China Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘Octopus With Broken Arms,’ starring Xiao Yang, Tong Liya, Duan Yihong and Cya Liu

January 18, 2025

by Carla Hay

Xiao Yang in “Octopus With Broken Arms” (Photo courtesy of CMC Pictures)

Directed by Jacky Gan

Mandarin with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in China, the action film “Octopus With Broken Arms” features an all-Asian cast of characters (with some white people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A billionaire widowed businessman fights mysterious enemies after his 8-year-old daughter is kidnapped.

Culture Audience: “Octopus With Broken Arms” will appeal mainly to people who don’t mind watching action crime thrillers that are convoluted, just for the sake of having “shocking” twists.

A scene from “Octopus With Broken Arms” (Photo courtesy of CMC Pictures)

“Octopus With Broken Arms” has plenty of suspenseful action, but it has too many far-fetched plot twists. The melodramatic overacting looks too fake and does a disservice to the film’s serious subject of children who are kidnapped and enslaved. “Octopus With Broken Arms” takes this subject and puts in a very manipulative story that constantly insults viewers’ intelligence

Directed by Jacky Gan and written by Li Peng, “Octopus With Broken Arms” (formerly titled “Sheep Without a Shepherd 3”) takes place in unnamed cities in China. The movie begins by showing billionaire widower Zheng Bingrui (played by Xiao Yang) proudly watching his 8-year-old daughter Tingting (played by Chloe Ye) performing on stage for a school play. Tingting’s teacher Li Huiping (played by Tong Liya) seems to have a good relationship with her, which is why Bingrui invites Huiping to Tingting’s upcoming birthday party.

Bingrui is the chairman of Ruiting Group, a company that he owns. It’s briefly mentioned in a news report that Ruiting Group makes facial masks. Because of his wealth, Bingrui is famous throughout China. The movie is named “Octopus With Broken Arms” because Tingting, Bingrui and Huiping having matching octopus stamps on their hands.

At the birthday party, things seem to be going well until Tingting disappears. Not long after the disappearance, Bingrui gets a call demanding a $100 million ransom (which is about ¥732,500 RMB) for the return of Tingting. Bingrui is willing to pay the money, but he understandably wants law enforcement to catch the kidnapper or kidnappers.

Bingrui immediately names two possible suspects: Shi Fu’an (played by Feng Bing) is someone who is Bingrui’s enemy, for reasons that are revealed later in the movie. The other suspect is a mute gardener named Lu (played by Bokeh Kosang), who was seen on a surveillance video appearing to driving Tingting to Fu’an’s home. Lu goes through an intense and brutal interrogation by police.

However, early on in the movie, it’s shown that someone else has been making the ransom calls, using a device that disguises the caller’s voice. This person wears a hooded jacket and is in a room that has several video monitors that can watch every move made by Bingrui, even when Bingrui and Huiping zip around on a boat in a lake to deliver the ransom money. This “everywhere all at once” video surveillance is when the movie starts to fall apart and spirals into nonsense.

Meanwhile, another child named Daymond Pankong (played by Chayanon Akradamrongdet) is kidnapped and used as bait for Bingrui to find Tingting. Pangkong is named after his father (played by Jack Kao), who is the director of China’s National Security Agencyu. There’s also a woman named Yayin (played by Cya Liu), who has a big role in the story because of something that happened in her past.

The police leader in the child kidnapping investigation is police captain Zhang Jingxian (played by Duan Yihong), who is somewhat helpful, but “Octopus With Broken Arms” is really about making Bingrui the vigilante action hero of the story. Liang Su’e (played by Sandrine Pinna) is a police officer who assists in the case. The violence in “Octopus With Broken Arms” can be quite gruesome, such as a scene depicting a child’s finger being cut off by a kidnapper. There are also shootouts, chase scenes, fist fights, explosions and other action movie clichés.

A tragedy that happened in 2017 is the catalyst for some of the characters’ motives. As explained in the movie, in June 2017, a ship was headed to the border of China, when a gas leak caused the ship to explode. All 619 people on board were killed, including 23 children. The people on the ship were refugees trying to cross the border illegally.

The relationship between Bingrui and Huiping is never adequately explained. Why is this schoolteacher running around with Bingrui and getting herself into dangerous situations like a superhero sidekick? It’s because she’s in a preposterous movie.

Unfortunately, “Octopus With Broken Arms” tries to cram in too many ideas without much cohesive thought. The movie jumps from one plot twist to the next—and almost none of them are believable. The choppy editing often makes “Octopus With Broken Arms” look incoherent. And by the time secrets are revealed (along with the movie’s many plot holes), none of it makes enough sense for the movie’s ending to have its intended impact.

CMC Pictures released “Octopus With Broken Arms” in select U.S. cinemas on January 10, 2025. The movie was released in China on December 28, 2024.

Review: ‘Honey Money Phony,’ starring Gia Jin, Sunny Sun, Li Xueqin, Wang Hao, David Wang, Ada Liu and Song Muzi

January 6, 2025

by Carla Hay

“Honey Money Phony”

Directed by Da Peng

Mandarin with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional city of Aoo Kang, China, the comedy film “Honey Money Phony” features a predominantly Asian cast of characters (with some black people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: An employee from an insurance company teams up with con artists to get back the money that her ex-boyfriend stole from her.

Culture Audience: “Honey Money Phony” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and comedies that are intentionally silly but might annoy some viewers expecting a more entertaining movie.

Pictured clockwise from left: Sunny Sun, Li Xueqin, David Wang and Gia Jin in “Honey Money Phony” (Photo courtesy of CMC Pictures)

“Honey Money Phony” is a lightweight comedy that falls short of its potential. The story (about people trying to retrieve stolen money from a con artist) gets convoluted and dull very quickly. The performances are adequate while the plot spirals into folly. The movie is intentionally absurdist, but the movie has an uneven tone of being overly sappy while attempting to be edgy. It’s a combination that just doesn’t work for this film.

Directed by Da Peng and written by Su Biao, “Honey Money Phony” (which takes place in the fictional city of Aoo Kang, China) has a simple concept that becomes stretched out and muddled by a series of sloppily staged shenanigans. The main characters are introduced in a somewhat jumbled way. Other characters with smaller roles come in and out of the story and end up being quite useless to the plot. “Honey Money Phony” isn’t exactly fun to watch, unless you think it’s fun to watch characters repeatedly make fools out of themselves in their bungled attempts to do whatever they’re doing in incoherent scenes.

The protagonist of “Honey Money Phony” is Lin Quinlang (played by Gia Jin), a 29-year-old woman who works as an insurance company employee. Quinlang is in debt for about ¥200,000 (which is a little more than $27,000 in U.S. dollars in the mid-2020s) because an ex-boyfriend named Zhang Zi Jun (played by Wang Hao) scammed her out of this money. A flashback shows that Jun lied to her and told her that he lost all of his college tuition money. Quinlang took out a ¥200,000 loan and gave the money to Jun, who then promptly broke up with her and disappeared from her life.

An early montage in the film shows that in addition to her main job at the insurance company, Quinlang has “side hustle” gigs as a waitress, flyer distributor, dog walker and being a social media personality called the Frugal Fairy, who gives advice on how to save money. In voiceover narration, Quinlang says that she doesn’t make enough money from her Frugal Fairy videos to cover the fees charged for her to be a member of the social media platform where she posts the videos.

