Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

Batman. Jack the Ripper. When the Dark Knight takes on the most infamous serial killer of all time, who wins? Fans of DC animation, as it happens. The premier Elseworlds tale comes to the small screen in this adaptation of Mike Mignola’s 1989 classic Gotham by Gaslight, pitting a Victorian-era Batman against the Ripper himself. Or an alternate universe version, anyway.

Don’t go expecting the pitch-black Gothic mystery of Mignola’s graphic novel though: this animated movie is the loosest of adaptations, taking the story’s magnificent hook and discarding almost everything else. Batman and the Ripper brawl their way across the rooftops and gardens of Victorian Gotham City, even finding the time to punch one another aboard a moving zeppelin as they go. It’s a far cry from the thoughtful slasher story of Mignola’s work, closer in tone and style to Guy Richie’s Sherlock Holmes than the DC Hammer movie it should have been.

Nevertheless, Gotham by Gaslight is a minor return to form for DC’s animated sector, putting the rest of their recent output to shame (the charming Adam West movies aside, of course – no, we’re looking at you, Killing Joke and Batman and Harley Quinn). The action is cinematic and flows smoothly, the animation far better than it has been recently (looking at you this time, Justice League Dark and anything which features stupid chin-strap Batman). It’s curiously overlit and Batman looks quite ridiculous in his Victorian costume, but Bruce Timm’s Animated Series influence shines through, not quite meshing with the Mignola influence, but almost working, all the same.

The voice acting, however, is the film’s strongest suit. On paper, Bruce Greenwood – who played the Caped Crusader back in 2006’s Under the Red Hood  movie – might have been nobody’s first choice to play the Batman, but he’s a natural, his performance nicely reminiscent of fan favourite Kevin Conroy. Jennifer Carpenter too, is good fun as Selina Kyle. The widening of the story’s roster to take in characters such as Selina and Harvey Dent (not to mention a version of the Scarecrow!) is predictable and shows a lack of confidence in the source material, but at least the Joker isn’t shoehorned in there. Anthony Stewart Head, meanwhile, was born to play Alfred, and one bemoans his relatively small role in the proceedings.

In spite of its jettisoning of the classic source material and unsuitable visual style, Gotham by Gaslight should be counted as one of the studio’s now-rare successes. In spite of its flaws, it’s a ripping good tale.

Special Features: Audio commentary / Caped Fear: The First Elseworld featurette / Sneak peek at Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay / Batman: The Animated Series and Batman: The Brave and the Bold episodes

BATMAN: GOTHAM BY GASLIGHT / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: SAM LIU / SCREENPLAY: JAMES KRIEG / STARRING: BRUCE GREENWOOD, JENNIFER CARPENTER, TARA STRONG, YURI LOWENTHAL, KARI WUHRER, SCOTT PATTERSON, ANTHONY STEWART HEAD / RELEASE DATE: FEBRUARY 5TH

Sandwiched between Dario Argento’s mesmerising debut movie The Bird with The Crystal Plumage and the up-tempo madness of Four Flies on Grey Velvet, industrial espionage thriller Cat O’Nine Tails is the overlooked middle child in boggle-eyed auteur’s ‘Animals Trilogy’. The tale of blind former journalist-turned crossword designer played by Karl Malden who investigates murders linked to genetic research into the criminal psychosis chromosome, it hardly breaks the giallo mould but goes through the motions with finesse.

The casting is spot-on. Malden’s probing into the case leads him to join forces with a fellow journalist Carlo Giordani, who, in the hands of James Franciscus (fresh from Beneath the Planet of the Apes) brings just the right degree of crusading gravitas. Young Cinzia de Carolis as Malden’s granddaughter assists them without once making you want to stick your boot through the TV like most other child actors, while French actress Catherine Spaak as the inevitable mysterious women at the heart of the mystery has the ice maiden routine nailed.

