Anyone who tells you this is a good movie was on drugs while watching it. Too much CGI, the main protagonists are unlikeable and the movies’ biggest sin? Wasting the amazing actor Kara Wai!

A warning: there will be some big spoilers here, but these will be needed to reveal some details of the movie so you can understand my issues with the movie. It mainly follows this girl played by Jessie Li who could see monsters since she was a child so her mother abandoned her at a mental hospital. I know we are meant to feel sorry for her but I really didn’t care because the actor really couldn’t carry it off. It felt like she was trying to act *gasp!* and lacked authenticity.

And then we have the male lead Shawn Yue as Meng who is a monster hunter. Everybody in the movie calls him rubbish and a second rate hunter and this is true, he really is useless. Near the end of the movie, while still being useless, he loses his left arm so he gets a new one from a side character called Uncle Ping who puts all his power into it. Even with his new arm he still sucks, and only wins his fight against a top hunter because of some dirty tricks and all the while was as graceful as a drunk horse. The final battle was poorly choreographed and there was way too much cgi and shakey cam it was almost impossible to follow.

There is this super crystal that can grant hunters immeasurable strength. Our main male lead gets this crystal and yet is unable to defeat out main big bad played by Kara Wai. Instead, the final battle is ended in 15 seconds as Jessie suddenly pulls a Yugioh and understands the heart of the cards and does one move… hold her hand out and then twist it like Aaron Kwok in his Never Ending Love MV. This defeats Kara somehow without any dramatic build up or awesome final confrontational struggle. Kara just stands and screams and boom done. Lame.

I just hate how they wasted Kara because she is a fantastic actor that just oozes charisma and malice. In this movie she just talks a bit and gets around with loads of cgi around her. It was one really lazy part for her and doesn’t allow her to show off her other acting chops. There is one scene she leans into a sculpture and basically rubs her chest over it during an exposition bit. Was that necessary?

And a massive plothole here is that that super crystal could be absorbed to power up anyone, why didn’t Kara Wai use it to power up? Instead she leaves it floating around her domain… that makes no sense. When Shawn appears in front if her near the end and she says “you have absorbed the power of the crystal?” No shit, what were you expecting to happen by leaving it there?

The best part of the movie? Paper. A character that can origami himself into any shape and is the comedy sidekick to Shawn. But again, it is CGI. The CGI is very good, but it cannot carry a movie that is poorly executed. Avoid this movie