Taraparain
Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.
AshUnow
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Roman Sampson
One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.
Guillelmina
The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.
sailaway_rasmus
Its great to see an east asian movie which has sth to say, it is somehow comedy, which brings smile, but not laughing. Very cute monsters so i said creative, with interesting story, so screenplay is acceptable.
They try hard to make this, so I appreciate it, and hope to see more movies from this team. The story was same like few other ones. Itis important to be creative, always give sth new to viewers. Here we see it, even we had these kind of movie, but i did not feel it is old or repeated.
I suggest everyone see this, specially childrens. Like to dream and dream... nice work.
theoryladeness
To offset reviews that seem lacking in full appreciation of all of the qualities of this movie, I should probably give this movie a 10, but I recognize my own bias towards the film genre. Anyone with similar film taste might really enjoy this movie. The casting, acting, scene design, and writing were synergistic and the film is full of beautiful imagery and CGI.What I appreciated the most, however, was the socio-cultural critique of animal abuse, factory farming and eating other creatures. There is no explicit philosophy set forth, but only the real emotions that result from having to care for something so similar to a human. As the main character remarks, "There are good monsters and bad monsters", but the most satisfying parts of the movie are when the characters experience a deep compassion for the monsters (and vice versa) that transforms their behavior. Of course there is a love story with familiar themes, but by avoiding too many clichés and giving gender role reversal center stage, the two characters that fall in love offer convincing performances that make an otherwise fantasy setting a realistic depiction of human love, a love that we see extend to the non-human throughout the movie.
lasttimeisaw
MONSTER HUNT has broken the all-time box office record in the booming domestic market, and officially it is the highest-grossing film in China, with an estimate $391.2 million. So it really piques my curiosity and decided to give it a try (since I rarely watch Chinese films nowadays).Flagrantly branded as a film made by "the father of Shrek", which the slogan is blatantly printed in all its posters, its director Raman Hui is just a supervising animator of SHREK (2001, 7/10) and SHREK 2 (2004, 7/10), and the co-director of the substandard SHREK 3 (2007, 6/10), so I assume Dreamworks might have the right to sue the overblown statement.Probing into the film itself, one possibly finds it is a cringe-worthy journey from the very start, thanks to the kids-friendly creations of the monsters by the so-called "the father of Shrek", 2- dimensional and cartoonish in the worst way, which betrays its overt ambition to exploit the lowest common denominator at its maximum. The storyline fictionalises a world where humans and monsters (who can hide among men with a human skin) co-exist in ancient China, after an internal war between monsters, the pregnant monster queen lams with two protectors Zhu Gao and Pang Ying (whose human shapes are played by Tsang and Ng). And our hero is a young cripple Tianyin (Jing), living with his lunatic grandmother (Jin) in a remote village. He chances upon a monster hunt Xiaolan (Bai), and farcically becomes pregnant with the monster baby from the dying queen.This role-switch between man and woman might turn out to be the most recommendable part in the story, after giving birth to the baby monster, later named as Huba, a surrogate nuclear family is formed, while Xiaolan takes on the tough father's role and the limp Tianyin becomes the protective mother. Then the narrative navigates inevitably to a predictable standard mainstream product, Huba's life is hanging by a thread (with an uncomfortable reference of Chinese people's non-selective culinary fetish) and a final battle between the good and the evil, with a stiff twist doesn't make any sense for the villain's motivation, it is par for the course Tianyin have to progress into a valiant monster slayer (bad monsters only), conforms to the traditional value of preserve a man's dignity, despite it is Xiaolan who is the real heroine in the whole escapade and Bai is the best thing among the cast, the most bankable Chinese actress presently.Trying to blend as many genres as possible, action, comedy, fantasy, romance, even musical (it is utterly mortifying to watch the tasteless and jejune music numbers jammed into the story), in addition with a cast complemented with a string of household names with special appearances, namely Wei Tang, Chen Yao and Ni Yan, along with child stars from a topical reality TV show, MONSTER HUNT is meticulously calculated to its core, in order to cash in on viewers' attraction, but at the expense of dumbing down the story to a frag-mental absurdity. But a dispiriting truth is that this picture IS the record-holder, bearing that in mind, one must wail for the future of Chinese cinema rooted deeply in the unhealthy soil, and one day, hope not too late, this seemingly prosperous bubble will burst and a wake-up call is imminent, but right now, undeniably it is rather difficult to be a true cinephile in China.
adam_uppal
As someone who often enjoys Chinese movies, and lives in China, I thought I would be able to appreciate this film. I was wrong.This movie is somehow boring, sappy and stupid at the same time. The plot is inconsistent, the characters are flat, and the baby monster is simply annoying.While the movie makes an attempt to include a blossoming romance, again everything is inconsistent and often ridiculous.More often than not, I found myself getting upset at how terrible the writing was. I would not recommend this movie for anybody older than five. Forget that. I would not recommend this movie to anybody at all.