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Safran
Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 2612 Location: Austria
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Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 12:29 am Post subject: |
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Very funny and amusing to look at ...although this might have been hard work
and very unusual shootings for Tony (I assume)
Many thanks for posting, yitian ![salute](images/smiles/icon_salut.gif) |
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Tin-Yau
Joined: 19 Aug 2012 Posts: 1165 Location: Germany
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Posted: Sun Dec 31, 2017 1:11 am Post subject: |
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I`ve seen the first MH a few days ago, it`s a nice story. This one should be much more entertaining. Can`t wait. _________________ Water which is too pure has no fish. |
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yitian
Joined: 06 Jul 2011 Posts: 2173 Location: United States
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yitian
Joined: 06 Jul 2011 Posts: 2173 Location: United States
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Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2018 4:59 pm Post subject: |
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Happy New Year!
![](http://wx4.sinaimg.cn/mw1024/005CTpC7ly1fn4j2cpi0tj31kw0cl1ky.jpg) |
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yitian
Joined: 06 Jul 2011 Posts: 2173 Location: United States
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Safran
Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 2612 Location: Austria
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Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2018 4:01 am Post subject: |
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![Laughing](images/smiles/icon_lol.gif) |
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ham
Joined: 22 Oct 2004 Posts: 1269 Location: Thailand
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Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2018 8:51 am Post subject: |
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![](https://wx3.sinaimg.cn/mw1024/bac48339ly1fo9dk7nemxj20rs0ijgs1.jpg) |
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ham
Joined: 22 Oct 2004 Posts: 1269 Location: Thailand
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Safran
Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 2612 Location: Austria
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Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2018 3:11 am Post subject: |
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Many thanks for posting these nice pics, Ham
Have much fun watching "MH2" in Bangkok next week ! ![Very Happy](images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif) |
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ham
Joined: 22 Oct 2004 Posts: 1269 Location: Thailand
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Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2018 9:54 am Post subject: |
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Thanks so much. Helga
I will watch it tomorrow at the theatre. I think I will watch it 2 times or more.....haha I like Benben. ![Laughing](images/smiles/icon_lol.gif) |
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yitian
Joined: 06 Jul 2011 Posts: 2173 Location: United States
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Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2018 4:09 pm Post subject: |
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Lucky ham ![Razz](images/smiles/icon_razz.gif) |
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yitian
Joined: 06 Jul 2011 Posts: 2173 Location: United States
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yitian
Joined: 06 Jul 2011 Posts: 2173 Location: United States
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Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2018 12:29 pm Post subject: |
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Monster Hunt 2 Review
Roger Ebert by Simon Abrams
3 out of 4 stars
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/monster-hunt-2-2018
February 17, 2018
"In another country, with another name, maybe things are different, maybe they're the same." - Brian Eno, "Mother Whale Eyeless"
As of this writing, the affable Chinese blockbuster fantasy "Monster Hunt 2" has demolished opening day records in its native country: $97 million today alone. (1) This comes two weeks after the film's pre-sales reportedly hit $11 million. (2) It's also roughly two years after the release of the first "Monster Hunt," another family-friendly action-comedy that follows cuddly computer-generated monsters as they frolic about their forest home and chase live-action Chinese and Hong Kong comedians and marquee stars.
"Monster Hunt 2" offers a lot more where that busy, good-natured mess came from. It just happens to be raking in enough money to give "Black Panther" some decent international competition this weekend. The target audience for "Monster Hunt 2" knows very well what the film is, and probably whether or not they're going to enjoy the film. Everyone else probably hasn't even heard the title mentioned in passing.
Which is strange because, in this country, most discussions about popular foreign films begin with a tacit conflation of the film's inherent merits, and its cultural footprint. If it's bad, but big, it has a far greater chance of being treated as an event than if it's good, but small.
Then again, "Monster Hunt 2" isn't being actively promoted to Western audiences, nor to anyone beyond its established Chinese-American audience. Why should they? The Chinese box office is still poised to overtake the waning American market some time very soon. And "Monster Hunt 2" probably won't change your mind about Chinese or Asian pop culture. It's not a cultural ambassador, but rather the kind of crowd-pleaser that a snotty American distributor probably would have deemed to be "too regional" for a mass audience ten or twenty years ago. It’s the kind of movie that might not have even been released in a few theaters nationwide. The kind that sells out a 3:30pm show on opening day at Manhattan's AMC Empire 25, the bedbug-plagued multiplex that has become many Asian film buffs’ last year-round bastion for popular Chinese, Korean, Indian, and sometimes Japanese films.
Still: all this fuss for a cutesy kid's film? Pretty much, yeah.
