Candle in the Tomb: The Wrath of Time (2019)

Okay movie, good story, bad CGI. Series was WAY Superior.

Continuing my journey to "complete" watching all the Candle In The Tomb media I can locate, per my list.
https://mydramalist.com/list/1zEn6nQ4

This is a movie version of Candle In The Tomb: The Wrath of Time with some tweaks. Considering how great the Wrath of Time Series is because of the wonderful story, I had high hopes. The movie delivered on some, but not on others.

The good: Luo Law Ai KILLED it. His character was despicable in the series, embodying #sexualharrassment101, but in the movie they made him even more EVIL. Like Star Wars Anakin "killing younglings" evil. I wanted him to die so badly because he DESERVED to die!!! That was well done. Casting for the rest of the actors was on point. The tombs explored and the story within was exciting, with personal conflicts, so this portion left me satisfied. The translation I viewed had some hilarious "F" bombs in there that made me laugh out loud at the translator's sense of humor.

The bad: Special Effects. This was better than Mojin Mysterious Treasure which featured the same Giant Centipede, but still wholly unconvincing. They needed to hire whoever did the Wrath of Time series, to craft believable fight scenes featuring a realistic Giant Centipede (even the little ones) because they at least got those right. There was too much Wire-Fu that was badly done (having seen many movies where they do this "right") so I wasn't terribly impressed with the action. Not the actor's fault, but it felt like they had no budget and were doing their best with the clunky stuff. It really detracted from the enjoyment of the movie.

The Worst: Character's morality was turned upside down and I had trouble reconciling it, especially for both male leads. Zhu Gu Shao leaving the Giant Centiped to kill Evil Luo felt a bit amiss, he was always more hands on and having a creature kill his foe because of cowardice wasn't in character because it was horribly dishonorable! Similarly, Chen Yu Lou is portrayed as turning a blind eye (to sexual harassment from a mass murderer) in order to find the tomb, it FELT like he was happily sacrificing his "brothers" for that. The series has a more nuanced and less hypocritical Chen Yu Lou. This guy is supposed to be a Sect Leader, the best Mojin Xiaowei, and his morality is in the TOILET!??? WTF!! This made me quite sad, and also made me love Zhu Gu Shao (from the series) even more, as the only BaShan tribe to learn Mojin Xiaowei techniques which made him the UBER tomb raider. Seriously, if the Author was smart, he should write more Zhu Gu Shao adventures so they can film another series with Vengo Gao.

In conclusion, this is okay, but a pale copy of the Candle In The Tomb - The Wrath of Time series. Watch that instead. Review for the series below. https://mydramalist.com/profile/Stormy_77/reviews/115241

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