Quinlang’s closest friend is Dong Xiaohui (played by Li Xueqin), a former co-worker at the insurance company. The movie has a rushed explanation that in the recent past, Xiaohui got caught embezzling money from the insurance company and was fired. Xiaohui now has to pay back the money that she owes from the embezzlement.

And the way that Xiaohui is getting money is by continuing to commit fraud. Her scam is pretending to be a blind woman, walking out on a street in front of car, and falling down, in order to fool the driver into thinking that the car hit her. Xiaohui even carries fake blood with her to quickly put on herself before the driver gets out of the car to see if she is hurt. As part of the scam, Xiaohui persuades the driver (who is usually shocked and nervous) to give her money to get “medical treatment” and so she won’t report this “accident.”

“Honey Money Phony” has a very off-putting way in how it makes Xiaohui’s scamming look acceptable, like it’s all one big joke. There’s no good reason for why the movie has this attitude that Xiaohui can be excused for her scamming, but anyone who scams Quinlang is “wrong” and should be punished. It’s all very hypocritical and stupid.

One day, Quinlang becomes the victim of another scam in a poorly staged scenario that looks very unrealistic in the movie. Quinlang gets a phone call from a man claiming to work for the company where she posts her social media videos. The caller tells Quinlang that her social media account is suspended because she put her personal banking information online so viewers could make direct deposits to her account.

When Quinlang says that this is a common practice for social media influencers, the caller says it’s still against the company policy. The caller than says that Quinlang can fix the problem by paying a fine and her social media account will be reactivated. The man gives her an account number where she can transfer the money to pay the fine. Quinlang doesn’t actually check to see if her account is suspended. She just takes this stranger’s word for it. How idiotic is that?

Quinlang transfers the money and immediately regrets it. She rushes over to a bank, where a friend works, and asks the friend to look up the name of the person who owns the account while Quinlang still has the caller on the phone. The friend tells her the account is owned by someone named Ouyang Hui (played by Sunny Sun), who is surprised that Quinlang found out his identity so quickly. An angry Quinlang threatens to expose him.

But in this ridiculous movie, Quinlang ends up telling Hui about how she was scammed out of ¥200,000 by her ex-boyfriend Jun. Hui makes a deal with Quinlang that he will return her money for the “suspension fine” fraud, and he will help her get her money back from Jun if she doesn’t report Hui to the authorities. It should come as no surprise that Quinlang and Hui become romantically attracted to each other, although the cast members playing these characters don’t have believable romantic chemistry with each other.

Two other people eventually join this plot to get the money back from Jun: Quinlang’s friend Xiaohui; Hui’s uncle Bai Shitong (played by David Wang), who is Hui’s con-artist “mentor”; and Hai Ou (played by Ada Liu), another victim conned by Jun. Because Jun is a ladies’ man who seduces women out of their money, you can easily guess what kind of setup will happen, since Jun has never met Xiaohui before. Someone named Frank (played by Song Muzi) is also part of the story.

“Honey Money Phony” gets distracted with some nonsensical sublots that are supposed to be hilarious but quickly grow tiresome. There’s a running joke that Quinlang and Hui keep encountering a weird photographer (played by Yi Yunhe), who has salivary glands that are so over-active, he drenches people in saliva whenever he talks to them. By the end of a conversation with him, people literally look like they’ve been dunked in a swimming pool.

This over-exaggerated sight gag would be funnier if “Honey Money Phony” went full-tilt into slapstick comedy. But the movie keeps going back into sob story territory when it tells more information about Quinlang and Hui. Quinlang says she moved to Aoo Kang to start fresh after being fired from her previous job for reporting the boss who sexually harassed her. A flashback shows that when she met Jun at a tennis court, he offered to help her with legal problems that she had because she broke a non-compete clause in the contract she had with a previous job.

Hui also has a backstory that is supposed to make him look more sympathetic. It has to do with Hui being an illegitimate child whose father (played by Xiao Ai, in a brief flashback) abandoned Hui when Hui was a child. Shitong is supposed to be Hui’s uncle, but the movie has a repetitive off-kilter joke that Quinlang somehow thinks that Hui and Shitong are lovers. “Honey Money Phony” is mostly goofy, but throwing in incest jokes just seems jarringly out-of-place. It’s an example of how the movie can’t decide if it wants to be edgy or tender.

The cast members seem to be doing the best that they can with a screenplay and direction that aren’t very good. It might be hard for some viewers to relate to Quinlang because she’s so gullible when it comes to being scammed out of her money—even though insurance company workers are trained on how to spot scams, and Quinlang gives financial advice as a social media “influencer.” One of the better performances in the cast comes from Li, who has skilled comedic timing in her role as Xiaohui, although this character is fairly unlikable in how she’s a con artist too.

“Honey Money Phony” overstays its welcome with two separate epilogues. In one of these epilogues, Richie Ren has a cameo as himself in a concert scene that looks very hokey. By the time the second epilogue rolls around, most viewers will just want the film to end once and for all. And unfortunately, “Honey Money Phony” is the type of disappointing movie that is easily forgotten not long after seeing it.

CMC Pictures released “Honey Money Phony” in select U.S. cinemas on January 3, 2025. The movie was released in China on December 31, 2024.

Review: ‘Her Story’ (2024), starring Song Jia, Zhong Chuxi, Zhang Yu, Mark Chao, Ren Bin and Isabella Zeng

November 29, 2024

by Carla Hay

Isabella Zeng, Song Jia and Zhong Chuxi in “Her Story” (Photo courtesy of Tiger Pictures Entertainment)

“Her Story” (2024)

Directed by Shao Yihui

Mandarin with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in China, the comedy/drama film “Her Story” features an all-Asian cast of characters (with one white person) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A divorced mother and her bachelorette neighbor become friends and experience various conflicts in their personal lives.

Culture Audience: “Her Story” will appeal mainly to people who are stars of the movie’s headliners and are interested in watching a comedy/drama about friendships and romance from a female perspective.

Zhang Yu and Mark Chao in “Her Story” (Photo courtesy of Tiger Pictures Entertainment)

“Her Story” skillfully balances comedy and drama in this entertaining story about how a divorced mother and her bachelorette friend navigate various relationships. It’s a movie about female empowerment that isn’t preachy or sappy. The movie pokes fun at male narcissism, but “Her Story” isn’t one of those annoying man-hating movies that try to make all men look bad in the name of feminism.

Written and directed by Shao Yihui, “Her Story” takes place in an unnamed city in China. The story begins by showing divorced mother Wang Tiemei (played by Song Jia) moving to a new apartment with her 9-year-old daughter Wang Moli (played by Isabella Zeng), who is an inquisitive and polite child. Moli’s interests are music (she’s is a big fan of Taylor Swift) and creative writing. Tiemei is very outspoken and an independent thinker. She’s teaching her daughter Moli to be a confident feminist.