"Monster Hunt 2" is charming enough on a scene-to-scene basis that its success is worth noting. Director Raman Hui (co-director of "Shrek the Third") and screenwriter Alan Yuen peddle kid-friendly conservative values: The nuclear family is sacred! Not all authority figures are bad! Money can't replace good relationships! And they do so with a smile, and a lot of goofy, but pleasant jokes. Many scenes revolve around happily-married, monster-hunting couple Huo Xiaolan (Bai Baihe) and Song Tianyin (Jing Boran) as they attempt to re-unite with Wuba, their lovable adopted squid-monster baby. Xiaolan and Tianyin are just one of a handful of interested parties who are looking for Wuba, including cocky gambler Tu (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) and his chubby monster companion Ben-Ben. Tu inevitably learns from Xiaolan and Tianyin's example, and realizes that the money he needs to dig himself out of his massive personal debt can't make him happy in the same way that a good relationship can.
As you may have guessed by now, "Monster Hunt 2" is an entry in the burgeoning sub-genre of fluffy, innocuous kiddie blockbusters. A small but noteworthy amount of charm sets this disposable bauble apart from other films that came before it. For starters: Wuba is genuinely cute. He coos and giggles with enough abandon that you want to half-strangle and half-embrace him every time he's on screen (and that is often). Baihe and Boran also have low-key on-screen chemistry, and they earn belly laughs just by bickering like a much older, married couple, as when she jokingly dismisses him by saying he should stick to giving birth to monsters (as he did in "Monster Hunt") or when he teases her for shamelessly flirting with a weapon-smith ("I can see you haven't washed your hair in two months. You must be the kind of man who focuses on the big picture!").
Leung, perhaps best known to American audiences for his smoldering dramatic role in "In the Mood for Love," does a fine job with goofy material. His mugging is never distractingly excessive, nor is it too light to be notable: the man is clearly committed to his silly part, as we see every time he sweats, and cajoles his way out of trouble. Wuba and his friends are also notably more charismatic than they were in the first "Monster Hunt," possibly because more money was invested in their design and development.
All of which to say: "Monster Hunt 2" isn't a game-changer, and it doesn't have to be. The independence of the mainland Chinese audience is quickly becoming self-evident. Soon, China's box office will play a larger deciding role in American blockbusters successes. And there won't be a reciprocal component to that. A film that many of you won't have the chance to see in theaters is about to bust open a major market like an over-stuffed piggy bank. And its success will be largely covered in trend-pieces that consider its worthiness in abstracted terms of timing, marketing strategy, and general audience appeal.
Still: "Monster Hunt 2" is equally charming, sweet, slight, and unmemorable. It will also make truck-loads of money, and inspire at least one more sequel. But by now, you either already knew that, or simply don't care. There's no such thing as critic-proof movies, just films that we don't care enough about to consider. |
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yitian
Joined: 06 Jul 2011 Posts: 2173 Location: United States
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Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2018 12:33 pm Post subject: |
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Review by Jay Seaver
"Less plot, but more and better monsters."
4 stars out of 5
Worth A Look: 100%
http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=32059&reviewer=371
There are many sorts of sequels, all with their various merits - the serialized story, the shifting genres, the attempt to recapture the same magic but with more resources. "Monster Hunt 2" definitely falls into the "more of the first" category of sequel, with a story that is often vague enough that it like some combination of treading water until a climactic third part or only having time for a loose outline before shooting because the filmmakers knew they'd have to leave time for visual effects in order to hit a Chinese New Year release date. That's okay; that first was pretty good and this doesn't throw much of it away to get Wuba and his human foster parents together again.
As it opens, Wuba and many of the other monsters in the human world are living in a new Village of Peace in the woods, and while young monster hunters Huo Xiaolan (Bai Baihe) and Song Tianyin (Jing Boran) miss the little tentacled radish, they know he would not have been safe with them. It turns out he's not safe in the village either, as it's attacked and his guardians (Sandra Ng Kwan-yue & Eric Tsang Chi-wai) just barely help him to escape. Fortunately, he meets up with BenBen, an adult member of his species, albeit one who works with con artist and gambling addict Tu Sigu (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), who owes a lot of money to loan shark Zhu Jinzhen (Li Yuchun), and though she'd accept his hand in marriage instead, he'd probably rather have the cash bounty on Wuba's head. Meanwhile, not realizing Wuba is in danger, Xiaolan and Tianyin are starting to have certain qualms about the Monster Hunters' Bureau - for every rising young star like Yun Qing (Tony "Yo" Yang Yo-ning), there seem to be a lot of people just as happy to kill monsters as capture them.
