Starring
Liu Yifei, Yang Yang, Luo Jin, Yan Yikuan, Li Chun, Gu Kuan, Peng
Zisu. Directed by Zheo Xiaoding & Anthony LaMolinara. (2017/109
min).
AVAILABLE
ON BLU-RAY FROM
Review
by Tiger Longtailđź
Every
now and then, my wife and I get the urge to introduce a bit of
culture into our dreary lives. So when the Portland Art Museum
announced an exhibit featuring the works of Claude Monet, Francie
suggested we take the kids downtown one weekend to indulge in a bit
of art appreciation. I had no problem with it since this particular
weekend was the museum's monthly free admission day. Art is
always easier to appreciate when it doesn't cost anything but gas.
For
you uncouth swine who don't share my pretension for enjoying fine
art, Claude Monet was a French impressionist who's probably
most renowned for painting pictures of flowers, ponds and
waterlilies, occasionally punctuated by people picnicking around
flowers and ponds with waterlilies. Most of Monet's work is light,
colorful and certainly pretty to look at. But like AC/DC,
most of Monet's paintings are pretty much variations of the same
thing. Walking the museum halls with my wife and kids, getting our money's worth (hey, gas ain't cheap!) by stopping to gaze at every
single painting, I was thoroughly bored after about 15 minutes.
 |
| Claude Monet...the Impressionist Movement's AC/DC. |
Watching
China's fantasy epic, Once Upon a Time, is kind-of like
slogging through that Monet exhibit. It's colorful, absolutely
gorgeous and features some otherworldly imagery that -
while obviously CGI - practically jumps off the screen. And for the first 10
minutes or so, the film is visually enthralling, even though we're
never once convinced these actors are sharing the same space as
their surroundings.
Unfortunately,
it's all to serve a relentlessly talky, convoluted story that feels
like we're joining it halfway through. In a nutshell, Once Upon a
Time is sort of a fairy tale, mostly about a September courtship
between two shape-shifting immortals, Bai Qian and Ye Hua, who also
happen to be royalty and have been betrothed to each other (even
though he's 50,000 years younger). There are also a slew of
flashbacks of Ye Hua's previous marriage (to a mortal who saved his
life), as well as a vengeful sorceress, a jealous princess and a guy
in frozen stasis named Mo Yuan, all stirred into a plot that, despite
ample exposition by various bland characters, is murky and
uninvolving. What we have left are the visuals and sporadic bursts of
action, which of course includes gravity-defying swordplay and
movement so CGI-heavy that it all ceases to be logistically
convincing.
 |
| Ye Hua visits Supercuts. |
Worse
yet, now imagine Monet taking one of his most famous paintings, like
In the Garden, and handing
it over to French comic artist Peyo, who adds Papa Smurf to the
picture. Once Upon a Time does something similar, giving Bai
Qian a comic relief sidekick who resembles a walking cabbage
and looks like he was designed by someone from a completely different
animation studio.
Despite
being technically ambitious, I'm not sure what audience Once Upon
a Time is aiming for. The narrative is too confusing for kids,
the action too generic for thrill-seekers and the characters too
bland to create any dramatic interest. What we're left with is
similar to a gallery of Monet paintings: It is unarguably beautiful, but scene after scene of dazzling imagery, no
matter how creatively rendered, becomes monotonous after awhile.
EXTRA
KIBBLES
None
KITTY CONSENSUS:
MEH...PRETTY IS NOT ENOUGH
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