Action Hero iteration with bad CGI and confusing plot
Mojin: The Worm Valley is widely considered the second CGI movie following Mojin: The Lost Legends. It is not as good as the first, but it's still decent fun. In this movie the heroes are of course still on the hunt for a mystical round globe (sometimes called Pearl or Orb) that can maybe cure them of their "Eye" curse or disease.The heroes in this version are super amped up in their fighting skills. Shirley (Gu Xuan) has turned into a Legolas Wannabe who possesses and "Endless Quiver" (that never runs out of arrows). Hu Ba Yi (Julian Cai) has become Machete Kills and gained the skill of swimming, fighting and climbing while holding a Machete and chopping at everything. This version of Wang Pang Zi (Yu Heng) is perhaps the LEAST annoying as in this movie I actually don't recall him doing his usual job of prematurely opening something or setting off a trap! Maybe it's because there isn't much in the way of Tomb Raiding in this movie, which is more of a creature fest. Professor Sun (Cheng Tai Shen) does the majority of the good acting, as he doesn't have much "action" chops. The others are kind of mehhh.
The good. This is a nice B-grade creature feature. Swimming scenes are well shot. There's a lot of action and various locales. They added in a love interest for Fatty/Pang Zi - that was nice for him! The traditional music is wonderful and fits with the movie's style.
The bad. The action choreography could use some work. CGI is unconvincing and plain not good. Some of the sets looked like ye olde Star Trek 1960s paper Mache rocks quality, which is cheesy. Acting was rather wooden in places.
Overall - a fun creature feature, nowhere close in acting, production or story quality to the much superior Mojin: The Lost Legend.
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