GrimPrecise I'll tell you why so serious

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

dafrosts The movie starts with explaining how Monsters and Humans once lived together but things soured and Humans and Monsters split to live apart. Monsters that escaped back into the Human realm were captured by the Monster Hunters and forced to live as disguised Humans or suffer a far worse fate.Tianyin is the mayor of a small village, where no one respects him, especially his grandma who has some serious short term memory issues. His life changes when he encounters Monster (disguised as humans)on the run from Monster Hunters. He is marked by The Queen of the Monsters and held as bait by one of the Hunters so she can capture the Queen and get the reward. Things don't go as planned and The Queen dies after making Song her surrogate to ensure the Prince of Monsters will be born.Tianyin's pregnancy is short lived - I'm sure he's thankful for that. He does have quite the appetite for a while. Much to the chagrin of the Monster Hunter who wants to take the Prince from him and sell the baby for a profit.The animation is impressive. I like how the live action mixes with the animation. I watched it with subtitles. It is great with the actors' actual voices so you can get their emotional responses to their situations.The relationship between Tianyin, Xiaolan (The Monster Hunter who won't admit she really likes Tianyin and the Prince) and WUBA aka Prince of Monsters, gets you in the feels. Xiaolan wants to focus on WUBA simply being a Monster while Tianyin sees him as a child in need of parenting.Problems rise as the trio make their way to the City. They are confronted by higher ranking Monster Hunters who want WUBA for the reward. Monsters are also looking for WUBA, for their own reasons.This is a movie along the lines of Shrek, in that it has double entendres all through it. The Kung Fu is mixed with magic, so there's a bit more of the theatrics to it. Even the monsters get in on the Kung Fu fights. The best fights occur during the grand dinner.The journey reveals some truths about Tianyin's family that have him rethinking life with WUBA in it. This movie doesn't hesitate to have you laughing with Tianyin one moment an feeling sad for him the next. I like movies that can drag you in so deep.When Tianyin's true heritage is revealed, he has to let WUBA go to protect him. It's a heart wrenching moment. Poor WUBA doesn't understand since he's only a child. Tianyin knows WUBA will be safe with other Monsters to protect him.I cannot wait for Monster Hunt 2 in February, 2018. I am hoping for a happy reunion between WUBA and his Human dad. I give it a 9 because it's just one of those movies that keeps you involved from the the beginning to the final credits.

theoryladeness To offset reviews that seem lacking in full appreciation of all of the qualities of this movie, I should probably give this movie a 10, but I recognize my own bias towards the film genre. Anyone with similar film taste might really enjoy this movie. The casting, acting, scene design, and writing were synergistic and the film is full of beautiful imagery and CGI.What I appreciated the most, however, was the socio-cultural critique of animal abuse, factory farming and eating other creatures. There is no explicit philosophy set forth, but only the real emotions that result from having to care for something so similar to a human. As the main character remarks, "There are good monsters and bad monsters", but the most satisfying parts of the movie are when the characters experience a deep compassion for the monsters (and vice versa) that transforms their behavior. Of course there is a love story with familiar themes, but by avoiding too many clichés and giving gender role reversal center stage, the two characters that fall in love offer convincing performances that make an otherwise fantasy setting a realistic depiction of human love, a love that we see extend to the non-human throughout the movie.

Paul Magne Haakonsen "Monster Hunt" (aka "Zhuo yao ji") was sort of a movie that was entertaining in a strange way, especially since it was a combination of animation and live action. Normally that mixture does work well enough, but it was the odd cute and cuddly appearance of the monsters in the movie that just made it weird.The story in "Monster Hunt" was actually surprisingly good, as it is a story which is suitable for both children and adults alike. And the movie itself is also suitable for children to watch."Monster Hunt" is about ancient China where humans and monsters live simultaneously, although the monsters are banished. The queen of the monster world is pregnant, but is being chased relentlessly. With her dying breath she passes on her egg to a human named Song Tianyin (played by Boran Jing). He is traveling with monster hunter Huo Xiaolan (played by Baihe Bai) and they are being chased by monster hunters set out to capture the royal monster child.With a captivating story, then "Monster Hunt" is already well on the way for being a good movie. But it is really helped along by some great acting performances by Huo Xiaolan, Boran Jing, Wu Jiang, Sandra Kwan Yue Ng and Eric Tsang. And it was a nice treat to have the talented Wei Tang make a short appearance in this movie.The CGI were good, although the design of the monsters was at first somewhat of a difficult pill to swallow for me. They were simply just too cute in their design to be taken seriously. So I guess you will either outright fall in love with them right away (which my wife did), or you will have problems with taking them seriously (as I did)."Monster Hunt" is a fast-paced movie that has both a good storyline, but also has enough action and martial arts to keep the average fan of the Asian cinema more than happy.While it is somewhat of an offbeat movie, compared to the myriad of Hong Kong movies released every year, then "Monster Hunt" certainly is well-worth watching. It turned out to be a very nice surprise and a very entertaining movie, and I can warmly recommend this movie, both if you are a fan of the Asian cinema, but also if you are looking for a good movie for the entire family."Monster Hunt" scores a rock-solid seven out of ten stars rating from me.

