Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

The Legend Of The Demon Cat (Well Go USA) Blu-ray Review

Collapse
X
Collapse
  •  
    Ian Jane
    Administrator

  • The Legend Of The Demon Cat (Well Go USA) Blu-ray Review



    Released by: Well Go USA
    Released on: October 22nd, 2019.
    Director: Kaige Chen
    Cast: Huang Xuan, Sometani Shota, Yuqi Zhang, Hao Qin, Hiroshi Abe
    Year: 2017
    Purchase From Amazon

    The Legend Of The Demon Cat - Movie Review:

    Kaige Chen's 2017 film The Legend Of The Demon Cat, based on a novel by Baku Yumemakura, is set in China's Tang Dynasty where we meet a poet and writer named Bai Letian (Huang Xuan) who resides in the city of Chang'an. Emperor Dezong is in charge, but not for long as after going a full week without sleep, he passes away - some believing him to have been possessed. Bai is tasked with heading the investigation into the Emperor's unusual death and, seemingly by chance, he winds up teaming with a Japanese monk named Kukai (Shota Sometani) to solve the mystery.

    The mystery, as it stands, is strange one - Kukai seems to believe that a demonic cat is actually what killed the Emperor. He's seen the cat skulking about the palace and realizes very quickly that there's more to this feline than initially meets the eye. As they go about their investigation, they learn the story of Yang Guifei, the concubine of Emperor Xuanzong (Zhang Luyi) years ago and who died under tragic and unusual circumstances. All of this, they learn, ties into their case.

    While The Legend Of The Demon Cat does have some pacing issues and a few too many subplots for its own good, it is nevertheless a worthwhile picture for fans of Chinese fantasy pictures or quirky murder mysteries. The CGI effects used to bring the titular cat to life don't always work so well (the cat, sadly, always looks digital rather than a living, breathing animal) but otherwise the effects work employed here is excellent. The use of color as well as both the set and costume design employed here is spectacular and by any standard, this is an absolutely gorgeous looking film. The score from Klaus Badelt and Misha Segal complements the visuals very well.

    The story itself is intriguing. Yeah, fine, it does go in a few too many directions in the second half and you could have trimmed fifteen-to-twenty minutes of the picture and helped with the pacing but there's enough here in terms of narrative structure and character development to engage the audience even during the film's slower moments. Knowing going into the film that there are moments where the picture will indulge in soap opera style melodrama is also probably a good thing, but it makes up for this with some intriguing action, suspense and mystery.

    Shota Sometani and Haung Xuan make for good leads. They're a likeable enough duo that we want to see how their story plays out. Although they do at times feel a little more modern than their surroundings, they do fine work in their respective roles, building rapport along the way and crafting interesting characters from the script.

    The Legend Of The Demon Cat - Blu-ray Review:

    The AVC encoded 2.40.1 widescreen 1080p high definition picture on this 25GB disc is excellent. Detail is strong, colors are reproduced beautifully - it's pretty much indisputable that, despite the questionable quality of the CGI cat, this is an absolutely gorgeous looking movie on a visual level - and Well Go's transfer exhibits very strong detail and texture. There are no issues at all with dirt, debris or visual detriments of any kind - which makes sense as this was shot digitally - and the disc is well authored, showing no noise reduction or heavy edge enhancement. Outside of some slight shimmer here and there, the movie looks really good on this disc.

    The main audio option on the disc is a Chinese language track provided in DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio with removable subtitles available in English only. The lossless track here is a good one, and there's just as much surround activity in the action set pieces as you could hope for. The score is spread around perfectly with some nice pans thrown in for dramatic effect. Bass response is consistently tight and strong but it never buries anything else in the mix. All in all, this is a nice, well directed mix that does a fine job with the movie. A Chinese Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track is also included as are English dubbed tracks in both DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo but unless you've got an aversion to subtitles watch the movie in its original language, it plays much better that way.

    Extras are slim, limited to English and Chinese language trailers for the feature, menus and chapter selection. Bonus trailers for a few other Well Go USA properties play before the main menu screen load.

