The Knight of Shadows: Between Yin and Yang 神探蒲松龄之兰若仙踪

Not really a Jackie Chan starring film with little in the form of martial arts instead foregoing CGI and cutesy animal characters.

Directed by Vash Yan Jia

Starring: Jackie Chan, Elane Zhong Chuxi, Ethan Juan, Lin Peng, Austin Lin

China, Mandarin

Approx. 108 mins

2019

One cannot ask Jackie Chan to return to his death dying roles of the past but there still a certain expectation for Chan to deliver mild entertainment. Granted his output of late has been a very mixed bag the likes of Kung Fu Yoga, Chinese Zodiac and Bleeding Steel all middling affairs. So it is baffling why Chan would select visual effects heavy project as a vehicle, The Knight of Shadows: Between Yin and Yang is a CGI feature through and through with a very messy story. The film covers a fictional version of real life 17th century author Pu Songlin, creator of Strange Stories from a Chinese Studiowhich included supernatural Chinese tales, that films such as A Chinese Ghost Story and the Painted Skin franchises were loosely based on.

Pu Songling (Jackie Chan) is a local demon hunter and storyteller who spends most days harbouring friendly creature and pedaling his stories to the local children. The disappearance of local village girls call upon Pu Songlin’s abilities and he is teamed up with constable Yan Fei (Austin Lin) to investigate the case. They unearth that the cause of the strange goings are that of a mirror demon (Lin Peng) and a snake demon Nie Xiaoqian (Elane Zhong). Pursuing Xiaoqian is warrior Yan Chixia (Ethan Juan) who has a complex relationship with the snake demon. Soon everyone crosses paths and Pu Songlin and Yan band together to take down the evil Snake Demon.

This is Vash Yan Jia’s second feature film after his 2014’s Bugs, though The Knight of Shadows is not an absolute train wreck it is not something we come to a Jackie Chan film for. The film attempts to infuse the complex love story of the classic A Chinese Ghost Story and include cutesy creature in an effort to cash in on the highly successful Monster Huntfilms. Yet its romance is completely devoid of emotion or resonance, the characters seem to come out of left field and the film makers never invest the time in the their love story. The little creatures are childish and there supposedly cute antics can grate. A mid-section event which involves the creatures doing something that puts everyone in peril is stupidly absurd.

The film tries to be everything but fails to satiate any, the comedy is immature, the drama ineffective, story is scattered, characters pointless and romance weak. Yet with all its negatives there is minor enjoyment to be had with Jackie Chan returning to his lovable and carefree persona that audiences have been accustomed. Oddly enough Jackie Chan is subjected to costar status with Ethan Juan given the crux of the story despite not appearing till midway. Ethan Juan is a decent actor which can be seen in Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings (2018) and The Guillotines (2012) yet here he gives a nonperformance coming across as rather bored, he never effectively demonstrate any emotions and the lack of chemistry between him and Elane Zhong hurts the story majorly. It is not helped that there love story is so woefully underdeveloped with no build up, the film just jumps into the middle of their emotional turmoil and it never goes anywhere from there. Elane Zhong showed great screen presence in her film debut Youth (2017) directed by Feng Xiaogang and here she nuanced performance fluctuating from seduction, menace and passion with ease and her beauty surely helps convince her seductive nature but sadly neither her nor Ethan Juan can match the powerhouse that was Leslie Cheung and Joey Wang whom their respective roles are modelled from. Taiwanese actor Austin Lin is given a thankless role of comic relief and it can be rather hit or miss, he throws himself in the comedy but the material given is questionable. Then there is Lin Peng, a Jackie Chan discovery seen in Little Big Soldier (2010), Chinese Zodiac (2012) and Dragon Blade (2015) who is given a very thankless role that serves little purpose. The voice acting for the little CGI critters is pretty grating with it obviously being an adult actor altering their voices to make the sound of a child.

Those that come to a Jackie Chan looking for fights will be hugely disappointed, handling action is Jackie Chan regular He Jun whose credits include Little Big Soldier, Dragon Blade, Chinese Zodiac and Railroad Tigers and have demonstrated skills of creating entertaining choreography. At moments there are hints of creativity for example a fight within a mirror store which applied some fun humour and creative fights, with the mirrors used as portals and Jackie Chan’s upper half getting separated from his lower half but these moments are few. It’s also odd that Jackie Chan’s Pu Songlin character supposedly lacks fight prowess but on countless occasions he demonstrates some combat skills, it seems like a conflicting idea that the film makers couldn’t quite settle on and can be jarring.

The film is visual effects galore and it can range from quality to pretty standard affairs but it never fully convinces. Creatures are rubbery and textureless failing to sell its believability. Backgrounds fair slightly better but the world created is never engaging. The finale is a massive CGI mess of floating objects and CGI bodies flying around, it’s not so dissimilar to moments like Wu Kong, The Myth or Thousand Faces of Dunjia. It’s a problem that seems to constantly plague Chinese visual effect heavy films.

This film is a case of throwing everything in and hoping it sticks. There’s action, comedy, love, drama and tragedy with everything in small dosages. This is hard to recommend to any film goers.