Back in the 1980s, when the only way to get hold of Argento’s work uncut was on low-generation VHS bootlegs with atrocious sound and murky picture, his earlier works failed to impress next to the audio-visual assault of Deep Red, Suspiria, Inferno and Tenebrae. Now remastered in 4K with all the bells and whistles we’ve come to expect from Arrow, The Cat O’ Nine Tails positively bristles with stylish confidence. The night-time cinematography and widescreen compositions are often exquisite and the murder scenes, while relatively restrained, are staged with Argento’s signature theatricality. Indeed, the railway terminus killing of Dr. Calabresi near the start of the film is one of the most bizarre and beautifully choreographed of Argento’s career. The mounting paranoia is accented by a score from the great Ennio Morricone, who was sprinkling his music like confetti at this point in time.

The set is rounded off by a decent set of extras including new interviews with Argento, co-writer Dardano Sacchetti, actress Cinzia De Carolis and production manager Angelo Iacono. Argento doesn’t hide his antipathy towards the film, particularly the American stylings he brought to it, something he was ‘guilty’ of throughout his career so it’s odd that he singles this out as the worst offender. Anyway, he freely admits his concerns at the time receded as soon as he realised he had another box office hit on his hands. Those were the days, eh Dario?

THE CAT O’ NINE TAILS (1971) / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: DARIO ARGENTO / SCREENPLAY: DARIO ARGENTO / STARRING: KARL MALDEN, JAMES FRANCISCUS, CINZIA DE CAROLIS CATHERINE SPAAK / RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 29TH

The title of this brisk, atmospheric, occasionally-creepy 1964 low budget black and white British alien invasion thriller is quite the misnomer. There’s a bit of terrified shrieking going on now and again but the Earth dies with a bit of a whimper, the human race subjugated by what’s assumed to be a surreptitious gas attack prior to the arrival of stalking silver robots who wander around zapping any survivors and turning them into glassy-eyed zombies. But we’re willing to give The Earth Dies Screaming a pass on its misleading title because it’s far better than its lurid title might suggest and a pretty decent example of a typically-British apocalyptic tale in the vein Day of the Triffids or some of the works of John Christopher.

The first five minutes, in particular, are terrific and still unsettling fifty-odd years later. Humanity is dying. Trains hurtle off the tracks, planes drop out of the sky, a car drives into a wall, people are dropping like flies. Into a desolate English village dotted with corpses and crashed cars drives rather mature American test pilot Jeff Nolan (Parker. He’s quickly joined by a group of remarkably upper class fellow survivors, the usual mix of the naïve and the shifty beloved of post-apoc fiction of the era. They’re just starting to formulate a survival plan when two blank-faced silver-suited robots arrive in the village – it’s hard  to imagine that they didn’t influence the look of Doctor Who’s Cybermen, who debuted on TV a year or so later – and shuffle around looking for survivors to kill.

Running for little over an hour, The Earth Dies Screaming moves at a fair old clip and it certainly doesn’t hang about. The robots (we never see more than two of them in action at any time) look a bit cut-price but they’re actually quite effective in their remorselessness as they stroll unhurriedly about the village courtesy of the plentiful striking location filming. Regular Hammer director Terence Fisher creates a couple of genuinely-tense sequences as one of the robots gazes balefully through a window at one of the survivors at night and the ‘zombified’ humans languidly pursue Peggy (Field) around the hotel the group have initially gathered in. It’s actually quite a bleak and pessimistic scenario with no easy resolution despite its rather hurried and convenient finale and in many ways it’s a shame the film wraps up so quickly as there’s still plenty of dramatic potential in the story which another twenty or thirty minutes could have comfortably developed. As a result the film’s over and done before it’s even really started and consequently it was never destined to be remembered as a landmark lo-fi British genre movie. It is, however, despite its limitations, one of the better schlocky B-movies of the era and it’s heartening to see it resurrected on this crisp new Blu-ray edition which is thoroughly recommended to fans of good old fashioned British genre movies from an age long before flashy CGI took so much of the homespun fun out of the genre.