Unlike a lot of sequels trying to scratch the same itch as their predecessors, Monster Hunt 2 opts to shake up the cast rather than bringing everyone back to repeat the same catchphrases, and this actually turns out to be a strength for the new movie. Bai Baihe and Jing Boran are back as Xiaolian and Tianyin, although they've got an easier, less contentious chemistry that comes from the tomboyish Xiaolian and the emotive Tianyin mostly accepting themselves as an odd couple rather than making any serious attempt for an interloper to get between them (in fact, Xiaolin more-or-less ignoring any attempt in that direction is something of a running joke). There's an enjoyable new group of supporting characters, from Da Peng as the Bureau's Q-equivalent (the one with the crush on Xiaolin) to the ever-reliable Tony Leung Chiu-wai as Tu. Leung plays the sort of scoundrel that is still worthy of his money-lender's affection, with Li Yuchun having fun chewing the scenery in that role.
In fact, it seems like the purpose of this film is more to introduce these new characters than actually do anything with the danger to Wuba that's carried over from the first movie into the second one's opening (he is the rightful heir to the monster kingdom, and not just a super-cute creature). The filmmakers keep the characters busy enough, and the material works well for the sort of movie this is, whether it's Tianyin and Xiaolan trying to reunite runaway kid monster Spiky with his mother when the other hunters are ready to kill or Tu randomly selecting peculiar tortures to be subjected to unless he pays up; those looking for much expansion of the <I>Monster Hunt</I> mythology will have to wait. It's fun, light-hearted, and basically kid-friendly material, cuteness and absurdity where nobody really gets hurt. There's more pee and fart jokes, sure, but Yo Yang's reaction to them is aces, and it beats the threat of cute monsters being murdered, sliced up, and eaten that the first offered.
And the goofiness and what story there is leads to a finale that is actually pretty impressive - the "boss battle" is well-choreographed and rendered even with a lot of CGI, and would probably look pretty neat in 3D even though Lionsgate doesn't seem to be releasing it that way, but it's just a half-step less frantic than many are, less likely to overload kids or confuse adults than it might be. The effects work in general is a marked step up from the original, with Industrial Lights & Magic credited and returning director Raman Hui - who had a long career in animation, notably at DreamWorks, before making these films - apparently feeling much more confident about mixing his live-action and animated characters. It's a great-looking movie without qualification, as slick and well-produced as anything else in the multiplex, down to production design that should feel enjoyably fresh for non-Chinese audience and well-done if it's closer to home.
The series is a massive hit in China, with this entry already setting records despite its opening weekend not yet being complete, so third and fourth entries are already being planned, and it's not inconceivable that they could play to larger audiences in the west than their current Chinatown-targeted releases. They may not be genre-transcendingly-great family adventures, but they're entertaining, certainly worth checking out. |
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yitian
Joined: 06 Jul 2011 Posts: 2173 Location: United States
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Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2018 12:42 pm Post subject: |
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Berlin Film Review: ‘Monster Hunt 2’
Animator Raman Hui directs the giggly, nutty, enjoyable sequel to his megahit 2015 family film, and all across China, cash registers ring.
By Jessica Kiang
Variety
http://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/monster-hunt-2-review-1202703300/
“Don’t think too much!” are the very first words in Raman Hui’s new Chinese-language, live-action/CG hybrid family adventure. And you’ve scarcely had time to wonder if that might be a cynical advance apologia for a potentially shoddy sequel to a wildly popular original, before you find yourself obeying. “Monster Hunt 2” is so perfectly good-natured and so utterly nonsensical that it makes not-thinking-about-it basically an act of self-preservation, for which, bless its bouncing, gurgling, flolloping heart. Before the brief Bollywood musical-style opening has even concluded, with the brightly clad dancers joyously wriggling out of their “human outfits” to reveal the tubby, blubbery, sunny-dispositioned “monsters” they are underneath, the only part of the viewer’s brain that would light up a CT scan is the Awww! cortex. These creatures are adorable.
Most adorable of all is the film’s star, Wuba. A pudgy little cross between Baby Groot, a Porg, and a stress ball topped with a tuft of watercress hair, he is an actual infant to boot, so double aww! Plus, he speaks in a series of delighted squeaks and giggles that make the average Gerber Baby sound like a 40-a-day smoker who spends all day at the dog track. Wuba, of course, is not just any monster, but a princeling, and one who, being born of human parents, may actually hold the key to uniting the long-divided Monster and Human realms. Not that that narrative gets advanced a single inch in “Monster Hunt 2”: When the film that launched the franchise broke all box office records in China, the second largest film market in the world, you know you’re going to be around a while. Hui and new writers Jack Ng, Sunny Chan and Su Liang are content to give the series mythology a rest in favor of what is, if you burrow through the pee gags, subplots, and wire stunts, a simple family-reunion story.
