Movie Review – Chinese Paladin 3 – 19 Sep, 2012

Written by Deng Zishan

Directed by Lee Kwok-lap

Starring Hu Ge

    Wallace Huo

    Yang Mi

    Cecilia Liu

    Tiffany Tang

    Jerry Huang

Chinese Paladin 3 is a TV series in wuxia genre with elements of fantasy and romance, like the last year’s hit, the Sorcerer and the White Snake. It starred Huge (Jingtian, the stuff of a pawnshop, who previously was a divine general in heaven), Wallace Huo (Xu Changqing, a monk from Mount Shu Sect), Yangmi (Tang XueJian, from Tang Clan), Tiffany Tang (Zixuan, the descendant of Nvwa Goddess), Cecilia Liu (Long Kui, the younger sister of Jingtian).

The movie is about Jing Tian, Xu Changqing,  Tang XueJian, Long Kui , and Maomao started a quest to collect five elemental pearls, which can seal all evil spirits and demons in the Demon Prison Tower in Mt. Shu Sect. During the quest, they had to face different difficulty and be tested, and at the end they had to fight against Xie Jianxian (the strongest demon), which was formed by bad emotions of human, like jealousy, greed, selfish, and etc.

The entire movie has 37 episodes. It’s quite long or perhaps too long for impatient and busy people like me, but the uptake is that it’s long enough to narrate how things shape them into better persons at the end. It’s also long enough to create a sense of peril while fighting against the Xie Jianxian at the end of the movie.

The entire story is wittily written, but there’re still a few things I dislike: two of the protagonists, Jingtian and Tong Xuejian are two petulant people who keeping squabbling, for example, Jingtian kept gambling after he had collected money in the heaven to save the descendant of Nvwa who used her life to protect them. They might even squabble or throw a tantrum at the dangerous moment. I believe the screenwriter originally intention was to make it entertaining, but I think it’s too much to an extend that it’s irritating. However, I still believe it does have its audience. Some part of the stories wasn’t logic to an extend that it sounds a bit stupid rather than romantic, for example, a goddess fell in love with a human, Xifeng who sung beautifully, and wanted to meet him ,but Xifeng was an ugly man, in order to meet the goddess he traded with the Lord of Demon, Chonglou with 500 hundred year time and his voice for a good-looking face, so that he could meet the goddess for a day, and then the goddess waited Xifeng for more 500 hundred years after Xifeng left, which I thought was stupid. For God sake, nobody with sane mind would wait for somebody for more than 500 years and ultimately became a statue just because she loves his voice and has met him for a day.

The movie talks a lot about the truth of life, nature and lots of the spells are created based on the Classic of the Way and Power of Virtue and Nature or Tao Te Ching which stroke me that the screenwriter was someone who have insightful thoughts about life, nature, and Tao Te Ching.

One thing I felt very bad about was the part that Nvwa was asked to leave Xu Changqing and consequentially they all had to suffer, just because Xu Changqing wanted to meditate to be a God, when they actually loved each others so much. It’s quite similar to the one in The Sorcerer and the White Snake, Xuxian, a Chinese physician who was in love with the demon snake was separated by Fahai a monk, saying that human shouldn’t be in love with demon, which I found it not understandable, but maybe, I might understand it one day.