Extras: Commentary, trailer, posters and images.

THE EARTH DIES SCREAMING (1964) / CERT: 12 / DIRECTOR: TERENCE FISHER / SCREENPLAY: HENRY CROSS / STARRING: WILLARD PARKER, DENNIS PRICE, VIRGINIA FIELD, DAVID SPENSER, THORLEY WALTERS, ANNA PALK, VANDA GODSELL / RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 29TH

The first Starship Troopers, closely following the style of Robocop, writer Ed Neumeier’s debut collaboration with director Paul Verhoeven, was a searing satire on neo-Nazism that incorporated all the trappings of 1940s fascism transposed into outer space and re-envisioned for a generation that would eventually produce a president like Donald Trump. But there’s no point in creating satire that only appeals to those who already agree with your point of view, and Verhoeven’s film certainly contained enough carnage to cater to the knuckleheads who might take it on face value.

Just like Robocop, Starship Troopers spawned a cottage industry that the writer has found himself trapped inside, and here he is twenty years on, reuniting with star Casper van Dien for the third time in this fourth sequel. Neumeier’s sense of satire hasn’t left him, and despite the law of diminishing returns blighting the franchise – we’re firmly into animated sequel territory here – Traitor of Mars is in some respects quite a pointed polemic on the perils of isolationism. Brexiteers will undoubtedly miss the point.

With maverick Johnny Rico having been demoted to a training station on Mars, far from the Bug fight, there’s obviously more going on than meets the eye. New Sky Marshall Amy Snapp (Neves) is unhappy about Mars’ bid for independence, and with a perfect fall guy in the form of our returning psychic Carl Jenkins (Doran, with Neil Patrick Harris’ career having taken him elsewhere), she has a plan afoot that will side-line those pesky Red Planeters permanently. What she doesn’t count on is the dogged persistence of unkillable Rico and ex-girlfriend Carmen Ibanez (Christian, replacing Denise Richards) – or indeed his other ex-girlfriend (the dead one) Dizzy (Meyer, making a ‘surprise’ return).

Like the animated Resident Evil films, this is an instalment that knows exactly what it wants to be and hits all its targets squarely on the jaw. The double-dealing that underpins the plot is so apparent it barely counts as intrigue at all, and this being Starship Troopers we don’t mind the characters lacking in dimension; Neumeier’s film series have always favoured ideas over authenticity anyway – and the animation is so slick it’s only when our protagonists remove their helmets that we truly realise it isn’t live action. So our quirk-distinguished heroes are thrown into a variety of situations, with the next bout of shooting or blowing things up never more than a few minutes away.

It’s not overly engaging, and other than in its politics it doesn’t say an awful lot. But that’s beside the point; this is a colourful thrill rush for the fans who enjoyed the colourful thrill rush of the original film, and in those terms it does its job.

Special Features: Five featurettes

STARSHIP TROOPERS: TRAITOR OF MARS / CERT: 12 / DIRECTOR: SHINJI ARAMAKI, MASARU MATSUMOTO / SCREENPLAY: EDWARD NEUMEIER / STARRING: CASPER VAN DIEN, DINA MEYER, DeRAY DAVIS, LUCI CHRISTIAN, EMILY NEVES, JUSTIN DORAN / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Many horror films – be they classic (Halloween) or cult (Puppet Master) – have inspired a franchise, some are forgettable, some are fun and some are just at the point of sheer madness. The lineage of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre can most certainly be placed under the latter description. Tobe Hooper’s 1974 horror milestone is a peak that has arguably never been bettered in terms of the depraved lengths it went, the terrifying low-budget impact and the visual grot that coated its survival story and warped characters. It remains, to this very day, a film that is the very definition of horror but the series it has inspired is, shall we say, debateable.