Tiemei, who is in her 40s, is a journalist who is financially struggling and has recently lost her job. In the past, around the same time that Moli was a baby, Tiemei took a break from journalism because she became disillusioned from feeling that her work was not making enough impact in an oppressive system. However, Tiemei is about to start a new job as editor-in-chief of an online publication that is also financially struggling. The website does a mixture of tabloid stories, news coverage and lifestyle interest features.

Xiaoye, nicknamed Ye (played by Zhong Chuxi), is a bachelorette in her 30s who lives in apartment unit across from where Tiemei and Moli live. Ye is the lead singer and guitarist of a rock band called Unconditional Surrender, which plays moody “alternative” music. Although she’s an entertainer and has an extroverted side, Ye is somewhat passive and reluctant to express her true self, out of fear that it will alienate people, so she has a tendency to lie about who she is and her true feelings.

The opposite personalities of Tiemei and Ye are on display in the scene where they first meet. It’s nighttime, and Tiemei is riding a two-wheel scooter when she notices that a creepy man is following a timid-looking Ye in an alley. Ye knows that a man is following her but doesn’t say anything to him because she’s fearful of getting into a confrontation with him. Tiemei, who doesn’t have that fear, scares off the man and advises Ye to be more assertive and aware of her surroundings when she’s walking by herself.

Tiemei and Ye eventually become friends. Ye sometimes babysits Moli. Eventually, Tiemei and Moli go see Ye perform with Unconditional Surrender at a nightclub. Tiemei is inspired by the performance and encourages Moli to learn how to play a musical instrument. Tiemei advises Moli to learn how to play the drums because it’s an instrument that most people don’t expect girls to play.

Tiemei’s ex-husband (played by Mark Chao), who doesn’t have a name in the movie, is a self-centered jerk and is still in contact wth Tiemei because he has visitation rights for Moli. An early scene in the movie shows the ex-husband announcing that he’s gotten a vasectomy so Tiemei doesn’t have to worry about getting pregnant. Even though he and Tiemei are divorced, his ego is so huge, he thinks that she still lusts after him. He also mistakenly thinks Tiemei doesn’t want to date anyone else because he likes to think that her divorce has “spoiled” her interest in finding love again.

Meanwhile, Ye has begun dating a divorced bachelor named Xiao Hu (played by Ren Bin), who is commitment-phobic and doesn’t want their relationship to be more than a “friends with benefits” situation. As an example of how Ye has a tendency to lie, the movie has a running joke about a lie that Ye told to get past the strict security guard (played by Zhou Yemang) in Hu’s upscale apartment building. When she goes to the apartment to meet Hu for their first date, the security guard tells her that only approved guests and family members are allowed entry. Ye lies and says that she is Hu’s stepmother, which is a charade that Ye keeps up every time she sees the security guard.

Ye quickly falls in love with Hu and wants more of a commitment from Hu. But because Ye is the type of person who’s afraid to come right out and say what she wants, she lies to Hu by saying that she doesn’t want a commitment either because she’s married with a daughter. Ye’s lies get more complicated when she pretends that Moli is her daughter and Tiemei is Ye’s lover. It’s a convoluted ploy to try to make Hu jealous.

It’s around this same time that Ye introduces Tiemei to Unconditional Surrender’s drummer: Ma (played by Zhang Yu), a mild-mannered man who has a day job teaching music lessons to children. Tiemei hires Ma to give private drum lessons to Moli. Ma develops a growing attraction to Tiemei, who is unsure if she wants to date this younger man.

“Her Story” has many amusing situations and conversations that show how men and women are adjusting to dating and romance in the #MeToo era. Hu would like to believe he’s enlightened and open-minded when he thinks he has to “share” Ye with Tiemei, but egos and jealousy inevitably get in the way. Ma doesn’t want to be too aggressive in pursuing Tiemei. By contrast, Tiemei. ex-husband has no qualms about expressing his macho attitude toward Tiemei and Ma, when the ex-husband finds out that Ma is interested in dating Tiemei.

For a long stretch of “Her Story,” the movie seems to be about these romantic entanglements and how they affect the friendship of Tiemei and Ye. But there’s also a parallel story about Moli learning how to play the drums and how it affects Moli’s identity. The last 15 minutes of the film could have gone a certain predictable way, but it admirably does not end up using a safe formula and actually ends in a very realistic way.

All of the cast members do well in their roles, with great comedic timing for the scenes that are supposed to be funny. Song and Zhong are a fantastic duo in showing how the friendship of Tiemei and Ye evolves, as it goes through ups and downs. There are a few stereotypical romantic comedy moments in “Her Story,” but it’s an overall well-written and solidly directed move.

“Her Story” isn’t just a movie about dating and romance. It’s also a tender story about the care and responsibilities involved in raising, guiding and influencing a child. Too often, movies with these types of plots will treat children like pawns or cute pets. However, “Her Story” treats Moli as a person who deserves to be respected as an individual and not just an extension of a parent. It’s a notable aspect of “Her Story” that makes it better than the average movie where single parenting and dating are big themes in the story.

Tiger Pictures Entertainment released “Her Story” in select U.S. cinemas on November 28, 2024. The movie was released in China on November 13, 2024, with an expansion to more Chinese cinemas on November 22, 2024.

Review: ‘The Unseen Sister,’ starring Zhao Liying, Xin Zhilei and Huang Jue

November 13, 2024

by Carla Hay

“The Unseen Sister”

Directed by Midi Z

Mandarin with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in China and in Myanmar, the dramatic film “The Unseen Sister” features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: The life of a famous actress becomes disrupted when her estranged older sister comes to visit her.

Culture Audience: “The Unseen Sister” will appeal primarily to people fans of filmmaker Midi Z, the movie’s headliners, and dramas about family secrets.

Huang Jue in “The Unseen Sister” (Photo courtesy of CMC Pictures)

“The Unseen Sister” is a slow-burn psychological drama about a famous actress whose past comes back to haunt her with the arrival of her estranged sister. The movie somewhat stumbles in the last 20 minutes, but the story is intriguing. The movie’s assets outweigh its flaws.

Directed by Midi Z (who co-wrote “The Unseen Sister” screenplay with Yue Xu), “The Unseen Sister” takes place in China and in Myanmar. Qiao Yan (played by Zhao Liying) is a rich and famous actress who is based in Beijing. She is mostly known for her work in television and movies. She is also under pressure to renew a contract that she doesn’t really want to sign.

Yan, whose parents are deceased, is a loner who lives a mostly isolated celebrity life. Yan has a clingy manager named Shen Hao Ming (played by Huang Jue), who is her constant companion. One day, Yan’s older sister (played by Xin Zhilei), who lives in Myanmar, contacts Yan after Yan hasn’t seen or heard from her sister in about 17 years.

Yan’s older sister soon arrives in Beijing. The two sisters have a tense reunion because of something that the sisters know about their past that could cause a scandal. Yan’s sister, who is seven months pregnant, has a reason for this sudden reappearance. Her husband Liang (played by Dong Baoshi), a jade mine businessman, is heavily in gambling debt and is being threatened by gangsters.

What follows is an escalating drama that involves blackmail, kidnapping and family secrets. Yan also experiences sexual harassment from a producer named Mr. Yu (played by Zhang Fan), who has a lot of influence over her career. “The Unseen Sister” has a few twists and turns but it’s not a completely surprising movie. It’s a solid thriller with serviceable acting in a story that’s enough to keep most viewers curious about how the story will end.

