![]() ![]() So far, so fairly standard for an action costume fantasy. Of especial note is the score by young Hong Kong classical musician Zhu Yunbian 朱芸编 ( Wu Kong 悟空传, 2017 computer animated mega-hit Ne Zha 哪吒之魔童降世, 2019), which avoids the usual action wallpapering and has some genuinely wistful moments (with Chinese harmonies) in the orchestration. As in Its Love, editing by experienced Hong Kong cutter Lin An’er 林安儿 hardly wastes a scene, and styling by Xi Zhongwen 奚仲文 has a lightness and brightness matching the misty-peaks setting. Apart from a rather amateurish start, the action is solid, oldstyle Hong Kong stuff, co-staged by Mainland-born veteran Xiong Xinxin 熊欣欣 and mixing wire effects with CGI, usually to smooth effect. Like Its Love, the film is Mainland-financed but with major Hong Kong input behind the camera. It’s a typically professional but not especially involving production by Cheng, who’s still firing on all pistons after 40-odd years in the industry. First-weekend business has been brisk in the Mainland. With an almost 100% new cast, and only 100 minutes to deploy it in, Cheng’s big-screen version moves smartly, packs in a huge number of characters but manages to let the principals shine before the CGI takes over in the final furlong. A familiar mix of martial-arts fantasy and copious CGI, it’s based on an epic eight-volume novel of the same Chinese title by Mainland author Xiao Ding 萧鼎 (pen name of Fuzhou-born Zhang Jian 张戬) that was first published in Taiwan in 2003 and then in the Mainland two years later (see cover, left), and has already spawned a hit Mainland drama series, The Legend of Chusen 青云志 (2016, aka Noble Aspirations, see below left). It’s been eight years since the last directorial outing by Cheng Xiaodong 程小东 – the entertaining but unexceptional costume fantasy Its Love 白蛇传说 (2011, aka The Sorcerer and the White Snake) – but, now 65, the Hong Kong stunt coordinator-cum-director has lost none of his energy on the evidence of Jade Dynasty I 诛仙I. However, it’s coveted by the Ghost King and by a mysterious young woman, Biyao (Meng Meiqi), who keeps trying to steal it – unsuccessfully – from the ingenuous Zhang Xiaofan, for whom she slowly falls. It morphs spectacularly into the Fire Stick 火棍, a powerful weapon which answers only to him. It is, in fact, the Blood-Devouring Pearl 噬血珠 and one day, while playing around with a pesky monkey, he accidentally activates the stone with drops of his own blood. When he was still a boy, Zhang Xiaofan was given a magic stone by a Daoist immortal (Jiang Dawei) and told to keep it with him at all times occasionally it glows but Zhang Xiaofan is still puzzled as to its significance. The stern Lu Xueqi catches Zhang Xiaofan and punishes him with itchy bugs. Back in the mountains, Zhang Xiaofan, along with pupils from other peaks, spy on the beautiful Lu Xueqi (Li Qin) – chief pupil of Daoist master Shuiyue (Ye Tong) of Xiaozhu peak – practising aerial moves with her female colleagues. On the 10th anniversary of his parents’ death, Tian Ling’er takes Zhang Xiaofan down the mountain to his home village, Caomiao, where he relives the event. Despite this, Zhang Xiaofan is not considered one of the sect’s official disciples, of whom there are six instead, his duties involve cleaning and cooking. The sect is run by Tian Buyi (Qiu Xinzhi) and his wife Su Ru, whose daughter Tian Ling’er (Tang Yixin) has helped to train Zhang Xiaofan in the martial arts and for whom he’s developed a secret liking she’s unaware of. Orphaned as a child when his village was massacred by the Ghost King, Zhang Xiaofan (Xiao Zhan) has been raised by the Qingyun sect on Dazhu peak for the past decade. Costume martial-arts fantasy has an agreeably light tone and strong characters before the VFX take over.Īncient China. ![]()
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