Kûkai (2017)

Kûkai: Directed by Kaige Chen. With Xuan Huang, Shôta Sometani, Yuqi Zhang, Hao Qin. Taking place in the Tang Dynasty, a demon cat appears and breaks the peace of Chang’an City, causing a series of strange events. Poet Bai Letian and Monk Kukai join hands to investigate the death of the emperor’s concubine, Lady Yang, by following the trail left by the cat.

“Seeing that this film is adapted from some Japanese series, I would like to say that I have not heard or seen this series so I watched this film without any expectations, not even having seen the trailer or poster before watching it.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eTo begin, at the beginning it seemed really interesting and the plot pointed to a deep involvement of the main characters, and seeing how it contains mystery, I expected there to be many mystifying encounters occurring TO the main characters. However, as surprised as I was, this is the first show I have seen that sidelines the main characters into simple narrators quite early on. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe plot is also kind of disconnected, with a few main plot lines just barely having any connection with each other. Regarding the genres listed for this movie, I would say it is 70% drama, 20% fantasy and 10% mystery, which is pretty amazing for how the movie was trying to develop. Well, it is only 10% mystery because the presentation in the movie is so obvious that I donu0026#39;t feel bewildered at all. Itu0026#39;s like a roller coaster ride with a straight track likening a railway, barely any twists and turns and just totally boring. My friends and I were dozing off at times, one kept asking when the movie ends and the other wanted to leave 30 minutes before the movie ended.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThere were some very beautiful scenes, which add points to this movie, however they were usually used for some scenes which do not progress the story much. Oh yes, there are quite a few scenes which felt like they could be removed and nothing else would be affected, also known as fillers.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eRegarding the cast, Iu0026#39;m not sure it is just me but some of the acting and actors/actresses do not seem to fit into their roles that well, for example the monk, whose behaviour and facial expressions seem quite uninhibited for u0026quot;a renowned monku0026quot;.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAfter seeing a few stellar reviews, I am still confounded as to what makes this a great film. Sure, there were great graphics and a few twists here and there, but overall it felt more like a documentary. It felt like a history documentary instead of some suspense drama that keeps the watchersu0026#39; interests going.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eMy overall verdict is that unless you like terribly straightforward movies that presents content to you straight up, it is much better to invest your time and money watching another show instead.”