CMC Pictures released “The Unseen Sister” in select U.S. cinemas on November 8, 2024. The movie was released in China on October 26, 2024.

Review: ‘A Place Called Silence’ (2024), starring Eric Wang, Janine Chang, Francis Ng and Wang Shengdi

August 12, 2024

by Carla Hay

Wang Shengdi in “A Place Called Silence” (Photo courtesy of Niu Vision Media)

“A Place Called Silence” (2024)

Directed by Sam Quah

Mandarin with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in 2006 (with some flashbacks to 2005), the dramatic film “A Place Called Silence” (a remake of the 2022 movie of the same name) features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A serial killer goes after people who are connected in some way to a mute girl in high school.

Culture Audience: “A Place Called Silence” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and the original version of the movie, but this remake is full of plot holes and unrealistic scenarios with substandard performances.

Janine Chang in “A Place Called Silence” (Photo courtesy of Niu Vision Media)

“A Place Called Silence” is a very unnecessary remake of the 2022 thriller of the same name. In this story about a serial killer whose targets include teenage bullies, the 2024 sloppily edited version of the movie has ridiculous plot twists with exaggerated acting. In fact, the last 30 minutes of the two-hour “A Place Called Silence” could be considered an unintentional comedy because of how the movie expects viewers to believe all the idiotic things that are on display, like a parody of a bad movie.

Sam Quah wrote and directed both versions of “A Place Called Silence.” The 2022 version takes place in Malaysia. The 2024 version takes place in China. The timeline for the 2024 version of “A Place Called Silence” is set mostly in 2006 in an unnamed Chinese city, but there are some flashbacks to 2005.

Near the beginning of 2024’s “A Place Called Silence,” it’s mentioned that the city was devastated by a tsunami that took place in 2005. Much of the movie’s plot is centered on Jing Hwa High School, a school for girls. The beginning of the movie shows the school having a memorial assembly to pay tribute to the school’s students and employees who died in the tsunami.

It isn’t long before it’s shown that the school has a clique of about six to eight “mean girl” bullies. These bullies have taken a mute student named Chen Yutong, nicknamed Tong (played by Wang Shengdi), to an empty classroom, where they have hung her up on a wall and are smearing gel glue all over her face and body. The leader of these hateful girls is Zhong Xiaoqing (played by Gu Mingyi), who seems to be the one to come up with the plans to inflict terror on the bullies’ victims.

A Jing Hwa High School teacher named Mrs. Zhang (played by Cheng Mo), who is unaware of this particular physical assault, is very concerned about Tong’s safety because she knows that Tong has gotten verbal bullying by this “mean girl” clique. Mrs. Zhang tells the school’s principal Au Ziumin (played by Liu Xiaohai), who doesn’t seem to want to get involved. He thinks that any bullying that’s going on is harmless teasing that isn’t serious enough to punish the bullies.

Tong manages to escape from the bullies who attacked her. However, three of the girls (including Xiaoqing) involved in this attack go missing. The movie shows that the serial killer, who wears a hooded raincoat, has been killing these “mean girls,” one by one, usually by bludgeoning them to death with a sledgehammer. The killer’s identity is revealed in the last third of the movie, but that revelation still has some twists.

Tong is an only child who lives with her widowed mother Li Han (played by Janine Chang) in a shabby apartment building. Han is very protective of Tong, but Han has some secrets that some people might or might not know. One of the reasons why Tong is taunted at school is because Han used to be an accountant, but Han now works as a janitor at the school. It’s explained in the movie why this family has had a change in financial fortunes.

Some other characters play pivotal roles in the movie’s plot, which gets annoyingly convoluted as it lurches along to a messy ending. Dai Guodong (played by Francis Ng) is the police detective in charge of the murder investigation. Lin Zaifu (played by Eric Wang) is an introverted former school employee whose teenage daughter Lin Huijun (played by Xu Jiao, seen in flashback scenes) died in 2005. Mrs. Xu (played by Cai Ming) is the shrill and meddling landlord for Huijun.

“A Place Called Silence” could have been a much better movie if it didn’t try to cram in so many “surprises” in the last 30 minutes of the film. The action scenes—particularly those involving a car chase and kidnapping—are poorly conceived and look very fake. Even worse is a suicide scene that looks extremely phony and exploitative.

There’s a mid-credits scene that’s supposed to add the “shocking” reveals in the plot, but it comes across as pretentious and contrived. “A Place Called Silence” tries to have artsy cinematography, but a stylish-looking movie is just superficial if the story is garbage, the film editing is incoherent, and the performances are not impressive. The 2024 version of “A Place Called Silence” is yet another remake that didn’t make improvements from the original film and instead made things worse.

Niu Vision Media released “A Place Called Silence” in select U.S. cinemas on August 2, 2024. The movie was released in China on July 3, 2024.

Review: ‘Sight’ (2024), starring Terry Chen, Greg Kinnear, Danni Wang, Raymond Ma, Ben Wang, Jayden Zhang, Wai Ching Ho and Fionnula Flanagan

July 5, 2024

by Carla Hay

Terry Chen and Greg Kinnear in “Sight” (Photo courtesy of Angel Studios)

“Sight” (2024)

Directed by Andrew Hyatt

Some language in Mandarin with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in 2007, with flashbacks from the late 1960s to early 1980s, in the United States and in China, the dramatic biopic “Sight” (based on Ming Wang’s memoir “From Darkness to Sight”) features a predominantly Asian cast of characters (with some white people and African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Dr. Ming Wang, a Chinese immigrant who has set up his own eye specialty institute in Nashville, looks back on his youth, as he struggles with financial debts and his quest to restore the vision of a blind Indian girl.

Culture Audience: “Sight” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching inspiring true medical stories that have elements of faith-based teachings.

Ben Wang and Sara Ye in “Sight” (Photo courtesy of Angel Studios)

Instead of being a collection of medical success stories from eye surgeon Dr. Ming Wang, “Sight” is a sprawling, faith-based biopic of Wang. There are good performances, but about half of the movie consists of too many flashbacks to his youth. These flashbacks sometime throw the pacing off from a suspenseful part of the story that is introduced in the beginning of the film. The very beginning of the movie shows Dr. Wang taking on the challenging eyesight restoration case of a girl who was brought to him from India, after she was blinded by her stepmother.

Directed by Andrew Hyatt, “Sight” was co-written by Hyatt, John Duigan and Buzz McLaughlin. The movie is adapted from Wang’s 2016 memoir “From Darkness to Sight.” The movie’s “present day” scenes take place in 2007, while the flashback scenes range from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. It can certainly be argued that the movie’s story could have been told in chronological order as a more straightforward way of presenting this movie as a biopic. However, the storytelling structure is presented in a way to drag out the suspense of whether or not a particular surgery that Ming performed will be successful or not.

The movie begins in 2007, when Ming is introduced to a patient who will change his life. Ming, who is sensitive and compassionate, is the founder of the financially struggling Wang Vision Institute, which is based in Nashville. The Wang Vision Institute was founded in 2003. In 2007, the institute is $600,000 in debt. Ming (a Chinese immigrant) is also considered an “outsider” in this American community. (“Sight” was actually filmed in Canada.)

