Crazy characters, some seriously original laugh out loud scenes, blah ending

Through a series of events, the leader of a failed rock band ends up inheriting a farm when his grandmother passes away. He decides to get the band together to farm cabbages so they can make enough money to put out a new album. City boys start farming is the premise for this fish out of water story.

The village is populated by all kinds of personality types, with their own quirks. And once we learn more about them you know there is ripe opportunity for these character quirks to be exploited. There are several completely HILARIOUS parts in this series, so funny I was hitting the chair sofa while laughing. Some are running gags, some are new but the comedy in this series is top notch. So is the soundtrack, the music and the acting from the ensemble cast.

There were a few particular characters I did not care for, and I did not love the ending, but overall, this is a fun show to watch.

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More Adorable Tamanajo, with more kitty friends, and now, the Mother In Law!

Given the runaway success of Season 1 with cat lovers, it's no surprise I'm back for more Neko Zamurai. Season 2 amps up the stakes with even more cats, a Cat competition, the Mystical Cat Mountain and the appearance of Madarama's Mother in Law, a true scene stealer, in the last episodes. The format is the same - short musical spurts, reused often in the 20 minute slice of life episodes ending with a 5 line Japanese Poem.

The Hero is still out of work and is now plagued by even more cats, who knows how they have appeared. The landlady is still trying to catch him. He has a new neighbor and is still searching for a permanent job. Tamanajo is even cuter and more pliant than ever, stealing our hearts with every stare and meow. Her charm is off the charts. More characters fell to her charms in season 2, joining Tamanajo's legion of fans. I watched behind the scenes and the cat really is that calm. Apparently Anago, the main cat actor, was given up by their family and very scared, but the actor playing Madarama really loves pets and patiently won her over. That is a good man.

There are several strange episodes featuring a cat god of sorts, the soul switch was hilarious and the mother in law, well *shiver* I love her, she is so bad ass she stole every scene. I enjoyed this every bit as much as season 1 and if you like cats and are up for some mostly light hearted cat-tertainment, this is the show for you.

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Good Sci Fi flick with heart. Would have been great if it had ended a little earlier.

This Sci Fi flick has awesome production values - the CGI and action scenes are top notch. There's a very simple story. The space sweepers are the "poor" from earth that make their living scavenging waste left behind by the rich and powerful, who have all escaped into space since we didn't take care of earth and it's now dying slowly. The protagonist's daughter died in an accident and he's doing everything he can to get enough money so the official channels can find and retrieve her body before decaying orbit causes it to burn up on re-entry. Then, one salvage mission discover "Dorothy" a robot captured by terrorists that contains a bomb.

The reaction of crew of his vessel, The Victory, is mixed, but the acting is top notch. The captain is suitably bad-ass, the former gangster with tattoos and dread locks is EVEN more bad ass, and the funniest and baddest ass of them all would have to be ... the robot. Yes. The former military assassin robot who is SUCH a capitalist he/she cheats his/her crewmates at cards, so that he/she can get skin grafts. He/she is awesome! They should make a whole movie based on the adventures of this wise cracking robot. The little girl is cute and supporting characters do well, including the villain.

The story is quite predictable in parts, but the father-daughter and family bond are both effective and heart warming enough to tug on one's heart strings. Who isn't going to melt at a cute kid drawing pictures of you? *arrow slams into heart* aaak you got me, you got me good.

If this movie had ended with the crew sacrificing themselves with the bomb, it would have been a 9, maybe even 9.5. Heroic tragic endings, THAT is the Korean Way. But somehow, they introduced a Deus Ex Machina, which made me immediately feel cheated. It turned it into more of an "American" movie, to let the crew live, and each member then has a happy ending. Still okay, but no longer great. I don't know, maybe I'm jaded, but it seems to me the sad ending would have been a better place to end and the movie would have been more of a "Korean" movie.

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Roast Review - too much politics, draggy middle, not enough tomb raiding, epic ending.

