Reaction & Review | Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I am going to be covering a Chinese action movie from 2015. That movie is "Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe".

I'm gonna tell you, guys, I don't really know much about this movie. I can tell you that it's an action movie from China. Which I think might be the first film in this series that I've covered anything from China. I could be totally wrong on that, but I digress.

Now, from what little information that I looked up on this movie, apparently, this movie is also an adaptation of a best selling novel from 2006 called "Ghost Blows Out the Light". Which was written Zhang Muye, who also is one of the four writers for this movie. I don't know how that's going to bode well for the movie. Because, I have heard that having multiple people writing a script for a movie tends to, ultimately, bring disaster. That isn't always the case, but I have heard it happens a lot.

Now since I have never heard of the novel that this movie is, supposedly, based on, I'm going to see this thing and view it for what it is. And who knows? Maybe this movie will end up being pretty good. But the only way I'm gonna find out if this movie will be any good or not, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe."

19 minutes later

All right, guys, this movie teaches you a very valuable lesson. If you catch a small bat in this world that is rumored to have a ghostly civilization, don't try to catch it with your hand. Otherwise, your entire body will be engulfed in flames, and eventually be left with nothing but your skeleton corpse. That is a lesson to fucking learn, guys.

14 minutes later

Well, I'd like to say that I cared about the Captain dying...but since he was the one who kinda fucked up on his own end, I can't say that I do. So really, I'm kinda happy he's dead now.

9 minutes later

So this restaurant has an Elvis impersonator singing about Genghis Khan. That is...actually kinda funny. Also, the song's pretty good, too. I wasn't expecting that.

13 minutes later

So, let me see if I understand this. So these monsters that were released earlier in the movie have now terrorized a children's play and destroyed most of the buildings in town. And now this movie is trying to tell us that the entire town has disappeared from view and can't be located. I have a question. If there were a ton of casualties, along with most of the buildings destroyed, then how does an entire town disappear like that? If most of the buildings were destroyed, then that should mean there a few buildings in place, right? That way, you could be able to locate this town easily. I'm really curious, guys, and I hope this movie attempts to try and explain that.

17 minutes later

All right, guys, I think now might be a good time to mention this. The score in this movie is really good. I'm really digging the music in this movie, so far. The movie, itself, has also been pretty good, too. I kinda wish the pacing was a little bit better. But, so far, I'm still interested enough to keep watching.

15 minutes later

Oh...so that's what happened to the bodies that were in the theater earlier on. That was...kinda sick, guys.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe". Let me shut the movie off...OK. Well...that was certainly an interesting movie. You know, I wasn't really sure what I was getting myself into before watching this movie. Because the only thing I knew about it was that it was an adaptation of a novel I had never heard of. And you know what? After watching this, I'm kinda interested to go and check out the novel this thing was based on. So, let's talk about the writing, shall we?

The one thing I was kinda concerned about going into this movie was that, there were four people who had a hand in writing this movie, including the guy who wrote the novel. And as I mentioned earlier, when you have a group of four writers trying to write a movie, it usually would involve a ton of problems. The main problem being focus. And while some of those problems are in this movie, it's not really enough to kill it. And I want to start with the main problem that I had with this movie's writing, and that would be the pacing.

Now as I mentioned earlier, the story in this movie is pretty good. We have our main character, Hu Bayi, who is with this team of volunteer soldiers as they discover a lost civilization. And according to Hu Bayi, this ancient civilization belonged to ancient beings known as the Ghostly Tribe. And he's accompanied by Yang Ping, who he has a love interest with. Professor Yang, who is Yang Ping's father. And a Captain who doesn't really have much of a role outside sacrificing himself after Yang and Hu release the monsters, which I'm going to assume are the Ghostly Tribe from the shrine. And from there, the movie jumps ahead several years later to where Hu Bayi learns that Professor Yang is still alive and along with a girl, who is code-named Shirley. And he believes that it's Yang Ping, even though she supposedly died by this giant monster in the water, after the group escaped from some firebats. Plus also, that she looks a lot like Yang Ping. And the movie is basically a mixture of a mystery film and an action movie. And the action here is fine. But also the mystery of what these Ghostly Tribe monsters are and how our heroes can stop them before they destroy all of human kind. Mind you, most of what I summarized is an abridged version of the story. Because if I were to talk about any more of it, it would result in me talking about heavy spoilers.