    The Legend Of The Demon Cat - The Final Word:

    The Legend Of The Demon Cat has enough going on with its interesting characters and sumptuous visuals that we can overlook a couple of missteps as, overall, this is a pretty engaging and fairly unique fantasy picture that definitely entertains. Well Go USA's Blu-ray is light on extras but it looks and sounds very good. Recommended.

    Click on the images below for full sized The Legend Of The Demon Cat Blu-ray screen caps!






























      Posting comments is disabled.

    Latest Articles

    Collapse

    • Hot Spur (Severin Films) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Severin Films
      Released on: April 30th, 2024.
      Director: Lee Frost
      Cast: Joseph Mascolo, Virginia Goodman, John Alderman
      Year: 1969
      Purchase From Amazon

      Hot Spur – Movie Review:

      Director Lee Frost and Producer Bob Cresse's film, Hot Spur, opens in Texas in 1869 with a scene where a pair of cowboys wanders into a bar where they call over a pretty Mexican waitress and coerce her into dancing for them. She obliges, but
      ...
      03-22-2024, 11:53 AM
    • Death Squad (Mondo Macabro) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Mondo Macabro
      Released on: April 9th, 2024.
      Director: Max Pecas
      Cast: Thierry de Carbonnières, Jean-Marc Maurel, Denis Karvil, Lillemour Jonsson
      Year: 1985
      Purchase From Amazon

      Death Squad – Movie Review:

      Also known as Brigade Of Death, French sleaze auteur Max Pecas’ 1985 film, Death Squad, opens with a night time scene outside of Paris in the Bois de Boulogne Forest where cars pass by a small gang of transsexual
      ...
      03-22-2024, 11:46 AM
    • Roommates (Quality X) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Quality X
      Released on: February 28th, 2024.
      Director: Chuck Vincent
      Cast: Samantha Fox, Vernoica Hart, Kelly Nichols, Jerry Butler, Jamie Gillis
      Year: 1982
      Purchase From Amazon

      Roommates – Movie Review:

      Directed by Chuck Vincent and released in 1982, Roommates opens with a scene where a young woman named Joan Harmon (Veronica Hart) gets a hotel room with an older man named Ken (Don Peterson, credited as Phil Smith),
      ...
      03-15-2024, 01:10 PM
    • Night Of The Blood Monster (Blue Underground) UHD/Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Blue Underground
      Released on: March 26th, 2024.
      Director: Jess Franco
      Cast: Christopher Lee, Maria Rohm, Dennis Price
      Year: 1970
      Purchase From Amazon

      Night Of The Blood Monster – Movie Review:

      Directed by Jess Franco, The Bloody Judge (or, Night Of The Blood Monster, as it is going by on this new release from Blue Underground) isn't quite the salacious exercise in Eurotrash you might expect it to be, and while it
      ...
      03-15-2024, 01:07 PM
    • Phase IV (Vinegar Syndrome) UHD/Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
      Released on: March 26th, 2024.
      Director: Saul Bass
      Cast: Nigel Davenport, Michael Murphy, Lynne Frederick, Alan Gifford, Robert Henderson, Helen Horton
      Year: 1974
      Purchase From Amazon

      Phase IV – Movie Review:

      Saul Bass’ 1974 sci-fi/thriller Phase IV is an interesting blend of nature run amuck stereotypes and Natural Geographic style nature footage mixed into one delicious cocktail of suspense and
      ...
      03-15-2024, 01:02 PM
    • The Bounty Hunter Trilogy (Radiance Films) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Radiance Films
      Released on: March 26th, 2024.
      Director: Shigehiro Ozawa, Eiichi Kudo
      Cast: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Minoru Ôki, Arashi Kanjuro, Bin Amatsu, Chiezo Kataoka
      Year: 1969-1972
      Purchase From Amazon

      The Bounty Hunter Trilogy – Movie Review:

      Radiance Films gathers together the three films in Toie Studios’ Bounty Hunter Trilogy, starring the inimitable Tomisaburo Wakayama. Here’s how the three movies in this
      ...
      03-13-2024, 11:30 AM
    Working...
    X