Crew
Director – Yang Lei, Screenplay – Xu Zhaoqing, Yeng Lei & Zhang Tan, Producers – Gordon Chan & Fan Feifei, Photography – Arthur Wong, Music – Ikuro Fujiwara, Visual Effects Supervisor – Chris Yao, Visual Effects – Base FX (Supervisor – Tang Bingbing), DY (Supervisor – Quan Hongkun), Hezhong Group Corporation (Supervisors – Lin Quanquan & Quan Hongkun), Infinite Photon (Supervisors – Francine Gao & Eric Qin), Trooper Visual Effects (Supervisor – Young Lim) & VHQ Beijing Digital Media Company, Ltd., Makeup Effects – Morphology Inc., Art Direction – Kenneth Mak, Visual Director – Lu Beike, Action Choreography – Ku Huan Chiu. Production Company – Media Asia Film Production/Shanghai Film Media Asia Ltd./Shanghai Film Group.
Cast
Wang Ta Lu (Ni Kong Kong), Zhang Tianai (Raven), Simon Yam (Vlad), Sheng Guanson (Herley), Zhao Jian (Jiang Cheng Zi), Naason Shi (Thunder), Hu Bing (Emperor), Lu Junxiao (Storm)
Plot
A long time ago, humans defeated the Winged Tribe and took over their city to build Uranopolis. Now, Ni Kong Kong, the self-styled Saint of Thieves, is taken before the prince and asked to go to Winged Mountain and retrieve the Naga Pearls. The course of doing so pits Kong Kong against Vlad, the leader of fallen Winged Tribe who is seeking the Naga Pearls to allow his people the means to regain the power of flight. Joining Kong Kong in his quest is Raven, whom he comes to realise is Vlad’s sister and one of the Winged People.
Wu Xia or flying swordsman cinema originates out of Hong Kong in the 1960s. It was popularised in the 1980s by wild and crazy films such as Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983) and A Chinese Ghost Story (1987), which produced a blend of martial arts, Eastern folklore and religion, comedy and romance that was quite indescribable. The genre was revived with the huge international success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). By the 2010s/20s, this had evolved to an adept series of lavishly made films where the wirework of the originals has been replaced by CGI.
Legend of the Naga Pearls looks a reasonably expensive production as these modern Wu Xia go. Quite a reasonable amount of effort has been outlaid to make everything look good. The costumery is a colourful pageant. A reasonable amount has been expended on creating lavish sets. The fights come with an adept and fast-paced series of acrobatics and wirework of the genre. There is a full arsenal of CGI houses providing the effects. The only weak spot might be some of the CGI, which is not quite at the level of Western visual effects – it is generally fine, but the Oka character of unidentified species that accompanies the hero looks obviously like it is just a CGI effect.
The film has a quest plot and sets up epic pieces of action and conflict. Where it falls down is that almost all of it is superficial and largely uninspired. The characters are shallow – the rogue thief and the feisty love interest, . There is the feel of a slick piece of production that is so lightweight it can easily be forgotten five minutes after watching it. Wang Ta Lu as the thief hero is played with a glib cockiness. His range of versatile facial expressions almost make him resemble a cartoon character at times.
Legend of the Naga Pearls was the directorial debut of Yang Lei, who subsequently went on to direct the Chinese tv adaptation of Three-Body Problems (2023- ).
Trailer here