rongrudy The Chinese local film "protection week" has been heavily criticized by Hollywood, especially when, the Universal's recent hit, Jurassic Park's run was cut short with gas in the tank. However, this year's protection week finally accomplished something. It gave birth to the top- grossing Chinese film in history – Monster Hunt. The fantasy comedy film that led by, "Shrek"'s creator，Raman Hui sets the new Chinese box office record this week. The movie's production was a huge adventure, itself, with no predecessor Chinese film containing heavy interactions between CGI characters and real actors. It has been generally considered as too risky, considering the comparably big budget and the government's potential intervention. A typical Chinese college love- story film, the genre that dominated the market in the past six months, costs less than one tenth of Monster Hunt's investment. According to the record, our government had not been a big fan of imaginative characters, which can stop the expensive project from going on to the screens. The creative ideas in Monster Hunt, such as the promotion of harmony between monsters and humans, are unorthodox, which could be raised to a political level. However, the producer, Bill Kong -- the producer of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, still wants to take the bet. As a kid, he was a fanatic gambler on horse racing and card games. Later as a movie producer, he gambled on high budget movies and won numerous awards along with billions of dollars. He believes that the market is finally ready for partly animated, largely live-action films and the Chinese visual effect teams are mature enough to make an attractive one. Besides the production method, Monster Hunter is also one of the few movie franchises that were one hundred percent originally created by the production company in China and could be expanded to a collection of movies, books, and TV episodes. It was made to be a commercial movie, but its creative original content and the production team's accurate understanding of the market's favor end up fulfilling the interest of a wide range of Chinese audiences, which won them the praises that exceeds anyone's expectation. The movie begins with a cartoon that mimics the style of wall painting in the era of cave men combining with an unidentified narrator's voice that sounds mysterious and antique. Through the prologue, we understand that the story sets in a world where humans and monsters co-exist, but humans got tired of this and started a war driving the monsters into the far reaches of the mountains. The story's background is familiar to the audiences, since the similar backgrounds were portrayed in Chinese classics "Shan Hai Jin" and "Liao Zhai Zhi Yi". Instead of shouting out the theme of comedy, the movie gives a sense of "Lord of the Ring" or "Harry Porter". However, the mood of a thriller was broken when the camera zooms in on the adorable image of the monster queen and her chubby tummy. When the reckless evil monster revolutionaries try to overthrow the royalty, the queen flees to the land of humans and impregnates a human man with Huba, the cute monster baby. They started an adventure together to escape the capture. I can hear the audiences' hearts melting, when they go AWW during the scene that the radish looking Huba opens his eyes as a lovely baby monster. The casting was another factor that contributes to the success. The movie was originally finished in 2014. However, the protagonist, Kai Ko, was arrested for using marijuana before the movie's release. The movie was banned with his involvement. However, the producer, Bill Kong, still believes that Monster Hunt has to be finished. He invested another $15 million to retake the parts of Kai Ko, which basically is 40% of the movie. Many famous actors and actresses admired Kai Ko's persistence and offered to be guest actors. The movie ended up with an all-star team that covers fans' age group ranging from 15 to the 50s. Monster Hunt is a new break through in the Chinese Movie industry. Creativity is Chinese movie industries' future. We are glad that the protecting good monster's theme was not banned, that Raman Hui found an investor that was persistent and visionary, and that the new attempt of comedy fantasy was widely accepted.