Rating: C-
Dir: Luo Yingjie
Star: Yin Cong, Gao Yun, Huang Xiaochao, Nuo Yao
This is the kind of sloppily assembled and lazily written rubbish that gives Chinese straight to streaming movies a bad name. Well, you would be forgiven for especially thinking so in the early going here. The basic plot is perhaps the most over-used in the genre history: go to a remote island, in search of a missing… [/spins the wheel o’ relations] father. In his case, the absentee is Professor Mo, who went missing exploring “Mad Python Island”. Clue is in the name there, I’d say. Years later, a jade pendant he owned is recovered by a fisherman, and daughter Monica hires alcoholic adventurer Du Fei and his assistant, Ding Hao, to lead an expedition.
As well as the reptile of unusual size acknowledged by the name, Mad Python Island is also home to a King Kong knock-off. Though the visual effects for both of these are spectacularly shitty. And that’s judging them by the loose standard of Chinese Animal Attack films, which can be not great to begin with. These never look like they are inhabiting the same world as the human characters, possessing about the same physical credibility as those lick ‘n’ stick tattoos you used to get in a packet of Bazooka Joe bubble-gum. The landing party might or might not have been shipwrecked: the film cuts from a storm to them pulling up on the beach in rubber dinghys, which is just as lazy as everything else here.
I think the film reached its low-point with the sequence where they are attacked by bright red vampire bats, which seem to be on loan from Birdemic in terms of quality. However, to my great surprise, things became… watchable. For Prof. Mo discovers a remarkable new plant, with great healing properties, which come in handy after a snake nibbles on a party member. He calls is ‘Blood Mandarin’, because of its colour. However, the subs keep referring to it thereafter as “mackerel”, which confused the heck out of me. Regardless, the twist is, the plant is highly addictive, and it also has a side-effect, making whoever takes it very aggressive. It’s an interesting idea: more importantly, it led to the scene which will forever stick in my memory.
Because one of the island creatures eats the plant. And it’s a snow-white bunny. “No,” I thought. “They couldn’t possibly go there.” Oh, yes. Yes, they did. For a few, glorious seconds, this unexpectedly went full Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog from Holy Grail, with the critter flying around between the characters (top), who behaved like… Well, me in a plush toy-shop, let’s be honest. Sadly, it was over all too soon, without recourse to the Holy Hand-Grenade of Antioch, and the file returned to its low-key interest and poor CGI. However, it was a most unexpected delight, and I have to wonder how much of it was intended as a homage. Pity the location wasn’t called Monty Python Island.
This review is part of our feature, When Chinese Animals Attack.