Now, all of that aside, where does the pacing come in? Well, most of this story feels...spaced out. Because we'll have moments of downtime where nothing happens. And then at a later point, we go back to the story, and then we get some more downtime, and the same goes as follows. For example, we get to see Hu Bayi travel with a group across the desert, as they are trying to reach Oil Town. Because that's the town where the monsters appeared and, according to this movie, could not be located. Which, now that I think about it, is kind of a plothole. Because if it was reported that most of the buildings were destroyed and there were a ton of casualties, then how does anyone even know about those kind of details, especially if the town itself has completely disappeared? It was kinda bothering me throughout the movie, and I don't think the movie properly explained it all that well. But anyway, as I was mentioning, Hu Bayi's group travels to Oil Town. And as they're exploring the town, they notice that a few people from their group disappeared. And thus, we focus on that group, which consists of Fatty, who is a long time friend of Hu Bayi's, and several explorers. And we see them being chased by these creatures known as the Red Howlers. And, at that point, it really felt the like movie was padding itself out to almost two hours. And normally, that would be perfectly fine if the movie was taking it's time to flesh more of our characters, but that's also where another problem comes in. Well, sort of. I'll get to that in a moment.

The other problem is that there is some surprisingly lack of character of depth on most of these characters. The ones who get the most depth are Hu Bayi, Yang Ping, and Professor Yang. And while that's all well and good, we're also introduced to the other group that travels with Hu Bayi in the desert. They really don't get a ton of depth, and that's mainly because they're brought well into the 1st hour of the movie. And because of that, we don't really have enough time to give these set of characters some sort of depth. The closest we get is that Fatty is in love with a girl named Weiwei, who is one of the travelers. And that's about as far as depth goes. We also have Dr. Chen, who's trying to find the monsters, and an old guy who literally has no character to speak, and then we have Shirley. I won't give away her character, but there's a plot twist at the end of the movie, and a lot of her depth is focused on that twist. And I will say that while I really like the twist, it does feel like the character depth was a bit rushed. I felt like it could've flowed better, had we gotten at least a small hint of it early on in the movie. Now I mentioned the lack of character depth and that I phrased it as "sort of" a problem. Why did I say it like that? Well, that's mainly because the story here is gonna keep you interested, regardless of a lack of depth on certain characters. I talked about it back in my review of "Transformers: The Movie", where a couple of characters in that movie didn't really have any kind of depth to speak of, but I was able to look past that. Because the story kept me interested to see where it was going. And "Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe" is in that same category, where some characters don't have a ton of depth, but it works, because they're not entirely the main focus of the movie. And the story, as I said, will keep you interested. And while there are some pacing issues, even then, it's gonna keep you hooked to the screen. At no time, will you feel like you're getting bored by it, because the writing is still strong enough to make you want to keep watching.

So, the writing, as I just said, is really good. What about the acting? Well, the acting here is really good, too. Mind you, there is no English dub for this movie. So I do have to warn you right now, that if you are curious about checking this movie out, I want to note that there is no English dub as an option. The only language that's available is the original Mandarin dub. But anyway, the acting here is really good. Nobody, as far as I can think of, turned in a showing that I would say is bad or phoned in any sort of fashion. Again though, I'm basing this off of the Mandarin dub, so take it for what you will. But overall, the acting here is stellar.

Now we move on to special effects. This movie has a lot of CG, from the monsters, to fire, and backgrounds of certain areas, such as the cave near the beginning of the movie. And all of that looks amazing. Including the firebats, save for one shot. So, near the beginning of the film, we see our voluntary soldiers traveling through the snowy mountains. And during this, they get attacked by the firebats. And while most of this looks cool, there is one shot where we see a close up of one of the firebats dodging a machine gun bullet. And while that sounds cool, the effect kinda looked like shit, and that's more so the bullet than the bat. Because the bullet looks like it was rendered out of a PlayStation 2 game. And that's kinda bad, really. Because everything else looks high end and awesome. It's just that bullet could've been rendered a lot better. But otherwise, special effects in this movie are mostly fantastic.

Camerawork is really good. There is one shot in editing that looked really noticeable. At least, to me, it did. And it's where Weiwei comes into the shot, but she doesn't come into the shot naturally. It looked like there was a jump cut because the sound didn't exactly flow perfectly as she came into the shot. Now granted, almost nobody's gonna notice that, or even care. But I noticed it and, to be honest, it kinda stood out to me. So, take it for what you will. Beyond that though, the lighting is well lit. The sound-mix is decent. The score is also really good. Because it captures the atmosphere in certain scenes really well, such as when Hu Bayi and his group are travelling across the desert. Or where Hu Bayi is eating at a restaurant, and the song that the Elvis impersonator performs is actually really good. By the way, a slight spoiler, the Elvis impersonator turns out to be Fatty, so there you go. Otherwise, music in this movie is great.

So, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe"? Definitely. The only things I have to warn you on is that the story is a little slow at times and that there is no English dub. But still, if you are someone who loves action and adventure movies, then this is certainly worth your time. The story's engaging, the special effects are certainly really good, and it really is a good movie. Mind you, now, it's not a great film. And I have seen far better adventure movies throughout my time, but that certainly isn't going to take away what this movie is. Which is, ultimately, a pretty solid movie.

And, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all in the near future. Peace.