The Island

Zhang Yixing was praised by his real name. He was able to become an actor among a number of senior actors. Thanks to Huang Bo's script and trust, he gave him a role to play. Back to the film itself, the whole viewing process fluctuates like an electrocardiogram. Whenever you feel good, it will collapse soon, but when the insufficient places pass, new highlights will appear. After all, it's a debut. You can't ask Huang Bo for super high standards because he is the director. The first play dares to challenge a large group of plays with such rich elements. I'm afraid Jiang Wen doesn't have this courage. Jiang Wen's fifth film was only one step away, while Huang Bo's first film was shot. The scene of falling from a cliff at the end was too similar to the scene of Ma Zori jumping down, leaving enough room for the audience to interpret. Therefore, we can foresee the terrible polarization after the official release of the film, but I can say for sure that this is one of the most courageous attempts of 2018 Chinese film. Finally, I want to say that the next drama is not implanted in any advertisement. In the last days of fables, what Kwai is fun and fast is really too low.

This stunning dark comedy, The Island, succeeds both narratively and technically. The screenplay is smart, with twists and turns and some sharp satire towards humanity, capitalism and brainwash. The cinematography and editing are much mature. Wang Baoqiang continues his run as the best and the most popular comedian of his generation, and Lay marks an important step as he transforms from a singer-dancer to an actor. Huang Bo, on the other hand, simply shocks the world as a director, just like what he did twelve years ago in Crazy Stone as an actor.

The Island is a mostly entertaining mixture of a survival drama with some social criticism, slapstick comedy and romantic elements. It tells the story of about thirty work colleagues who get into a heavy storm and strand on an isolated island. When nobody comes to their rescue, the group elects a military veteran as their leader who soon starts to abuse his power. The group splits into two camps when a clever businessman discovers a shipwreck with useful tools and convinces some of his colleagues to join his group. The story follows two unlucky brothers who soon realize that the military veteran is a sadist while the clever businessman is a liar and decide to live on their own. In order to feel superior just once in their lives, they successfully plan to play the two groups off against each other in order to become the new leaders. As time goes by, the two brothers need to decide whether they want to be leaders on an isolated island or ordinary people in a civilized world.

The movie starts very well with stunning special effects in a dramatic storm. The different characters are nicely developed and very distinctive. Every character has obvious strengths and weaknesses but living in the savage nature shows who the characters really are. The story is less interesting than the gripping character developments that have major impacts on the plot. The film finds the right balance between serious survival adventure with some social criticism related to the selfishness of mankind and some more light-hearted elements such as situation and slapstick comedy but also a romance between the older brother and one of the female co-workers.

The Island also has a few minor flaws. The movie is at least twenty minutes too long and the middle section is both repetitive and drifts at times off into the realm of fantasy instead of keeping the realistic survival story mode. The ending of the movie also feels stretched as there are additional scenes during and even after the credits. A more concise film would have been much more intense for the viewers. Personally, I didn't like Qi Shu's performance very much and don't understand why she is featured in so many movies these days. She is neither a particularly good actress nor a particularly beautiful woman that she often has to incarnate in my book. While other characters evolve mentally but especially physically on the island as they grow beards, long hair or get dirty and rough skin, Qi Shu's character always looks as if she came out of a beauty studio with perfect teeth, clean skin and smooth hair, even after having spent far over one hundred days on an isolated island. Her character simply feels misplaced and looks like a Barbie Doll in a cabinet of horrors.

In the end, I would still recommend The Island if you are looking for a quirky survival drama with intriguing characters. The story is somewhat shallow and the movie has its lengths but it's overall still very good thanks to outstanding acting performances, great camera work, exotic locations, poignant sound effects and impressive special effects as well as an interesting and mostly balanced mixture of different genres.

A stranger darkly-comic satire than The Island will not come your way this year and maybe ever. Like an amalgam of Lord of the Flies and The Tempest, it is uncompromising about humanity's ability to screw each other over given a chance to attain power at others' expense.

As the formula would have it, a group of co-workers is stranded on an island after a cataclysmic storm seems to lay waste to the world. Faced with the daunting task of setting up a new world, they experience every form of survival strategy, mostly of a capitalist kind (lending, stealing, hoarding, bartering, etc). most of the time it is not pretty.

Lurking in the wings is Love, the great pacifier, and after scores of days, they seem to get its importance, not only for their mental health, but also for creating heirs should the world have been devastated. Getting to harmony is as difficult for these islanders as it is for those stranded in life.

Speaking of which, and argument and a strategy take place as they struggle what is real and what is fake in their new culture. The audience will take only a split second to make the connection with today's stranded politicians who excoriate "fake news" while they make it.

Although The Island's first part is a slog through hysterics and fast subtitles, the second part settles nicely into satisfactory allegory about the human condition. This little film will never do the business the much slicker and more class-conscious Crazy Rich Asians does; yet, it has its own charms about life as we commoners experience it.

Suffice it to say, we need to see more of these entertaining and culturally rich films because I think Asians are here to stay in our lives.

In this sarcastic comedy about current society, real Chinese stars Huang Bo as Ma Jin, Shu Qi as Shanshan, and Baoqiang Wang as Xiao Wang were a delight to watch!

The film gets off to a great start with amazing special effects during a powerful storm. The many characters are well-developed and stand out from one another. Though each character has clear advantages and disadvantages, their existence in the wild reveals their true selves. The compelling character developments that significantly influence the plot make the storyline less engaging than it is. The movie strikes the ideal balance between a serious survival adventure, some societal commentary on human selfishness, and some lighter parts like a situational comedy and romance.

A few small issues also exist with the Island. The middle part of the film is repetitious and occasionally veers into fantasy rather than sticking to the realistic survival narrative approach. It is at least twenty minutes too lengthy. Because there are extra sequences both during and after the credits, the movie's ending also seems rushed. The audience would have found a better editing of this picture to be far more intense.

Good enough as it is for a family night with snacks! We had a spicy duck neck!