Hooper’s vastly differently toned sequel in 1986 was a cult gem but after that darkly comic sequel, the rest of the franchise has grown either more convoluted, seedy, drab or downright stupid (although this writer would controversially argue a case for 2013’s much-hated Texas Chainsaw 3D, which was a bit messy but mostly enjoyable). However, we now are going back in time (again) for Leatherface, which tells the story of how the transvestite, skin-wearing, chainsaw-wielding, cannibal came to be…well kind of.

This prequel opens with the sinister Sawyer family getting young Jedidiah clued up on the family business of butchery, however when a Texas Ranger’s daughter becomes a casualty of these twisted initiations, he confiscates young Jedidiah from the family and puts him into a mental institution. Years later, a group of inmates from the oppressive institution, alongside a kidnapped nurse, break free and go on the run, as the vengeful Ranger goes to hunt down the group, but is one of them Jedidiah Sawyer?

You have to praise Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo (best known as the directors of Inside) for approaching the mythos from a different slant but in their attempts to recapture the original’s gruesome grot and heart-stopping shocks they pull all manner of gory tricks out of the bag. Sadly, the end result is a film that feels more desperate (see: necrophilia) than coherent or necessary and is another misfiring attempt at matching Hooper’s original achievement. Admittedly, it is not as dreadful as the likes of the repellent Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning or Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation but it is an unsatisfying origin to an icon of the genre.

Despite the best efforts of Stephen Dorff as Ranger Hartman and Lili Taylor as Sawyer family matriarch Verna, who are both excellent here, and some grisly moments of promise, Leatherface just feels unsure. The plot’s re-invention of Jedidiah over complicates matters and come the – quite guessable – twist, the film shifts so spontaneously into action for the finale that there is no real explanation for why Jed is as he is. An initially sympathetic tone bizarrely comes to be entirely flipped and it is as though pieces of vital information are missing from the screen and when all is said and done, all the film expresses is that a monster is born as a result of a nasty cut on his cheek and a limp.

Leatherface bares little resemblance to what inspired it and while the intention to be different was certainly there, the story was not and fans will likely forget it as soon as the credits roll. Sadly, Leatherface is another iffy entry into the increasingly dicey franchise.

LEATHERFACE / CERT: 18 / DIRECTORS: JULIEN MAURY, ALEXANDRE BUSTILLO / SCREENPLAY: SETH M. SHERWOOD / STARRING: STEPHEN DORFF, LILI TAYLOR, SAM STRIKE / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

It seems that pretty much anything and everything is fair game for a remake, reboot, reimagining or rejig these days, and so the news that a new take on 1990’s Flatliners was in development was met with a nonplussed reaction by most. Arriving in cinemas last year, that redo is now set to arrive on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital download, with the bigger question, of course, being whether the film is actually any good. So, let’s find out.

For those not familiar with either this picture or its 1990 counterpart, the basic premise centres on a group of medical students – Ellen Page, Diego Luna, Nina Dobrev, James Norton, and Kiersey Clemons – who have the ambitious aim of exploring what happens after death. Each taking turns at having their hearts stopped, when brought back to life each of the group are not only given increased intelligence and brain capacity, but they also soon become haunted by the sins of their respective pasts as nightmarish visions begin to plague them. With the terror of these hauntings only intensifying, the group are left with no choice but to face up to their bad decisions and attempt to right these wrongs before further tragedy strikes.

As a psychological horror, Flatliners does indeed offer up a few good and effective jump scares as the plot unravels and the terror level is raised, and it’s also entertaining to see the group become increasingly cocksure and arrogant before the horror begins to amplify. Performance-wise, all the principal players do well with what they’re given, with Nina Dobrev and James Norton particularly stealing the show as their characters begin to have their own backstories fleshed out. For fans of the ’90 movie, there’s also a role here for original star Keifer Sutherland. Despite Sutherland himself claiming that he was reprising his Nelson Wright role and that this new Flatliners would actually be a sequel to that film, instead he’s here in a completely new role as he serves as a mentor figure to the group, firmly cementing this as definitely a remake and definitely not a sequel.