First episode grabbed my attention right away as you can see this series has high production values. The sets feel lavish, the streets dilapidated and yet there's a palpable aura of doom surrounding the train. This makes me think maybe the author had the right idea in forming his own production studio to produce his work. Unfortunately the promise shown by the initial episodes slowly devolved into slow and seriously meandering political shenanigans, instead of focusing on tomb raiding.

The acting is of uneven quality. Both MLs (Fo Ye and Er Ye) are not great at acting and need more polish. In contrast, Chen Pi was able to very quickly convey, with just a glance, that he was in love with the Boss's wife. Unfortunately this was the only chance he had to do that, as the rest of his character was pretty much angry one note guy which gave him no more opportunity to flex his acting chops.

The characters are as a whole, not well written, with the exception of the Villains which stole the show, in particularly Hendry, Ban and Tanaka Ryoko which played her bit part to perfection.

Zhang Qi Shan / Fo Ye (William Chan) - stoic but smart. This guy ... had a Bad-Ass moment in the very first episode. Wow.
Er Yue Hong / Er Ye (Lay Zhang) - let's just say no amount of make up can hide the sheer perfection of his features. He is devoted husband but is a few cards short of a full deck.
Qi Tie Zui / Ba Ye (Hanson Ying) - not powerful but ended up being the least annoying "main" character
Chen Pi Ah Si (Harry Hu) - devoted, jealous AND dumb.
Yin Xin Yue (Zanilia Zhao) - fell in love at first sight. She's honestly the smartest character in the whole bunch. And she's a girl.
Ya Tou (Crystal Yuan) - eye candy, weak, useless.
Lieutenant Zhang (Zhang Ming En) - actually the second least annoying character.
Cox Hendry (Andrew Stokes) - Best villain. Even his dubbing was done well.
Ban Jie Li (Li Nai Wen) - Second Best Villain.

Things kind of picked up in the last 3-4 episodes, but by then the damage was done. The ending 2 episodes were as epic as the first 2, if only the story quality had been even throughout this would have been a much better drama.

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Okay movie, good story, bad CGI. Series was WAY Superior.

Continuing my journey to "complete" watching all the Candle In The Tomb media I can locate, per my list.
https://mydramalist.com/list/1zEn6nQ4

This is a movie version of Candle In The Tomb: The Wrath of Time with some tweaks. Considering how great the Wrath of Time Series is because of the wonderful story, I had high hopes. The movie delivered on some, but not on others.

The good: Luo Law Ai KILLED it. His character was despicable in the series, embodying #sexualharrassment101, but in the movie they made him even more EVIL. Like Star Wars Anakin "killing younglings" evil. I wanted him to die so badly because he DESERVED to die!!! That was well done. Casting for the rest of the actors was on point. The tombs explored and the story within was exciting, with personal conflicts, so this portion left me satisfied. The translation I viewed had some hilarious "F" bombs in there that made me laugh out loud at the translator's sense of humor.

The bad: Special Effects. This was better than Mojin Mysterious Treasure which featured the same Giant Centipede, but still wholly unconvincing. They needed to hire whoever did the Wrath of Time series, to craft believable fight scenes featuring a realistic Giant Centipede (even the little ones) because they at least got those right. There was too much Wire-Fu that was badly done (having seen many movies where they do this "right") so I wasn't terribly impressed with the action. Not the actor's fault, but it felt like they had no budget and were doing their best with the clunky stuff. It really detracted from the enjoyment of the movie.

The Worst: Character's morality was turned upside down and I had trouble reconciling it, especially for both male leads. Zhu Gu Shao leaving the Giant Centiped to kill Evil Luo felt a bit amiss, he was always more hands on and having a creature kill his foe because of cowardice wasn't in character because it was horribly dishonorable! Similarly, Chen Yu Lou is portrayed as turning a blind eye (to sexual harassment from a mass murderer) in order to find the tomb, it FELT like he was happily sacrificing his "brothers" for that. The series has a more nuanced and less hypocritical Chen Yu Lou. This guy is supposed to be a Sect Leader, the best Mojin Xiaowei, and his morality is in the TOILET!??? WTF!! This made me quite sad, and also made me love Zhu Gu Shao (from the series) even more, as the only BaShan tribe to learn Mojin Xiaowei techniques which made him the UBER tomb raider. Seriously, if the Author was smart, he should write more Zhu Gu Shao adventures so they can film another series with Vengo Gao.