After founding the institute, Ming took on an American business partner/mentor named Dr. Misha Bartnovsky (played by Greg Kinnear), who’s not in the movie as much as some of the marketing materials suggest because so much of the movie consists of flashbacks to Ming as a young person. Misha also has a kind personality, but he tends to be more of a realist (or pessimist) than Ming. Sometimes, Ming and Misha clash with each other because they are both very opinionated and stubborn.

Ming and Misha have an assistant named Ruth Tarik (played Natasha Mumba), who doesn’t say much in the movie and is a generic supporting character. Also seen briefly in the movie is June Bartnovsky (played by Natalie Skye), who has been married to Misha for 20 years at the point in time. Misha and June treat Ming as if he’s part of their family.

The patient who will change Ming’s life is a 5-year-old blind girl named Kajal (played by Mia SwamiNathan), an orphan from Calcutta, India. Kajal was brought to Nashville by a Catholic nun named Sister Marie (played by Fionnula Flanagan), in the hope that the Wang Vision Institute can restore Kajal’s eyesight. Sister Marie is Kajal’s guardian and approves of any surgery that Ming thinks Kajal might need.

Sister Marie tells Kajal’s tragic story: Kajal was born with eyesight, but when she was younger, Kajal was blinded by a stepmother who poured sulfuric acid in each of Kajal’s eyes. What was the motive for this heinous crime? Kajal came from a family of poor beggars who believed they could get more money from begging if they had a blind child.

Dr. Wang is immediately drawn to Kajal, who is a sweet-natured and trusting child. He wants to do everything he can to help her and begins researching unconventional ways to restore her eyesight. Dr. Bartnovsky is more cautious and advises ambitious Dr. Wang not to get his hopes up too much.

As viewers of “Sight” wait to find out the outcome of Kajal’s case, the movie takes several detours into Dr. Wang’s personal life. In his present-day life, he is shown to be an overchieving workaholic who has never been married and has no children. His immediate family members, who are also Chinese immigrants, also live in the Nashville area.

Ming’s father Zhensheng (played by Raymond Ma) and mother Alian (played by Wai Ching Ho) are proud of his accomplishments. They don’t quite feel the same about Ming’s younger brother Yu (played by Garland Chang), who still lives with his parents and is frequently unemployed. The parents’ attitude toward Yu is one of disappointment, but they don’t openly berate or insult him. They just seem to tolerate him with parental love.

Yu is one of those people who likes to come up with “get rich quck schemes” that are terrible ideas that go nowhere. In one scene, Yu says he has an idea to create a computer desktop icon that is labeled as a recycle bin instead of a trash can. Apparently, Yu is unaware that companies that make computers have already been labeling their trash can desktop icon with “recycle bin” label for decades.

Even though Ming is a bachelor who puts his work before his love life, he gets an obvious love interest in the story. One evening, he is having dinner at a restaurant bar by himself when he gives some medical assistance to a male customer who unknowingly eats too much wasabi and starts choking. The bartender on duty is a witty woman named Anle (played by Danni Wang), who notices how Ming came to the rescue and strikes up a flirty conversation with him. Ming isn’t really interested in dating anyone, but you know where this is all going, of course.

Meanwhile, after Ming meets Kajal, he tells his father that Kajal reminds him of Lili, who was Ming’s closest childhood friend when they lived in China. In the movie, Kiana Luo has the role of Lili at 8 years old, and Sara Ye portrays Lili at 14 years old. Ming then starts to have nightmares where a teenage Lili appears to him and asks Ming, “What happens when we die?”

Flashbacks show that Lili (who was the same age as Ming) and her widower father Gao (played by Peter Chan) were neighbors of Ming and his family in Hangzhou, China. In 1968, Ming was 8 years old, and his family was experiencing financial problems and could barely afford to buy food. Ming’s father Zhensheng (played by Donald Heng) was unemployed and desperate to find work. Adding to the financial stress, Ming’s mother Alian (played by Leanne Wang) found out that she was pregnant. The child born from this pregnancy would be Ming’s younger brother Yu.

In 1969, Gao experienced a medical emergency when his eyes were damaged from chemicals. As a result, Gao became blind. This incident became young Ming’s earliest motivation to become an eye doctor. It also led Ming to feel even more protective of Lili, who now had to care for her blind father.

The flashbacks in “Sight” also show that Ming ddn’t just have financial hardships in his youth. He also experienced the trauma of violence during China’s Cultural Revolution, which lasted from 1966 to 1976. This sociopolitical movement demanded that citizens be alleigient to Chinese communism at all costs.

As seen in the movie, children were often forced out of school to become oppressors in the movement. People were also kidnapped and killed. Ben Wang has the role of Ming at ages 14, 16 and 21.

The movie shows how Ming was a student at the University of Science and Technology in China, where he became a top student with an interest in laser physics. It’s a foreshadowing of the breakthrough medical procedure that Ming would later be credited with pioneering. The last flashbacks scenes in “Sight” take place in the early 1980s, when Ming continued his education in the United States, where he graduated from the Massachusetts Institution of Technology. The movie doesn’t cover his time at Harvard Medical School.

Because “Sight” shows early on that Ming is a medical doctor, the university scenes are bit too extensive, when the movie leaves it hanging for too long about what’s going to happen to eye patient Kajal. Chen and Ben Wang give very good performances as Ming in a movie that shows why the adult Ming is so stoic and afraid to express vulnerable emotions. The other performances in the movie are competent but not outstanding.

“Sight” might have a slightly jumbled story structure but the movie isn’t completely predictable. The outcome of Kajal’s medical case is very rushed toward the end of the film. Because “Sight” spends so much time on flashbacks, the movie could have benefited from showing Ming interact more with his present-day patients. Even with the movie’s flaws, “Sight” is a solid option for people who want to see a biopic about a medical hero who is not a household name but who has changed countless numbers of people’s lives for the better.

Angel Studios released “Sight” in U.S. cinemas on May 24, 2024. The movie is available for streaming to Angel Guild members.

Review: ‘I Love You, to the Moon, and Back’ (2024), starring Zhang Zifeng and Hu Xianxu

May 29, 2024

by Carla Hay

“I Love You, to the Moon, and Back”

Directed by Li Weiran

Culture Representation: Taking place in China, in 1996, the dramatic film “I Love You, to the Moon, and Back” (based on the novel “Moonstruck”) features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: Two spouses in the early 20s navigate the challenges of having a long-distance marriage.

Culture Audience: “I Love You, to the Moon, and Back” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and uncomplicated romantic dramas.

Zhang Zifeng and Hu Xianxu in “I Love You, to the Moon, and Back” (Photo courtesy of Tiger Pictures Entertainment)

Just like the saying that inspired the title of this movie, “I Love You, to the Moon, and Back” is a little bit outdated and old-fashioned, but it’s got enough charm to keep most viewers interested. This sweet romantic drama about a couple in a long-distance marriage has good acting performances that carry the movie when it gets repetitive and a bit dull. It’s neither heavy nor lightweight. The supporting characters are underdeveloped.

