Rating: D
Dir: Sun Yu
Star: Chen Wai, Su Lin-Nan, Chen Guo-Liang, Andrei Beliakov
There are times where I wish I had a dual scale of ratings: one for a film’s quality, and the other for its entertainment value. This movie, for example, is more than a bit shit, on almost every level. But it managed to keep my attention; at least the makers knew better than to be boring. If only their competence had been up to the level of… well, competent. Here’s an example. There’s the six minute rule: this kind of films inevitably begin with a bang, because viewers can see the first few minutes for free. But rather than write a script that opens hot, the makers here just grab random chunks from their climax and throw them against the wall at the start. Coherence? It’s vastly overrated.
It does, however, give you a good idea of what to expect – not least, CGI which rarely looks the same quality in consecutive shots. Occasionally adequate, it’s mostly between poor and ridiculously bad, though there is some imagination in the way they are used. The story concerns four students, led by Qin An (Chen W.), who go to a remote location called Devil’s Island to collect samples of the wildlife. They appear genuinely surprised when the location proceeds to live up to its name. Arriving almost simultaneously are a group of mercs, under Wang Kai (Chen G-L), who are there on a different mission. Rescuing the students after they’re about to be eaten by large cannibal ants, the two sides team up.
Well, when I say “team up”, that would imply some degree of co-operative behaviour for their mutual benefit. What we actually get here, is random meandering about the island, while the soldiers fire digital gunfire at things, and yell a lot. The students just kinda meander, though that may be the wisest move, since it’s only the mercenaries who get eaten, squished, or flung into the air to explode in a fireball. As well as the cannibal ants, there is also a giant ape, but the main threat is a huge snake with two heads. That’s what the mercs are there for. It does not go well, mostly because the reptile appears to be bulletproof – and, it turns out, giant ape proof.
The yelling is mostly by Wang Kai’s second in command, Jason (Beliakov). He looks as if someone gave Torgo from Manos an automatic weapon and a thick Bulgarian accent, and doing so might have been more effective. Inexplicably, this is the second most-popular video on Tiger Pictures’ YouTube channel, with over 4.8 million views. I have an excuse, being committed to reviewing as many of these as I can find, and finding entertainment from bad movies. I’m not sure the same can be said about the other 4,799,999 unfortunate souls who watched it. For this represents a Grand Canyon-sized gulf in quality, between the glorious poster and the wretched level of film-making actually delivered.
This review is part of our feature, When Chinese Animals Attack.