In conclusion, this is okay, but a pale copy of the Candle In The Tomb - The Wrath of Time series. Watch that instead. Review for the series below. https://mydramalist.com/profile/Stormy_77/reviews/115241

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Horrible sets / CGI, can't believe this was a 2020 film (feels like a 1980s one)

Mojin: Mysterious treasure is set in the present day, but has numerous flashbacks to the Republican Era raiding of the Xiangxi Tomb where we first meet Shirley's ancestor, the great Zhe Gu Shao. Even though he's dead in the present day, his scenes are STILL the best in this laughably boring movie, because (1) he is COOL and none of the present day generation has half his charisma and (2) the effects and production values are just low.

If you compare the biggest, baddest creature - the 6 winged Giant Centipede, all the scenes featuring it are completely unconvincing from a sets and creature effects standpoint. The fight choreography is terrible and even the physicality required for tomb raiding are not evident in this movie. If you have watched the Candle In the Tomb: The Wrath of Time series, the one with Vengo Gao, you'll be SHOCKED at how much scarier, more exciting and dangerous that centipede fight was. AND it was convincing and believable, instead of the mess they made of it in this movie. So much promise, such terrible execution.

There are also various illogical, bad script decisions. Why does someone have to yell loudly while jumping to or from danger? Why does Hu Ba Yi get the upper hand only to give it back to Villainous Joe who is intent on killing everyone on Hu Ba Yi's team? Like he does it 3 times, as if he forgot the first 2 times he was betrayed. What do they call making the same mistake again expecting a different outcome? Oh Hu Ba Yi levels of idiotic decision making. And he's supposed to he the "Deliverer", the smart one who can get the rest out of the tomb ....

Maybe I've watched too many Candle In The Tomb series and movies, because this one was plain boring. Which is sad because the books clearly have great content, this movie just failed to capitalize on it or execute it well.

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Hi quality adventure with a super sexy Shirley.

Also known as Dragon Labyrinth, this Wanda? produced version of Candle In the Tomb is set in the Gulan county where there's a labyrinth and a clue that might help them break their Mojin Clan's curse.

The good: this version has probably the best chemistry I've seen between Hu Ba Yi (Lin Yu Shen) and Shirley (Connie Kang is gorgeous) as both seem like they have that great love hate relationship. There's one particular scene that's simultaneously funny AND steamy, so much that my eyes were falling out of my head watching it until it resolved in a comedic manner. The rest of the cast is believable, so this movie's acting is top notch. There's enough tomb raiding, traps and puzzles shoved in to satisfy this viewer.

The bad: special effects CGI wise are pretty inconsistent. Some are great and believable, and but there are a few bad ones. The fight choreography could be better, it was very simplistic and not exciting to watch.

Conclusion: This is one of the better Candle In the Tomb movies I have seen, to the point where I wonder if the people who gave the good ratings to the Wu Gorge version (also called Mojin for some reason) have mistakenly watched this one and given its ratings to that movie instead.

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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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Okay story let down by inconsistent acting and laugably bad CGI.

Watched in iQiyi where this was just titled Mojin (like the poster). This movie is one of the 4 books sold to Wanda by the author, but it's clear the script writer didn't really read the source content wise as this adaptation has some consistencies in it compared to the previous series and movies. Here, Shirley (played really badly by Yu Xin Yan) is pregnant by Hu Ba Yi and both are worried that their curse will be transferred to their child. Thus they journey back to China at Professor Sun's behest, to raid King Wu Yang's Wu Gorge tomb in hopes of obtaining the Ressurection Herb.