“I Love You, to the Moon, and Back” was directed by Li Weiran, who co-wrote the movie’s screenplay with Chi Zijan. The movie is based on Chi’s “Moonstruck” novel. Nothing controversial, daring or surprising happens in “I Love You, to the Moon, and Back,” which takes place in China in 1996. It’s the type of movie that will make some viewers bored and is best appreciated in a setting where viewers won’t have distractions.

The central characters in “I Love You, to the Moon, and Back” are spouses Wang Rui (played by Hu Xianxu) and Xiushan (played by Zhang Zifeng), who are both in their early 20s. Both characters intermittently give voiceover narration in the movie. There are also some flashbacks, such as a scene that shows that Rui and Xiushan met when they both worked at the same construction site in a small town.

Rui and Xiushan have been married for about one year. Shortly after they got married, they both decided to move to bigger cities for better job opportunities. Rui chose to stay in the construction business and works for a company in Shenzhen. Xiushan works for a dumpling factory in Guangzhou, which is about 84 miles (or 135.6 kilometers) away from Shenzhen.

It’s explained early on in the movie that the couple made this compromise to have a long-distance marriage because they need to live wherever they could each find a job. Rui and Xiushan travel by train to meet up once a month at a place called the Happiness Inn. They have been trying to start a family.

Rui and Xiushan are both romantics who have different ways of expressing their love. Rui likes to bring flowers to Xiushan every time that they meet up. Xiushan likes to make their trysts at the Happiness Inn feel as much like being at home as possible, so she brings a bed blanket that reminds them of when they used to live together. Rui and Xiushan have a romantic ritual where they like to play harmonica for each other. This harmonica playing becomes a significant part of the story.

Most of “I Love You, to the Moon, and Back” is about the trips back and forth that Rui and Xiushan take to see each other. Some of the movie is about the people they meet on their train trips. A drunk passenger strikes up a conversation with Rui, who tells this stranger about his long-distance marriage. The passenger tells him that long-distance relationships rarely last and that Rui’s wife is probably cheating on him.

Rui gets even more insecure about the relationship when he surprises Xiushan for an unannounced visit. She isn’t at her home, which she shares with two co-workers. The younger co-worker jokes that Xiushan is probably out on a date. But Rui thinks she isn’t joking and gets worried about what Xiushan is doing when they are apart.

Zhang and Hu give solid performances as this likeable newlywed couple during the ups and downs of the marriage. The movie’s biggest deficiency is that it doesn’t show much about who else is in this couple’s lives, such as friends or family members. Still, if viewers are looking for a harmless and somewhat sentimental romantic story, “I Love You, to the Moon, and Back” is an adequate option.

Tiger Pictures Entertainment released “I Love You, to the Moon, and Back” in select U.S. cinemas on May 24, 2024. The movie was released in China on May 1, 2024.

Review: ‘The Last Frenzy,’ starring Jia Bing, Xiaoshenyang, Yu Yang, Dong ‘Gem’ Baoshi and Tan Zhuo

May 25, 2024

by Carla Hay

“The Last Frenzy”

Directed by Rina Wu

Mandarin with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in unnamed cities in China, the comedy/drama film “The Last Frenzy” features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A terminally ill man, who has been diagnosed with brain cancer and has been told he has only a few days to live, contacts his three best friends from his childhood so they can live out their wildest dreams.

Culture Audience: “The Last Frenzy” will appeal primarily to people are fans of the movie’s headliners and movies about friendships and fulfilling fantasies.

Xiaoshenyang, Jia Bing, Yu Yang and Dong “Gem” Baoshi in “The Last Frenzy” (Photo courtesy of Tiger Pictures Entertainment)

“The Last Frenzy” is a little too rushed and trite at the end of the movie. However, this comedy/drama succeeds overall at maintaining viewer interest in a story about a dying man having a twist-filled reunion with three friends from his childhood. It’s a movie that has a good balance of wacky amusement and heartfelt sentimentality.

Written and directed by Rina Wu, “The Last Frenzy” takes place in unnamed cities in China in the early 2020s, but has some flashbacks to the early 1990s. The movie’s central character is Jia Youwei (played by Jia Bing), a divorced bachelor in his mid-40s who lives alone in small condominium apartment. Youwei lives very frugally and is such a “tightwad,” he seeks out the lowest prices on the items that would just cost the equivalent of less than one yuan. Youwei also doesn’t own a car, because he doesn’t want to deal with any car expenses, so he gets around by riding a bicycle.

Youwei will soon have more important things to worry about than trying to live as frugally as possible. After a visit to a doctor (played by Zhou Dayong) to get a MRI scan, the doctor tells Youwei some very bad news: Youwei has a brain tumor and only has 10 days to live. A distraught Youwe goes to his favorite casual restaurant, which is owned and operated by a friendly elderly man named Uncle Niu (played by Li Qi), and tells Uncle Niu this devastating news.

Youwei asks Uncle Niu for advice because Uncle Niu is also a bachelor who lives alone. Uncle Niu tells Youwei that if Uncle Niu had to deal with the same diagnosis, he would spend his last days alive by partying as much as possible with his friends. It’s advice that Youwei takes immediately.

First, Youwei sells his apartment. He also withdraws all of his money that he had saved in a bank. He then takes all the cash (about ¥ 1 million, which is about $140,625 in U.S. dollars in early 2020s money) and puts it in a duffel bag.

Youwei then contacts the three best friends he had when they were in their mid-teens together in the same group home. He tells them about his terminal illness and the diagnosis that he only has less than two weeks to live. Youwei says he wants to spend all of his money partying with them and fulfiling all of their fantasies.

Flashbacks to the four friends’ teenage years show that they were a tight-knit group that vowed to always treat each other like brothers. They called themselves the Workshop Four and each had different roles in their friendship, based on their personalities. These roles linger even when they are reunited 30 years later in adulthood.

Youwei had the role of a protective “older brother,” especially to “younger brother” Xu Dali (played by Yu Yang), who is the shyest and most insecure one in the group. Dali, who is a bachelor with no kids, works as a security guard in a shopping mall, and he has fantasies of becoming a professional boxer. Dali feels self-conscious of this thin body and doesn’t want people to think he’s a wimp.

As a teenager, outspoken Sha Baihu (played by Xiaoshenyang) dreamed of being a martial arts hero. Baihu is now a married father of a teenager son and a teenage daughter and has a wife who is a workaholic. Baihu often feels like a stranger in his own home because his wife and children don’t really pay attention to him.

Don Jiafeng (played by Dong Baoshi, also known as rapper Gem) had dreams of becoming a race car driver. Now, he is married and has a strained relationship with his son, who’s about 10 or 11 years old. Jiafeng’s son admires a rapper named Danko (played Liu Jiayu) and says that he wishes Jiafeng could be more like Danko. Jiafeng wants to impress his son, so he secretly tries to learn how to write and perform rap music.

Younger actors portray the four pals in these flashbacks. Zhang Baiqiao (also known as Zhang Baigui) portrays young Jia Youwei. Wei Lei has the role of young Dong Jianfeng. Li Zongheng is young Sha Baihu.