Let’s face it, the original Flatliners wasn’t actually all that great, and that’s sadly something that is applicable to this redo. Don’t get us wrong, it’s not totally horrendous – or dare we puntastically say ‘dead on arrival’ – just not particularly anything worth going out of your way for; ultimately posing the question of why this remake was given the go-ahead in the first place.

What we end up with is a relatively paint-by-numbers effort that only rarely surprises yet is decent enough to pass a few hours. The atmospheric tension and horror is rather impressive when it arrives, but you can’t help but feel that Flatliners would’ve been far more effective and an all-round better movie if it would’ve fully embraced the horror aspect stronger and sooner, leaving you with a sense of what could’ve been.

Where the rest of the disc is concerned, we have several featurettes included as bonus content – the pick of the bunch being the Reviving a Cult Classic featurette which takes a look back at the 1990 film while similarly showcasing the production of this 2017 take.

Special Features: Four featurettes / Trailers / Deleted and extended scenes

FLATLINERS / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: NILES ARDEN OPLEV / SCREENPLAY: BEN RIPLEY / STARRING: ELLEN PAGE, DIEGO LUNA, NINA DOBREV, JAMES NORTON, KIERSEY CLEMONS, KIEFER SUTHERLAND / RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 22ND (DIGITAL), FEBRUARY 5TH (BLU-RAY, DVD)

The popular expression ‘well, that’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back’ will have never been more appropriately uttered than by anyone who chooses to give up their precious time to experience this messy, pretentious, barely-watchable vanity project instigated in 1965 (and releases two years later) by Dino De Laurentiis in the hopeless, if commendable, desire to raise the profile of his actress then-wife Silvana Mangano. Who, you may cry? Well quite; job not done.

The Witches (or Le Streghe) is a terrible, pointless film even making allowances for the crazy, random excesses of the psychedelic 1960s and truly appalling dubbing on the English language version. Despite its title, there’s absolutely nothing supernatural going on in any of the five stories which make up this shonky ‘portmanteau’ effort unless your definition of ‘witches’ runs to strong, powerful female leads who take matters into their own hands and control their own destinies in a world dominated by men. The film’s quintet of stories are uniformly ill-disciplined, catastrophically irritating and utterly unengaging. None of them are helped by the fact that Mangano herself isn’t exactly Oscar nomination thespian material and she lacks the versatility and screen presence necessary to breathe life into five disparate, if rather dull, characters. The first and last stories (the longest) are the best of a bad bunch. In the opener, ‘The Witch Burned Alive’ a drunken evening leads to unpleasant revelations about the life of a famous, if shallow, actress. Clint Eastwood, at this point in his career post-spaghetti western and on the cusp of a successful Hollywood rebirth, stars as an estranged, listless husband in ‘An Evening Like the Others’ which does at least give him the chance to show a talent for light comedy which his later career would rarely offer. It’s still not much cop though. The film is padded out with two four-minute stories; in ‘Civic Sense’ Mangano plays an Italian motorist who gives an injured driver a lift to a hospital but uses him to help her speed across Rome more quickly (little hilarity ensues) and ‘The Sicilian’s Wife’ is a blink-and-you-missed-it revenge story.  If you’re able to endure Pasolini’s absurd, surreal-to-the-point-of-utter-idiocy ‘The Earth as Seen From the Moon’ without turning the air blue and wishing cinema had never been invented then you probably deserve a medal – or, more likely, urgent medical attention.

In fairness, lovers of obscure European cinema might find The Witches’ elusive charms easier to access. But apart from a jaunty Morricone score, a lively animated title sequence and an uncharacteristic performance from Eastwood (the film was never released outside Italy due to the perceived risk of Eastwood’s rising star being dragged to earth by his appearance in something as offbeat as The Witches) there’s nothing of real interest here and certainly nothing to constitute an enjoyable and satisfying movie experience. In short; this is nonsense.

Extras: Commentaries, Ninetto Davoli interview, English language version.