There are some nice, small moments, like the one where Hu Ba Yi tells Shirley what he would sacrifice for their child, and there's some decent comedy and good acting by Professor Sun. Unfortunately all this is marred by the Shirley actress's inability to act, she might just be the worst portrayal of Shirley from all the series and movies I've seen thus far. The CGI is so laughably bad, even video games have better effects than that hole collapsing at the start.

Overall I felt like this could have been done loads better with a good budget and acting. I'm sure a better adaptation or reboot will be forthcoming soon.

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CGI heavy tomb raiding action fest based on Candle In The Tomb

This is a movie version of Candle In The Tomb: The Weasel Grave with some new content written by the Author for Wanda Studios. I'm not sure why the author sold half his work to Wanda and the other half to China Film Group Corporation as this will just create confusion among fans, but I'm guessing money has something to do with it. In any case, this is a much better adaptation of his work than the very average Chronicles of A Ghostly Tribe which deviated from the source content so much the author distanced himself from that film.

The best thing about this movie is the CGI, casting and Tomb Raiding adventure and puzzles. CGI was convincing, and this had a relatively star studded cast. Shu Qi is a feisty Shirley Yang, part of the tomb raiding trio along with Hu Ba Yi (Aloys Chen who can play 20-40 easily with minor facial hair changes) and Fatty (Huang Bo). Angela Baby is gorgeous as Ding Xitian and Cherry Ngan does her best impersonation of a psycho Japanese girl killer. As far as action and adventure is concerned, this movie gives us everything we want.

There are flaws - IMO they made Shirley's character a little too ... brazen? I'm not a prude but I felt there's some things that didn't need to be played out just to pander to "western" audiences, and I'm not referencing anything at the start of the movie, but the Shirley bit and also one scene with excessive swearing. It condensed a lot of the Weasel Grave Tomb items and placed a much larger emphasis on the mystical Equinox flower. The villain once revealed did not accept reality even after things didn't go according to plan. 1969 brainwashed communists portrayed as excessively stupid. Not sure if this is meant to be satire or not. Many things felt rushed and incomplete.

In conclusion, this is a fun, "block buster" type movie that is pretty enjoyable if you don't think too much about it.

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Iffy casting, wonderful Tombs

The Lost Tombs is a well written installment of the Candle In the Tombs series. It starts with Fatty (Jiang Chao) and his greed embroiling Hu Ba Yi (Pang Yue Ming) in another get rich quick scheme involving possible tomb robbing in a town near the Longling Maze Grottos. Except it is a trap set by thieves and the two and gold tooth (Marc Ma) are soon in trouble until they get semi rescued by Chen Xia Zi (Wang Kui Rong). Some misadventures later they eventually cross paths with Shirley Yang (Zhang Yu Qi) and this is when the story kicks into high gear and the REAL tomb exploring starts.

The Bad. The pacing of this series is all over the place. Some parts seriously dragged and too much time was spent on inconsequential things. The CGI is a mixed bag with many totally "unconvincing" explosions.

Casting - I didn't like how they kept changing the actors playing the characters. Hu Ba Yi with mustache looks old and pudgy in this series. Thankfully his brain is still good because the body is far gone and unconvincing. Shirley was pretty but seemed coldly efficient, not feisty like the Shirley in Candle In The Tomb Jingjue. Fatty, Gold Tooth, the gangsters and the Blind Fortune teller inhabited their roles.

The Good. First, Vengo Gao as Zhe Gu Shao appears in a flashback. It is the best part of the series, getting to see a REAL tomb raider with REAL skills raiding a seriously hard tomb. That segment alone elevated this whole series as it ties back to what happened to him after the Wrath of Time and reveals his lineage. Second, when they get into the real tomb, the tomb, feng shui and traps are brilliantly written. The action is exciting and the spiders were done well.

Conclusion. If you can get past the slow beginning, and hold on until Vengo appears, you'll enjoy the rest of this good installment of the Candle In The Tomb series.

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Heavily padded and takes a while to get going. Tomb raiding and scenery are great.