A flashback shows that when these four pals were teenagers, Youwei was blamed for betraying the Workshop Four. It was a misunderstanding but one the main reasons why the four friends eventually drifted apart. Youwei still feels some guilt over this estrangement, but he’s determined to make up for lost time. His plan is to have all of his money spent before he dies.

The four friends go on a spending spree with Youwei’s money. Among the things they do with the money is rent a Rolls Royce for Jiafeng to drive; stay at luxury hotel; gamble with large sums of cash; buy huge quantities of high-priced, imported liquor; play video games; and shoot guns at a firing range. Their indulgences sometimes get very over-the-top, such as when they hire about 12 waiters to guzzle much of the alcohol that was bought.

A reunion movie like this usually has some type of romance with a “lost love.” In “The Last Frenzy,” the “love who got away” is Wang Xiaoqian (played by Tan Zuo), who was Youwei’s crush when he was in high school. After 30 years of not seeing each other, Youwei and Xiaoqian unexpectedly encounter each other when Youwei and his pals check into a hotel where Xiaoqian works as a maid.

It’s a somewhat awkward reunion because Xiaoqian did not have romantic feelings for Youwei in high school. And she’s still not really attracted to him, but he still has a little bit of a crush on her. Xiaoqian tells Youwei that she’s a widow. She was married to a man named Zhang Minju, who was a bully at their school when they were teenagers. Youwei expresses surprise and disappointment that Xiaoqian married a guy who was Youwei’s nemesis in school.

A lot of sappy movies would then have a storyline about Youwei being able to win over Xiaoqian in a romance. But “The Last Frenzy” isn’t completely formulaic in this way. Youwei tells Xiaoqian about his terminal ilness. Xiaoqian is up front in telling Youwei that she is not interested in dating him because she doesn’t see the point of getting involved with him if he’s not expected to live for much longer. It’s a brutally honest reaction but it’s also realistic.

Youwei finds out that Xiaoqian is beng harassed by a thug named Brother Kun because her dead husband owed Brother Kun some money, and Brother Kun expects Xiaoqian to pay this debt. Xiaoqian doesn’t have the money and refuses Youwei’s offer to give her the money. There’s some slapstick comedy involving Youwei and his friends dealing with Brother Kun and his goons.

After the four friends go on a spending spree and do some luxury traveling, they go back home, and Youwei has another doctor’s appointment. The movie’s story then shifts dramatically after this doctor’s appointment, as Youwei faces a new crisis. The rest of “The Last Frenzy” is about how Youwei handles this change of events.

“The Last Frenzy” can be a very zippy comedy, but it also has dramatic themes about regrets and friendships. Now in their 40s, the four pals have to come to terms that aspects of their lives are not what they thought they would turn out to be. All four pals feels lonely, neglected or misunderstood in some way in their personal lives. The movie has made all four pals think about the time they might have left to live and what they really want to make their priorities.

One of the main reasons why “The Last Frenzy” works so well is the cast members have believable chemistry with each other. Their comedic timing works for the zanier moments, while the more serious moments have the right amount of emotional authenticity. Some of the plot is stretched thin with repetitiveness. And even though the last third of “The Last Frenzy” looks like an “only in a movie” fantasy, the movie’s four friends will have earned enough goodwill, viewers will be rooting for them until the very end.

Tiger Pictures International released “The Last Frenzy” in U.S. cinemas on May 17, 2024. The movie was released in China on May 1, 2024.

Review: ‘Nothing Can’t Be Undone by a HotPot,’ starring Yu Qian, Ailei Yu, Yang Mi, Li Jiu Xiao and Tian Yu

May 11, 2023

by Carla Hay

“Nothing Can’t Be Undone by a HotPot”

Directed by Ding Sheng

Mandarin with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in China, the comedy film “Nothing Can’t Be Undone by a HotPot” features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Four mahjong players decide to rob a corrupt government official and find more trouble than they anticipated.

Culture Audience: “Nothing Can’t Be Undone by a HotPot” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and wacky crime capers full of plot holes and irritating characters.

Tian Yu in “Nothing Can’t Be Undone by a HotPot” (Photo courtesy of China Lion Film Distribution)

“Nothing Can’t Be Undone by a HotPot” actually becomes “undone” fairly early on in the movie when it becomes obvious that this is a story that is jumping from one messy plot hole to the next. This crime comedy about four mahjong players who get caught up in theft and kidnapping has too many gimmicky distractions. Manic editing, bizarre sound effects, and constant shouting from the movie’s characters add up to very little substance.

Directed by Ding Sheng, “Nothing Can’t Be Undone by a HotPot” was co-written by Ding, Hang Wang and Xiaonan Xiu. The movie takes place in an unnamed city in China at a small venue called the Nine Cakes Theater, which offers unusual entertainment: Customers can play mahjong while watching a stage play.

Jiu Bing (played by Yu Qian) is the elderly owner of the Nine Cakes Theater, where he lives with his wife, who does the cooking for the theater. Bing is a mahjong enthusiast. It’s one of the few bright spots in his life because his livelihood is in jeopardy: The neighborhood where the Nine Cakes Theater is located is about to be demolished for a new property development.

The government director in charge of this deal is Fu Yu (played by Tian Yu), who took bribes from business owners with the promise to stop this demolishment. However, It was all a lie from Director Fu. He kept all of the bribes, which were paid in cash. Bing lost about ¥200,000 (which is a little more than $28,000 in U.S. dollars in 2024) in this bribery scam.

Bing has connected with three other mahjong enthusiasts online. In one of the last nights that he expects the Nine Cakes Theater to be open, he has invited these three other mahjong enthusiasts to play mahjong with him in the theater’s back storage room. It will be the first time that all four of them will be meeting each other in person.

The four mahjong players don’t know each other’s real names. When they meet in person, they think up code names for each other. Bing gives himself the code name Nine Cakes. Fa Cai (played by Ailei Yu) is a gruff ex-convict in his 30s who gives himself the code name Fortune. Yao Ji (played by Yang Mi) is a seemingly mild-mannered and shy woman in her 20s who gives herself the code name Chicken. Qi Wan (played by Li Jiu Xiao) is a restless delivery guy in his 20s who gives himself the code name Seventy Thousand.

The four mahjong players start talking about their lives. Bing reveals how Director Fu stole his money and says he wants to get his money back. Bing has assumed that Director Fu hasn’t spent the money, in order to avoid suspicion, and probably has the money stashed somewhere near Director Fu.

It just so happens that Bing recently found out through a plumber friend who did some work in Director Fu’s home that Director Fu has a hidden compartment in his bathroom. Ex-convict Cai says he’s good at picking locks, so he says they should break into Director Fu’s home, find the cash, and steal it. Bing insists he only wants to get the ¥200,000 that was stolen from him, and if they find more cash, the other three players can do what they want with it.

Faster than you can say “ridiculous and sloppy segue,” somehow Cai, Ji and Wan are able to sneak into Drector Fu’s home, find the cash in the bathroom, and leave without getting caught. The movie never explains how they knew no one would be home. As already revealed in the movie’s trailer, this motley crew ends up finding a lot more than money in Director Fu’s hidden stash of cash in a suitcase.

