#never watched/read op before going to watch film red and holy FUCK

[tizzypizza]

i let the words of a curse be my deliverance

[razberryyum]

The Untamed and The Living Dead movie Thoughts

SPOILERS AHEAD!

If you haven’t watched the movie, it’s best not to proceed cuz you will be spoiled.  

OR, if you have already watched the movie and love it completely, AND you stan Yu Bin and will not put up with any criticism about his performance, it’s also best not to proceed cuz you’ll most likely be annoyed/upset with me. Let’s just agree to disagree right now and move on with our separate happy lives.  

Overall Rating for The Living Dead: 3 Lil Apples out of 10

Yeah, I know that’s pretty harsh…I waffled between 3, 4 and 5, but I had to settle on a 3 in the end because I don’t think I’ll ever rewatch this movie and there were just so many problems I had with it, that I realized I can’t say I liked the movie much at all.  

Before I go on, let me first address the big white elephant in the room: no, WangXian does NOT cameo in The Living Dead nor are they even mentioned in any capacity that would assure us they are still together and happy in the movie’s timeline. At one point Wen Ning does mention them in the same sentence, but only in relationship to himself (that they saved him) and the past. For those of us desperate for confirmation of WangXian happily ever afterness in the world of CQL (“us” meaning me only most likely), we get no assurance whatsover. This is especially disappointing since the movie apparently take place years later after the events of The Untamed so it’s really sad that we have no idea if they are together. Of course in the world of the novel, we know they are absolutely together, happily married, everydaying everyday, but it would’ve been nice if we were given some tiny morsel of comfort for WangXian of The Untamed.  

Not only does Lan Zhan not make an appearance, he’s only mentioned by Wen Ning once, as I indicated above. As for Wei Ying, he’s mentioned a few times and he kiiiiinda makes a cameo…but honestly, I wish they didn’t even attempt that cameo cuz it was so bad. It’s basically the backview of some extra dressed as Wei Ying and dubbed over by someone else that’s not Lu Zhixing-laoshi. Or if it is, the dub was so bad that it didn’t even sound like him anymore.

That’s actually one of my main problems with the movie: the dubbing or sound mixing just sucked. Every time there was dialogue it sounded very obviously that it was on a different track. I didn’t even feel like the characters were saying the words because their voices sounded detached from them. Whereas in The Untamed, I sometimes would completely forget that with the exception of Nie Huaisang, everyone’s line reads were performed by voice actor because the voices were blended so well within the scenes. I don’t know the technical terms of all this dubbing stuff so hopefully I’m making some sense.

Another big problem was the CGI. Holy crap was it bad. It was so bad at no point was I able to immerse myself into the action scenes…I didn’t feel anyone was in danger because they were being attacked by a bunch of obvious and bad CGI. One of the worse scenes that they showed THREE times was when the sister (Xiao Qing) being burned up in CGI flames. First of all her acting was horrendous (why was she covering her ears while she’s being burned alive??) and then the fake fire just made me groan out loud. I didn’t even want to look it was so embarrassingly bad.  

I’m trying to figure out when they shot this movie…in order for them to be able to release the movie so soon after the show, the filming had to overlap with The Untamed’s filming, right? So I guess budget was still tight, probably even tighter than the main show, since CQL probably didn’t start actually seeing the money it made from ads, etc until towards the end. Either way, it feels like they didn’t put much money into this movie, especially not the effects. And if I’m going to be honest, I think they probably just had their second…nay…probably third unit direct it. Or at least, they had their third unit decide on some of the casting cuz some of the performances were…OOF. One thing I really appreciated about The Untamed is that even with most of the background actors, there was hardly a glaringly bad performance. I’ve said before the worse really was the actor who played Wen Ruohan, which is a shame cuz he’s more than an extra, but overall all the performances by the supporting characters ranged from decent to strong with hardly a weak link. Here, in this movie, I would say most of the performances from the new cast members were very mediocre. In fact, the only truly consistently good performances from beginning to end was Zheng Fanxing (Sizhui) and that cute little girl in the beginning:

I was kind of sad when she got killed off cuz she was adorable and definitely a MUCH better actor that the dude who played her older brother…at no point was I remotely convinced he was scared so on the other hand I was happy he died. But I thought she was going to burn to death or something because it didn’t seem like a good idea to have her hide in a wooden cupboard with a lite stove…that was so stupid and weird. Btw, what the hell was with that cat screeching sound effect?? Sounded like someone was throwing a cat, but like WHY?  