THE WITCHES (1967)  /CERT: 12 / DIRECTORS: MAURO BOLOGNINI, PIER PAOLO PASOLINI, VITTORIO DE SICA, LUCHINO VISCONTI, FRANCO ROSSI / SCREENPLAY: AGE AND SCARPELLI, MAURO BOLOGNINI, LUIGI MAGNI, BERNADINO ZAPPONI, FABIO CARPI, GUISEPPI PATRONI GRIFFI, CESARE  ZAVATTINI, ROBERTO GIANVITI, ENZO MUZII / STARRING: SILVANA MANGANO, TOTO, NINETTO DAVOLI, CLINT EASTWOOD / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

‘POWs in Vietnam… starved in captivity… released with a taste for human flesh.’ Margheriti’s notorious 1980 nasty does pretty much what it says on the cover. Three Vietnam veterans (played by Saxon, Radice, and Tony King) return home from the war to find that what they first assumed to be post-traumatic stress disorder turns out to be a variant strain of rabies: a contagious virus that turns people into cannibals when bitten. Pretty soon there’s panic on the streets of Atlanta, Georgia as the three fugitives flee the authorities to start spreading violence and mayhem.

Cannibal Apocalypse has a chequered history over here. It first swept up on UK shores in the pre-VRA days as a Replay Video VHS. Placed on the video nasty list in the early ‘80s, it was prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act and subsequently banned from home video/DVD until 2005. Cinema Club released the film that year with cuts, and since then, Optimum has put it out in 2010 (also cut).

There’s the usual indifferent Italian horror movie dubbing (plus Alexander Blonksteiner’s music score is a mishmash of musical styles) and some risible dialogue but Cannibal Apocalypse remains an energetic and enjoyable gorefest with some interesting ideas. Radice stands out as the disturbed Vietnam vet struggling to readjust (this was made two years before Rambo debuted in First Blood); Saxon gives a typically solid performance as his equally troubled commanding officer who ultimately has to accept what they have become. There’s some medical mumbo-jumbo to bridge the film’s crossover from war drama to virus horror (“It’s a biological mutation brought about by psychiatric alteration”) and a running theme about deviancy in America (“Is he a subversive, a queer, a black, a commie or a Moslem fanatic?”).

Extras on the disc include an essay on the film’s turbulent US censorship history; an alternate US opening sequence; poster and stills gallery; the Japanese trailer (the film’s most infamous gore moment features prominently); the European theatrical trailer and a short documentary, Apocalypse in the Streets, which takes us on a tour of the Atlanta locations. Missing from this release from Australia’s Umbrella Entertainment is the 60-minute ‘making of’ documentary included on Image Entertainment’s unrated American R1 disc. The two seconds of animal cruelty (a rat being set on fire with a flamethrower) – which remain cut by the BBFC in UK releases – appear to be intact here, making this version fully uncut. However, for those complete extras, you might also want to check out the above-mentioned Image Entertainment’s (also uncut) R1 before you buy.

CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE (1980) / CERT: 18/ DIRECTOR: ANTONIO MARGHERITI/ SCREENPLAY: ANTONIO MARGHERITI, DARDANO SACCHETTI / STARRING: JOHN SAXON, ELIZABETH TURNER, GIOVANNI LOMBARDO RADICE / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Every now and then, cinema gives us certain independent drama films that are so psychologically thought-provoking and occasionally intense that they would stay in your head for days afterwards for you to take in and process. Sweet Virginia is like one of those films, although it’s nowhere near as exceptional as some other intense indie thrillers like Wind River. However, though it is gripping in certain areas, it’s not a completely satisfying experience.

This is, without a question, a very powerful film with a lot to admire and appreciate; most notably, the cast and what they all offer to the movie. The Punisher himself, Jon Bernthal, is a great mesmerising lead with real weight, determination, and intensity behind his eyes, while also having a raw vulnerable side to him that makes him all the more compelling. Christopher Abbott delivers an excellent portrayal as the chillingly unhinged and psychotic Elwood, and Imogen Poots proves once again to be an immensely solid actress.

