I still remember the time when CNY movies were dominated by either Stephen Chow or Jackie Chan. Nowadays, it will be the non nonsensical movie to fit dozens of HK stars either from Raymond Wong or Eric Tsang. Although I did not watch Stephen Chow's Mermaid last year (which garnered some mixed reviews), I did not want to miss this year's offering, which continues from his re-interpretation of Journey to the West 2 years ago.
However, the saying goes, higher the expectation, bigger the disappointment. To be fair. it is a CNY movie, so it does follows the formula. Nonsensical story. Check. Fit in some laughter. Check. Make sure at least there are lots of CGI or action (for China audience). Check. Forgettable film. All check. But the first movie set the bar so high that this one really look bad. The first one created a totally new background story to the monk, portrayed the Monkey God and his brothers as villain. And the flow is so good that it fit really well into the beginning of Journey to the West. The use of CGI was restrained well that the finale was just awesome. The humour is so Stephen Chow without being vulgar.
The Demons Strike Back? The story eased back into the journey to the west mold. Nothing that we had not seen before. Chow tried to maintain the romantic side of the monk, but it felt forced. The story tried to introduce villain such as Hong Hai Yi (red child) but it just felt flat. There are some genuine funny Chow's moment there but are very few. Tsui Hark direction did not manage to save the movie from mediocrity. The much expected CGI action was used too often without any self restrained that it felt cartoon-ish. In fact, the final battle really had me thinking I was watching a CGI cartoon and it just felt fake.
I did not watched the rest of the CNY movie, so did not manage to make comparison. But comparing this movie with its former glory, it really felt "the sky and the earth".
ratings: 2 poink~!
comments: the whole story just fell flat. By next week, as any previous CNY movie, I would had forgotten what did I watch at all.
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