After the one-two punch of Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle, I expected more great things from Stephen Chow. Instead, he made a middling children's film (CJ7 - it was lame, but it was, I admit, enormously popular in China) and then disappeared for several years. He finally emerged with this film, an adaptation of a very popular Chinese novel that has been adapted into several earlier movies and television series. It has a lot of what made Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle so special, in particular the bizarre humor. I did laugh a lot during this film. This one's a little too obsessed with special effects, though, and it really doesn't help that CGI effects have not evolved an iota since Kung Fu Hustle in Asia. The effects look absolutely awful here, for the most part, and, when that's the focus of your film, it's pretty much destined to fail. Well, "fail" is a bit too much, but, compared to Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle, this is a big disappointment (I still liked it a tad more than CJ7). If you did like his earlier films, this is worth a look. It is fun at times. Zhang Wen takes the lead (he looks so much like Chow I thought it was him until the credits rolled; I guess he felt he was too old for the role). Shu Qi (Millennium Mambo, The Transporter) is as gorgeous as always as the demon hunting heroine who goofily falls for Zhang. I also really liked Bo Huang as the Monkey King.
