Tuesday, February 04, 2014
Brought the parents to watch 狮神决战 (The Lion Men), it turned out to be a passable movie.
After the wildly-successful Ah Boys to Men (Part I and II) movies, the same cast was roped into the current The Lion Men series, hoping to ride on the popularity of the boys. It was definitely a smart thing to do, except that the plot needed to be more focused.
In The Lion Men, the plot is actually a simple one -- it revolves around the rivalry of 3 Lion Dance Troupes pitting against each other in a highly-coveted competition. Because the central plot is quite straightforward, there are attempts to beef the story up with the addition of many sub-plots that seem to cause the 2-hour-long movie to lose some focus.
The romance of 狮神 and 小雨 can be a good sub-plot, and I liked how 小雨 faced the dilemma of her boyfriend and her father. These are parts where the audience will be led to think about how she'd feel if they were in her shoes. I thought the romance part can be further developed. Perhaps that'd come in Part 2.
The development of the sub-plot that involved Mikey and his inspirational fluffy lion was a little excessive. To have a fluffy toy spring into life in the form of a giant robotic lion was already very 'question mark' to begin with, then it continued for quite awhile, and then turned Mikey into an "Iron" man and a Black Spiderman, and then we saw the local Spiderman shooting webs around CBD etc. Yes, it's refreshing and new, but wait, where's the focus? It seemed that Jack Neo was trying to put too many things into one sub-plot, making it simply excessive and over-the-top. But then again, the CGI in the movie is really the best that a local movie has produced, and that's really a good thing.
Perhaps one thing that the audience will agree with me, is the excessive product placement throughout the movie, right from the beginning. We saw very excessive "hidden" advertisements for a certain pre-paid card; a certain F&B drink brand; a certain beer; a certain Telco and a certain bakery. TOO MANY. The lousy attempts to incorporate these brands and products into the script and lines of the actors were cringe-worthy. Yes, it's amusing to see these marketing attempts incorporated into the movie, but after 2-3 times, you'd get the audience screaming "NOT AGAIN" in the heads.
That said, the movie is still a little gem in showcasing impeccable Lion Dance moves; energetic hiphop dances; and also high-standard fighting scenes. It's really different when a professional regional Wushu instructor was engaged in this movie, because I've never seen such fight scenes that were on par with those frequently seen in Hong Kong films. Jack Neo did it this time. The CGI technology in his movies have also caught up. I also liked how the old traditional-vs-modern debate gets re-introduced in this movie in the form of Lion Dancing. It's not too bad actually.
Though I really don't think this story is worthy to be split into a 2-part series because it's already (excessively) 130 minutes long, the climax of the Lion Dance competition awaits in Part 2 of the series, possibly with some twists and turns to further beef it up into another full movie. I will be waiting to watch the ending nevertheless, hoping to have fewer cringe-worthy moments then.
人生是黑白的.
12:59 AM <3
>>>
