Reviews

Simple story, simple relatable characters, superb actor performance incarnate the polemic issue of religious rules blocking the possibility of spontaneous love, erotism and joy in general. Many movies talk about this, but the especial thing here is the realistic characters, the acting and the perfect selection of simple scenes that describe powerfully the vital points of the story.

Important movie because there are so little movies that tried to capture the essence of the world before the spaniards came, almost all the movies are about the clash and colonization of civilizations. Here we can have an approach of how it could be living in the world of myth, shamans, magic, struggle for power between gods, and how they gave their world a coherence based on these aspects. I have always imagined this kind of myth and magic worlds as a video game like Zelda, in which one has to complete missions, meet gods and avoid the world crumble and succumb. It is a famous myth of creation in Mayas and Aztecs how the gods have to complete many tasks to make the rain come or how corruption makes the gods angry and destroy the world. Its a shame so little movies like this exists, but well, the American indigenous genocida (human and cultural genocide) is very belittled and subtly justified by Christian eurocentrism. Not a perfect movie but with the small budget and information about the prehispanic world, it was a good movie.

Well, first of all, don't listen to the people complaining about the CGI (special effects). This is a comedy movie and its all about the story, the beautiful scenarios, clothing, the jokes, the acting, originality. The story is very funny and original, besides, the director is one of the most recognized of Chinese culture. It also have the background stories and legends of Chinese folklore, like journey to the west, among others, so there are many layers of meaning about the jokes and the story. Its a silly story but it also has its deepness and tenderness. The CGI are used only for the sake of the story, the director Jeffrey Lau and many folk stories like this in Chinese cinema have an approach of cinema more like a theatre play, not like a hoolywood movie that want to impress with special effects. So you have to expect very cheesy and bad CGI. I put 10 stars not because it's perfect movie, but because it's so underrated that it hurts, its the kind of movie that many people who aren't aware of Chinese cinema tradition will rate it as garbage. An extremely original, fun and even beautiful (at moments) experience for me.