Pages

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

2015 children's blockbuster movie from China, Monster Hunt (捉妖記), in Pittsburgh from January 22.



The 2015 Chinese/Hong Kong movie Monster Hunt (捉妖記) will play at the AMC Loews Waterfront theater from January 22. A Variety review offers a synopsis of this blended live-action and animated children's movie that is the highest-grossing film of all time in China:
What makes “Monster Hunt” so tyke-friendly is its easily digestible story arc, refreshingly devoid of Confucian morality, educational historical background or nationalistic grandstanding — in short, everything that makes most mainland children’s films such a yawn. Stylistically, the film blends Western demon-slaying elements, Japanese yokai folklore and even a distant echo of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” into a fanciful Chinese setting, beefing it with up robust martial-arts action with an eye toward holding the attention of adult viewers.

In a mythic kingdom, mortals and monsters who once fought each other now stay put in their separate domains. Their uneasy truce is disrupted when a coup in the monster land forces its pregnant queen to go on the run with her two loyal but inept retainers, Zhugao and his rotund wife, Fat Ying. Foreseeing that pandemonium will spill over to the humans’ realm, monster-hunt bureau chief Ge (Wallace Chung) puts up a handsome bounty for the unborn heir.
Monster Hunt was released in China on July 16, 2015, and will makes its US debut on January 22.

Tickets and showtimes are available at the AMC Loews Waterfront website. The theater is located at 300 West Waterfront Dr. in the Waterfront shopping complex in Homestead (map), across the Monongahela River from Greenfield, Squirrel Hill, and the rest of Pittsburgh.