Rating: B-
Dir: Li Feng
Star: Hanson Ying, Tang Min, Peter Pang, Xin Yi Quan
Really, considering my basic incomprehension of anything resembling the story, that grade has to be regarded as a success. I mean, here’s the official synopsis: “The descendant of the gold toucher, Hu Bu Mei, is bent on saving money to find his missing brother. He and the deserter Lao Lei went to the village of Wu Zi to make coffins, and what they did not expect was that the one waiting for them in the village of Wu Zi was none other than the three masters of Peng who went to the grave with his brother.” I trust that has cleared everything up. Not helping matters: it also seems to be one part of the Mystery of Muye series. Imagine the confusion of being dropped into the fifth Harry Potter film.
What I can figure out is as follow. Hu Bu Mei (Ying) is a coffin-maker who gets a big contract in the village of Wu Zi. However, it soon becomes clear that the place has a lot of weirdness going on (/handwaves vaguely), and his occult skills are useful. Turns out his feng shui knowledge in particular is the real reason he was brought there. A lot of the locals – and not just the locals – want to find an underground tomb where the Ghost Immortal Stone, a powerful relic, is reported to be located. It is heavily guarded by all manner of creatures, not least the dragon of the title. However, Hu has his own agenda too, since his brother recently went missing in the same area.
This is decent entertainment, providing you are prepared, as an English speaker, to accept that you will never understand anything more than the broad strokes of the plot. For the subtitles fall just as much into the “Good effort!” category as the synopsis, neither apparently having been checked by anyone who passed level 3 on English Duolingo. Frankly, I suspect it may not be worth the effort, unless you’ve read the book, “Candle in the Tomb: Mu Ye Gui Shi”, on which the film is based. Can say, the effects and monsters are a nice mix of the practical and the CGI, and some of the underground sets (top) are genuinely impressive on occasion.
Ying seems like a suitably heroic character, and there’s a cool dream sequence where he looks to be transported back to Shanghai (?) for a conversation with his lost brother. It’s the kind of thing which could be done cheaply, but the film actually puts in the effort, building (or at least making use of) some elegant looking sets and shooting them attractively. I’ve seen sufficient Chinese action movies to know that isn’t always going to be the case: “good enough” often appears to be the mantra by which many operate. However, there will inevitably be a cap on a film where I don’t have more than the most superficial idea of what’s going on. I am curious enough to look into other entries from the series though.