Wuba’s parents Xiaolan (Bai Baihe) and Tianyin (Jing Boran) regret their well-intentioned decision, made at the end of the last film, to send Wuba to the Monster Realm to be with his own kind. They set out to find him, at the same time that Wuba, narrowly escaping capture by the evil Monster King, suddenly finds himself on the run, too. Happily, Wuba befriends the resourceful BenBen, a monster who can camouflage himself into invisibility and whose sweet dimples make him look a bit like Woody Harrelson when he smiles. BenBen works as a general factotum to scallywag gambler Tu, played gamely by Tony Leung Chiu-wai. The role of Tu, who at one point sports a prosthetic nose and at another wears a Tony the Tiger-style plushie suit and gets sawed in half by a magician, might seem a bit of a backslide for the Leung we all swooned over in those smoky “In the Mood for Love” doorways. But the actor has a grand old time regardless — and you know, he actually works that tiger costume.
The story is sweeter and gooier this time out; there’s a lot less monster-eating for one thing. And the first film’s most lastingly subversive element — that it was young Tianyin who “gave birth” to Wuba and not his skilled monster-hunter missus Xiaolan — has settled into a groove of gentle gender-comedy. “Treat him like you would any woman, that’s what I do!” Xiaolan demands of the doctor they visit to cure Tianyin’s postpartum depression. “Okay,” the doctor tells him, “It’s all in your head!”
The visual effects work is miles better than in first entry, in which sometimes the live actors and CG characters seemed less to be sharing the same space than bellowing across an impassable Uncanny Valley. And here the human actors meet their pixel-based counterparts at least halfway in terms of broadness of performance. Indeed, sometimes the monsters, who own most of the dignity and all the emotional beats, look faintly embarrassed by the overt cartoonishness of the gurning, pratfalling humans.
Special mention should also go to Yee Chung Man’s fabulous, semi-mythological costuming, and to the production design team of Lee Kin Wai, Guillaume Aretos and Yohei Taneda for the vine-strewn, lavender-carpeted Monster Realm, the workshop of the lovestruck weapons-maker where it’s always snowing popped rice, and the halls of the sinister Monster Hunting Bureau that land somewhere between Gringotts and Trump Tower for gilded excess. “Monster Hunt 2” will of course bring franchise fans back to the theater (it already has, garnering the biggest opening day of all time in China). But it also deserves to recruit some new ones, among younger kids and anyone not so enculturated into Disney-esque narrative formula that they can’t enjoy an anarchically silly, amiably bonkers foreign-language kids film for what it so triumphantly is: an excuse to not think too much.
Reviewed at Berlin Film Festival (Special Gala), Feb. 17, 2018. Running Time: 110 MIN. (Original Title: "Zhuo yao ji 2")
Production: (Hong Kong-China) A Lionsgate (in U.S.) release of an Edko Films, Dream Sky Pictures Co., China Film Co., Edko (Beijing) Films, Tencent Penguin Pictures (Shanghai) Co., Shanghai Tao Piao Piao Movie & TV Culture Co., TianJin MaoYan Media Co.,Dadi Century (Beijing) Co., Zhe Jiang Heng Dian Film Co., Huoerguosi Jinyi Film Co., Tianjin Wuba Film Culture Co., Huaxia Film Distribution Co., Wuxi Pictures, Zhejiang Films & TV presentation of a Champion Star Pictures production. (International sales: Edko Films, Hong Kong.) Producers: Bill Kong, Yee Chung Man, Doris Tse. Co- Producers: Jiang Ping, Jiang Jun. Executive Producers: Bill Kong, Lv Jianchu, La Peikang, Sun Zhonghuai, Fan Luyuan, Peter Zheng, Liu Rong, Xu Tianfu, Leo Li, Chen Jianning, Fu Ruoqing, Shi Juan, Yang Yang, Jiande Chen.
Crew: Director: Raman Hui. Screenplay: Jack Ng, Sunny Chan, Su Liang. Camera (color): Anthony Pun. Editors: Cheung Ka Fai, David Richardson. Music: Leon Ko.
With: Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Bai Baihe, Jing Boran, Chris Lee, Yo Yang, Da Peng, Sandra Ng, Eric Tsang, Huang Lei, Liu Yan, MoMo Wu, X-NINE, Jiang Chao, Lou Yixiao, Zhang Li. (Mandarin dialogue) |
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