This is the main Candle In The Tomb series. It's an adventure. They've been to grasslands, the Himalayas and the desert. We get to experience various tombs AND Locations so action, cinematography and scenery wise this series has it all.

The Good: Shirley Yang (Joe Chen) the main lead girl is the rich daughter of a hobby archaeologist who has gone missing searching for some Lost City filled with treasures. She mountaineers and can handle a gun real well. She's the best part of the series. Hu Ba Yi (Jin Dong) is great. They keep changing Fatty around but the acting is believable. Fan favorite here is An Li Man. He has a different accent so you could tell. He was the best guide ever and #1 camel lover. There's minimal politics so this has been quite enjoyable. They have even introduced these things called "Fire" bugs, that are aflame and can set you or your equipment on fire. Whoom!

So-So Average: Characters. Some are great, others are horrible. I hated Fatty's greed and stupidity. Seriously how can you make the same mistake 4 times??? #facepalm. All the archaeologists were written as if they were idiots that can't follow basic instructions or make hard decisions. Breaking news: if you're weak, sick or old, maybe stick to desk archaeology since if you go out on the field you will be the first to fall and cause hardship and long winded difficult decision making full of angst amongst your compatriots. While they're hand wringing other disasters happen and people die that should not have died. I swear one third of this show felt like "let's take bets on who dies next". Not good.

The bad : story is probably better than this adaptation as it is slow as all hell, takes WAY too much time to do some things (1 episode for a burial is probably excessive) and they padded it to an extent this show could have finished 4-5 episodes sooner making it more enjoyable if only the editing had been tighter.

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Mark Chao as Hu Ba Yi in a somewhat confusing Kunlun Advernture

This review is written by someone who has not read any of the books.

The movie starts with some background of chronological order in which things happen:-
1934 Dragon Corpse found
1956 Underground Palace Unearthed
1972 "Ageless" female mummy discovered
1974 Ancient fossils found in Kunlun mountain, there's an explosion, expedition sent that discovers Kunlun Shrine. Hu Ba Yi is the only survivor losing the expedition leader Professor Yang and his daughter Yang Ping.
1979 Hu Ba Yi goes to try find the Yang Ping who is back but renamed "Shirley"

The first half of this movie is about why they went to the Kunlun Shrine, what its mysteries are, why it's remained hidden all these years and what secrets are involved. Once the backstory is finally told, the second half of the movie changes into a basic survival vs. monsters (demons) movie which wasn't very interesting.

What's good - great acting by a handsome male lead as Mark Chao plays Hu Ba Yi as someone you not only can root for, but actually I'd want to be rescued by him because he is that good looking. The other actors do a credible job too. The special effects and action are top notch.

What's not so good - the second half had some exposition which was rather confusing as they kind of melded elements from Candle In the Tomb and made a right big mess of Shirley / Professor Yang's daughter Yang Ping's story, to the extent it is a mess and doesn't line up at all with the Candle In the Tomb series, or the Mojin movies. Come to think of it, I'm not even sure if this is a Mojin series movie since it doesn't actually have the word Mojin in the title.

This is more of a Creature Feature with maybe 10% tomb raiding in it, so not the best of the movies.

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Roast Review - Weasel Grave - too much propaganda & completely useless females

Watching Candle In The Tomb (CIIT) in chronological order, Weasel Grave is the second series following the very excellent Wrath of Time, which I loved. It started super slow, we are introduced to Hu Bayi (Ethan Juan), "Fatty" Wang KaiXuan (Ryan Liu), the lovestruck Yan Zi (Daisy Li) and cold Hua Mei (Lulu Xu) early. The are various levels of annoying as they start investigating a weasel grave near their village.

The constant "revolutionary" propaganda is SERIOUSLY off putting because we know that real communists would have executed or work camp indoctrinated the smart ones like ML and SL instead of bringing them to a village. Despite how distasteful this was I gamely plowed through till episode 10 when things started to move (plot wise) in Mongolia, and we were treated to some spectacular landscapes and a real Tomb, except WW2 Japanese built a base next to it so their Scientists could conduct Nazi type experiments on human/animal subjects in order to get weapons superiority and win the war. Evil!

