Get to know the fractured films of Yorgos Lanthimos, director of Oscar-nominee The Favourite.
Related lists from IMDb users
Title: Jiu ceng yao ta (2015)
Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.
| Credited cast: | |||
| Mark Chao | ... | Hu Bayi | |
| Jin Chen | ... | Yang's mother | |
 |
Li Feng | ... | Fat Wang Kaixuan |
| Chen Li | ... | Mr. Wang | |
| Guangjie Li | ... | Officer Han | |
| Yan Tang | ... | Weiwei | |
| Rhydian Vaughan | ... | Chen Dong | |
|
|
Deshun Wang | ... | Anliru |
|
|
Qingxiang Wang | ... | Doctor Yang |
|
|
Jun Wu | ... | Lead Soldier |
| Chen Yao | ... | Shirley Yang | |
The Mongolian Border, 1979: Massive fossils of unknown creatures are discovered in the mountains, and the research team assigned to excavate the remains includes acclaimed Professor Yang (Wang Qingxiang), Hu Bayi (Mark Chao), and Ping (Yao Chen), the professor's beautiful daughter. When a freak explosion, lethal bat attack, and fall to the mountain's floor leaves only a handful of survivors, the small remaining band uncovers a mythic Cyclopean Temple - and an Interdimensional Portal that looses a pack of ravenous Hell-Beasts, leaving only Hu alive. New York City, Present Day: Now living a quiet but tormented life as a librarian, Hu studies demonology manuscripts to find answers for that fateful day. Little does he know that Professor Yang has just been found wandering the mountains thousands of miles from where he supposedly died; a young woman with amnesia was just discovered in a recently-uncovered tomb; and a Northern Chinese mining town has just been ravaged by giant, unknown ...
Watch Hollywood hits and TV favorites for free with IMDb Freedive. Start streaming on IMDb and Fire TV devices today!
Explore popular and recently added TV series available to stream now with Prime Video.
It's interesting to watch foreign movies that attempt to compete with Hollywood blockbusters, because sometimes you can find some entertaining movies that do things differently while being entertaining. However, there are definitely times when these foreign films can be as bad as the worst to come from Hollywood, and "Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe" is one such movie. I didn't have a problem with the Chinese propaganda (every national cinema has films that trumpet their culture). And even though the special effects were kind of erratic, I didn't really have a problem with them as well.
However, I did have a big problem with the script. The first fifteen minutes are pretty coherent, but after that point, the movie becomes extremely muddled. There are a ton of unanswered questions and mysterious plot developments. Some of these head-scratching moments are eventually answered (kind of), but new murky touches come up to take their place. I don't know if the confusion was due to translation problems, a necessity to know Chinese culture well, or simply bad writing... though I suspect the third possible explanation is the answer.
The movie is well shot, fairly fast-paced despite its length, and it never gets to the point of being boring. But with such a muddled narrative, it's hard to care for the characters or what is happening. As a result, the movie is very unsatisfying. I would be willing to see these filmmakers do another movie, but only as long as they were working with a much better script.