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.
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.