The good news is the introduced monsters and undead ramped up the action and excitement since the series becoming a SURVIVAL HORROR video game. The CGI monster graphics are pretty well done so action wise this was satisfying.

The bad news is lazy script writing leads to entire episodes where all 3 girls do no acting besides screaming "HU BA YI!" over and over every time he's in danger, as if it does anything productive? Like pick up a weapon of opportunity and help him instead of being useless!! Screaming his name doesn't help. Literally this is all they do from episode 10 to 20. By the 100th plus scream, I was done. All 3 of them are so annoyingly useless collectively they are not even worth 1 fingernail of Miss Hong Gu Niang from Wrath of Time.

The story doesn't even feel like it concluded properly from a human relationships point of view. What the hell happened here? The only thing I'm not surprised at is Hu Ba Yi was smart enough not to end up with any of the 3 (although Ding SiTian was less bad than the other 2). This is sad as it might be the first series I watched where I actually disliked every single character. Poor Weasels. Here's to hoping the rest of the CIIT series has a better story, portrays the MLs better and has stronger female characters.

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Must Watch - Indiana Jones meets Game of Thrones in Republican Era China

I was told The Lost Caverns is an archaeological drama, and after doing some research Candle In the Tomb : The Wrath of Time is the first in the series, chronologically, so I started watching it with zero expectations, and was instantly hooked. I was surprised at how good the sets, scenery, production, action and acting were. The sets and scenery, in particular, are breath-taking. The death toll has to be seen to be believed.

This show pretty much has everything entertainment wise:-
* History of 4 "Tomb Robbing" Clans in the Opening Credits
* Each clan's specialty - geomancy, traps, lock picking, animal affinity
* Super Expensive Sets for the Tombs. They look realistic!
* Traps. Lots of Traps! All Kinds! Poor Stunt Guys must have worked HARD.
* Dangerous bug critters. Numerous small ones and one Giant One. * Special "mythical" animals including "Super Chicken Phoenix" and Dig Dug Pangolins
* Zombies and a Zombie King
* Excessive dynamite use, including in "suicide vests" (not in a terrorist way).
* Michael Bay level of indiscriminate blowing up stuff before using brains and considering maybe don't blow up stuff before getting your own people out first?
* Brotherhood, followed by Game of Thrones level Betrayals, Backstabbing and lots of Death ... and viewers rooting for some people to die because we're bloodthirsty by nature, we hate them and we want them dead like mob spectators.

What I learned from the characters:-
* Handsome ML (*swoon* Vengo as Zhe Gu Shao) with skills and a tragic backstory, will eventually, slowly and surely, win over Xin Zhi Lei (Hua Ling) who is supposed to be the fierce man hater.
* Chen Yu Lou (Pan Yue Ming) acted brilliantly as the Xieling Sect leader who's trying to do the best he can for his men and his "people", yet nothing is good enough for his daddy until loads of blood has been shed.
* Luo Lao Wai (Cao Wei Yu) wow I HATED his character and was actively hoping this paragon of creating a hostile work environment and #1 sexual harasser would die so I could stop hearing his "laugh acting". Except, when he did ... I felt kind of sad.
* I won't name the other characters because it was like Game of Thrones, as SOON as I got attached to them, BAM out of nowhere, they die!! If this were a Korean drama they might have mysteriously survived but no, those types of wounds should be fatal, and the realism is appreciated.

Moral of the story: Tomb raiding is lucrative, BUT dangerous as all heck. Over 200 people must have died to the traps, the critters, the wildlife, the curse(s), the undead and the backstabbing humans infected by the deadly selfishness "treasure fever" who lose all sense of conscience and think killing other humans means a bigger share. Personally I don't think it's worth it, and maybe the high risk is WHY those tomb robbing clans are going extinct.

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