When anyone mentions Hong Kong cinema it's gonna bring kung fu and action films to mind. The Story of Chinese Gods is an animated movie, something that doesn't come out of Hong Kong too often. It's a far cry from Japanimation, boy is it ever. I'd like to go out on a limb here and tell you something about myself. I'm gonna break all those crazy ideas you have in your heads about me. I'm not some insanely popular superstar who has loads of cash, and tons of hot chicks. I don't have a fancy wardrobe or drive a BMW and I don't party like it's 1999. I'm just a boring guy. I don't smoke and I don't drink alcohol, hell I don't even drink coffee. I don't do drugs, but watching Story of the Chinese Gods has given me some insight in the mind of someone who's been wacked out on goofballs/angel dust/coke/acid/crystal meth/you get the picture.
The story is almost nonexistent. The evil Chow, I forgot his name already, is a cruel ruler and has plans to take over a nearby kingdom. Spirits from the heavens are sent down to help the good king fight Chow. Chow enlists the help of an evil priest, who recruits evil demons and monsters to help with the fight. Of course the good guys are gonna win and the bad guys are gonna get killed, they just pad it up a bit.
There is a lot of bizarre stuff going down in Story of the Chinese Gods that just makes you scratch your head and wonder how someone came up with it. The evil priest can detach his head, rides a cloud car that needs to be kick started to go, and can transform himself into different animals and monsters. There's an evil winged demon who sounds like a six-year-old boy, but can spit out knives in rapid-fire sequence like a gun. Some old guy cuts out his heart, puts it on a tray, then walks out of the room. One of the good spirits is a little boy?/girl? with flaming wheels on his/her feet and wears only a napkin on the front while showing off his/her bare ass. Some other guy has binocular vision, his eyes even zoom out of his head. It shows a demon eating human body parts, the list goes on.
I suppose I should get to the reason why this movie is on this website. When the evil demons got you on the ropes, who do you call, but Bruce Lee! Bruce Lee flies in on a cloud with his canine sidekick Timberwolf, no wait that's another cartoon. Bruce looks a bit different, did he always have a third eye?! Third eye or not, he's still up to his old tricks of using nunchuks, thumbing his nose, and the good old battle cries/howls. He even uses the Fist of Fury blurry hands technique. Bruce takes on all comers beating them senseless even a giant snake that eats him. When Bruce battles the nine tailed fox demon he pulls out all the stops transforming into a three-sided Bruce Lee. Yeah, it's weird I know, he can also shape shift into other things like a cat, elephant or monster.
I bet you think this movie is pretty cool from all the weird stuff I've been babbling about, but don't be fooled by all my fancy words. It's hard to classify this movie as good or bad, just different. Bad animation of weird monsters and goings on doesn't always equal a good movie. It wasn't boring, but lack of story and crappy animation works against it. Although I'll tell you, I wasn't bored to death, which is more than I can say for a Bruce Le movie. I'd have to say watch this movie, just so you can say you've seen it. Maybe it'll scare some people straight.
There you have it, Story of Chinese Gods is the closest you can come to experiencing drugs without actually taking them. After this sobering experience, I'm going back to living the clean life. Just say no.
Reviewed by Keith.