They bring the suitcase full of cash back to the theater storage room. But there’s another suitcase from Director Fu’s home that ends up in the storage room and yields an even bigger surprise: the body of Director Fu. But (as already revealed in the trailer), he’s not dead but unconscious. The four mahjong players decide to hold him captive until they figure out what to do next, which involves a lot of yelling and arguing with manipulative Director Fu and each other.

As they are panicking and getting to fights in the storage room, a play is taking place on stage. A running joke in the movie is an actor from the play (who’s in elaborate costumes and masks) keeps interrupting the shenanigans that happen in this storage room. As the four mahjong players get deeper into some crime problems, they try to hide their misdeeds from the actor who keeps wanting to see what’s going on in the storage room.

“Nothing Can’t Be Undone by a HotPot” seems like a “make things up as you go along” movie. It actually doesn’t come as much of a surprise that all four of these strangers have a unique connection to Director Fu besides this robbery and kidnapping. The “reveals” are all very contrived and never convincing. The acting performances in this movie can best be described as “shrill” and “obnoxious”—as is the movie’s musical score that is more likely to cause annoyance than build suspense. The cadence of the movie is deliberately off-kilter in unappealing ways.

“Nothing Can’t Be Undone by a HotPot” gets its title because it’s something that Wan/Seventy Thousand says a few times in the movie. During this long-winded ordeal in the storage room, a hotpot of food (with lingering closeups of the food) is always cooking nearby. Even if you haven’t seen the trailer, you can easily predict what happens when a pot of hot food is in a room with quarreling people. “Nothing Can’t Be Undone by a HotPot” might have been better as a short film, but it still wouldn’t erase the movie’s problems of having a flimsy plot with hollow characters.

China Lion Film Distribution released “Nothing Can’t Be Undone by a HotPot” in select U.S. cinemas on May 10, 2024. The movie was released in China on May 1, 2024.

Review: ‘Dragonkeeper’ (2024), starring the voices of Bill Nighy, Mayalinee Griffiths, Anthony Howell, Bill Bailey, Andrew Leung, Tony Jayawadena and Sarah Lam

May 11, 2024

by Carla Hay

Ping (voiced by Mayalinee Griffiths) and Long Danzi (voiced by Bill Nighy) in “Dragonkeeper” (Image courtesy of Viva Pictures)

“Dragonkeeper” (2024)

Directed by Li Jianping and Salvador Simó

Culture Representation: Taking place during the Han Empire in ancient China, the animated film “Dragonkeeper” (based on Carole Wilkinson’s fantasy novel of the same name) features a cast of characters that are humans and dragons.

Culture Clash: An orphaned girl goes on a journey to save rare dragons from being killed into extinction.

Culture Audience: “Dragonkeeper” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the novel or don’t mind watching a substandard animated film with mostly terrible voice performances that sound almost robotic.

Ping (voiced by Mayalinee Griffiths) in “Dragonkeeper” (Image courtesy of Viva Pictures)

“Dragonkeeper” is a shoddy adaptation of Carole Wilkinson’s 2003 fantasy novel of the same name. This animated film makes the story unfocused and bland. Most of the voice cast performances are stiff, with no real personality. They’re just reading their lines.

Directed by Directed by Li Jianping and Salvador Simó, “Dragonkeeper” seems to suffer from the effects of “too many cooks in the kitchen” for its watered-down and sloppily constructed screenplay. Wilkinson co-wrote the screenplay with Pablo I. Castrillo, Ignacio Ferreras, Rosanna Cecchini and Wang Xianping. When there are five or more credited writers for a movie screenplay, the movie is usually terrible.

“Dragonkeeper” takes place during the Han Empire in ancient China, but you wouldn’t know it because the English-language version of this movie makes no attempt to give the characters Chinese accents. All of the voice actors in the film have British accents. “Dragonkeeper” also do much to show Chinese culture, except for a sequence where a dragon teaches a girl what qi, also known as ch’i (psychic energy), is all about and how to use it.

The movie begins by showing two people whose lives will collide in a “good versus evil” battle years later. The story’s heroine is Ping, who is shown being taken as an orphaned baby by a cruel land owner named Master Lan (voiced by Tony Jayawadena) to become an enslaved servant. The story’s chief villain is Diao (voiced by Anthony Howell), a dragon hunter who is determined to kill every last dragon on Earth, or at least every dragon he can find in China.

Master Lan and his entourage are traveling home with baby Ping, but the infant’s loud crying annoys him. The baby is also of no use to Master Lan until the child is old enough to work for him. When Master Lan arrives in his village, an elderly woman named Lao Ma (voiced by Sarah Lam), who lives alone, immediately takes an interest in Ping and decides to raise her as if Ping were her own child.

Meanwhile, Diao has an ailing mother, (voiced by Jaqueline Chan) who is on her deathbed. Diao had been frantically trying to find a cure for his mother’s terminal illness. He believe it’s possible that dragons could hold the secret to healthy immortality. Although Diao is a dragon hunter, he also wants to use and exploit dragons if they can actually have some way to make humans immortal. Diao’s mother dies before Diao can find this miracle cure to death and diseases.

The movie then fast-forwards to when Ping (voiced by Mayalinee Griffiths) is about 9 or 10 years old. Master Lan goes to the home where Lao Ma and Ping live and forces Ping to go with him as his enslaved servant. During her miserable time working for Master Lan, Ping discovers that Master Lan has two adult dragons imprisoned in a secret dungeon.

The two dragons are Long Danzi (voiced by Bill Nighy) and Lu Yu (voiced by Beth Chalmers), who are among the last remaining dragons of their kind. Ping secretly befriends Long Danzi and Lu Yu. Ping also has a companion rat named Hua, who does not speak in the movie.

Something happens to Lu Yu, and Long Danzi is soon supposed to be sold to the emperor (voiced by Paul McEwan), who wants to keep the dragon as a pet for his spoiled prince son (voiced by Felix Rosen). Before Long Danzi is taken to the emperor, the dragon shows Ping an egg made of pearl and says an unborn baby dragon named Kai is in the egg. Long Danzi asks Ping to take care of Kai and keep this unborn dragon safe until Kai can be born.

There’s a certain body of water that is the only place that can dissolve the egg. Guess where Ping’s intended destination will be when she goes on an inevitable journey? Long Danzi notices certain signs that Ping might be part of a lineage of special Dragon Keepers, so Long Danz breathes a laser-like beam onto her chest.

“Dragonkeeper” then zig zags in a jumbled way through the rest of the movie, which has action scenes that often look like cheap-looking and unfinished animation. Except for Nighy (who gives a serviceable but unremarkable performance), all of the voice actors have little to no charisma for their characters. The emotions that are supposed to express in certain scenes are very flat, while the dialogue is very forgettable and trite.

“Dragonkeeper” also has themes and scenes that might be too intense or scary for children under the age of 7. Does any kid that young really want to see a movie about child enslavement? The last scene of “Dragonkeeper” ends like an underwhelming thud, with no real closure about a certain main character in the story. If people want to see an entertaining animated movie about young girl who befriends and rescued an endangered dragon, skip “Dragonkeeper” and watch Disney’s Oscar-nominated “Raya and the Last Dragon” instead.

Viva Pictures released “Dragonkeeper” in select U.S. cinemas on May 3, 2024.