The narrative is well-constructed and taught, while also being rich and deep with its exploration of the intricacies of complex, difficult relationships with people who are more than what they initially appear to be. It’s a detailed story that unfolds well as it goes on and it certainly delivers just how a good thriller should do. There are intricately detailed identities for each of these characters that help ground the film in gritty realism and the film is very well-directed and structured by Jamie M. Dagg, however, the pacing is slow and somewhat drags the film in a lot of areas when it needed more pace to it. With so much to depict and exploit on screen, accelerating the pace would have added more dramatic tension, in turn heightening the excitement factor, and thus would’ve made the film more engaging. Addressing certain aspects of the story, too, would’ve made things more comprehensive.

Despite its flaws, Sweet Virginia is a suspense-filled, tension-built thriller with a palpable sense of dread and gloom felt throughout that adds to the strong performances, as well as the drama. It does feel somewhat underdone and is perhaps too consistently low key for this reviewer’s tastes, but deserves a watch when you are able to.

SWEET VIRGINIA / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: JAMIE M. DAGG / SCREENPLAY: BENJAMIN CHINA, PAUL CHINA / STARRING: JON BERNTHAL, IMOGEN POOTS, CHRISTOPHER ABBOTT, ROSEMARIE DEWITT / RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 15TH

Breaking domestic records (albeit in controversial fashion, too complicated to go into here) on its 2015 release to become the then highest grossing film in Chinese cinema history, Raman Hui’s debut children’s feature (having helmed shorts in the Shrek and Kung Fu Panda franchises) arrives on Blu-ray and DVD to test Western audiences with its very idiosyncratic Asian stylings.

Jing Boran is Tianyin, ineffectual mayor of a tiny village near the border of the mountain region where mankind has banished the monsters from which they have appropriated the Earth. When his barely-patronised restaurant is visited by both an eccentric couple and a rather dashing young lady, Tianyin becomes entangled in a scenario that has parallels with his father’s disappearance, a hero of the Monster Hunt Bureau who patrols the borderlands keeping mankind free of the vanquished creatures. It seems that after several years of peace, the live-action world is about to be visited by animated beasts once again…

That’s just the premise; the way the plot develops is as singular as the film’s character designs – and if you think you can face all-singing all-dancing trolls, pregnant principal men and enormous dragons zipped up inside regular-sized human skin-suits, Monster Hunt could be just your thing. If that all sounds rather more grown-up than a film which purports to be Hong Kong’s answer to Shrek, then that’s just an example of how sensibilities differ from one continent to another. This is a PG film (reclassified 12 for home video) featuring literal bone-crunching violence alongside impossibly cute character designs, with plenty of visceral fight sequences and some pretty broad comedy.

It’s the pairing of Jing and Bai Baihe as young would-be monster hunter Xiaolan that makes the admittedly rather overlong film such an effortless watch. Despite his clumsiness and her initially sullen attitude, they each manage to be both endearing and sexy, and the chemistry between them is palpable. The rest of the characters, often crudely drawn, are equally agreeable, and even without the monsters, your attention would be held.

But those monsters. Dropped into some stunning cinematography, the designs are worlds away from what we in the West might produce, so initially, there’s a sense of dislocation in seeing them. But they grow on you, if you allow them, such that after a while you’re treating them almost as you would any of the other characters.

Younger children especially might struggle with the pace of the subtitles, and older ones with the overabundance of cuteness, but those who manage to make it through the cultural differences will find Monster Hunt a charming, emotionally engaging and moreover intelligent film, one which will handsomely repay their suspension of some admittedly quite wilful disbelief.
Extras: trailer, extremely brief making of.

MONSTER HUNT (ZHUO YAO JI) / CERT: 12 / DIRECTOR: RAMAN HUI / SCREENPLAY: ALAN YUEN / STARRING: BAIHE BAI, BORAN JING, WU JIANG / RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 29TH