As for the three new players introduced for this movie—Gao Han as Xiao Yi, Wang Yifei as Xiao Qing and He Longlong as Zhou Zishu—I’ve never seen their work before, and nothing about their performances in this movie makes me interested in what they will do in the future. To be fair, Gao Han tried…you can totally tell he was trying REALLY hard in some of his scenes, but for the most part, he either overacted or strangely enough, underacted. He was just really inconsistent. I know Zhou Zishu was supposed to be a red herring so the fact that he started out looking sketchy AF was supposed to be a ruse since our narrator was entirely untrustworthy, but even in the context of that false narration, he was really bad. As for the sister played by Wang Yifei…just look at her performance as she’s being burned up again.  

By the way, I’m gonna say this now: if Wei Ying and Lan Zhan don’t even get to share a fucking real hug between them throughout the entirety of The Untamed, then I don’t think some generally unimportant-in-the-greater-scheme-of-things couple should be allowed to freaking KISS in anything related to the world of CQL.

I understand it’s all about the censorship, etc etc, but if any hetero couple deserved to share an onscreen kiss, it would’ve been Shijie and Jin Zixuan, and since even they were deprived of that, then these two nobodies should not have been granted this privilege. Seriously, fuck whoever decided to stick that moment in the movie. That’s just fucking unfair and really annoyed me. There better not be any more of that kind of nonsense in the Nie brothers‘ movie.  

The last I’ll say about performances is that sadly, I felt as if there was something off about Yu Bin’s. I totally understand that this is a different Wen Ning than the one we saw in the show—he’s older, more mature, since God knows how many years have passed already—so I don’t mind that he’s more serious. But at the same time, he was just so uneven that I couldn’t get behind his performance at all. He was always one key off, if that makes any sense, so it almost felt like someone else was playing Wen Ning entirely, someone who is completely unfamiliar with that character. And his work in the…whatever fuck that place was…Yin Metal purgatory?? (and for those who are familiar with Guardian, that place was giving me bad flashbacks to Dixing)…was kind of cringey overall.  

I wanted to love seeing Wen Ning be a badass wise uncle, so I actually feel really sad that I couldn’t enjoy his performance in general. However, what I absolutely did enjoy was seeing uncle and nephew bonding and working together…  

…just wish those moments weren’t marred by all that bad CGI.  

Wen Ning’s new look gave me pause though: not that I didn’t appreciate the whole metal look, but I kind of couldn’t figure out why Wen Ning added the chains back to his ensemble when he got rid of them back in The Untamed already.

I mean, if the black veins on his neck don’t attract attention, walking around wearing heavy, clangy chains sure would probably alarm people as well, I think.  

Last thing on Wen Ning: again, not that I didn’t appreciate his newfound ability to hulk out, but yikes, that whole effect was ruined by yet again bad CGI AND a really goofy score. Sounded like something they “borrowed” from Naruto.

Except for that one piece of music, I did like the score for the rest of the movie, especially in the opening credits since it definitely evoked a sense of creepiness. The images in the credits were good too. I can easily imagine that being the OP creds to a horror anthology.  

As for the story, I was fine with it. I liked that they related the family to Nightless City because apparently they are the ones who helped make Nightless City nightless? Here I thought it was the surrounding lava but I guess there were lanterns lighting the place up that I just somehow missed completely.  I liked the plot twist with Xiao Yi and his “sister”…although I did guess there was some incesty thing going on in the beginning…just didn’t think I would be right and wrong at the same time. I thought they would relate their relationship back to Wen Ning and Wen Qing somehow, considering the sisters shared the same name…this was before the “incest” part was confirmed of course…but they never really did so having Wen Qing share the same name as Xiao Qing felt like an oddity in the end. It’s also odd how they used the same phonetically sounding last name of “Xiao” since of course I immediately thought of Xiao Zhan (different characters). Like, couldn’t they come up with completely different names? Overall, the plot wasn’t bad, as mysteries go, at first I couldn’t figure out why the Yin Metal all of a sudden had all these new powers and why the metal wielder, Zhou Zishu, would become a ghost puppet himself, but with the plot twist, all of that was explained so I was fine with it. The last shot of “Xiao Yi” in the Yin Metal purgatory made me guffaw; yeah, that didn’t look suggestive AT ALL. 

The Living Dead actually makes me look forward even more to the next movie, The Fatal Journey. I’m hoping that since it’s potentially about the Nie brother’s past and Jin Guangyao, that perhaps there will be less need for CGI as it will focus more on just dialogue and story-telling. Not to mention, again, apologies to Yu Bin fans, but those three actors are generally stronger performers, so with them at the helm, I’m expecting/hoping for greater things.    

Since I’ve been mostly negative, I wanted to leave on at least one positive note: Sizhui is still an adorable puppy. His dads, wherever they are, whatever they’re doing during the movie, must be so proud of him.