The Fantastic Magic Baby (1975)

A different way of telling a story

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Easily the weirdest film in Venom Mob director Cheh Chang's filmography. Not that I'm an expert on Chinese culture or folklore, but this film seemed to be a Peking opera style of retelling of an adventure by the legendary Chinese trickster character the Monkey King, who in this tale does battle with what I think is the titular Magical Baby, who is really more of an impetuous young god who caused assorted trouble. The film features trees our hero fighting sentient trees, a very odd centaur-like creature fighting a hoard of warriors, and all sorts of other strange fantasy elements. I do enjoy Hong Kong martial arts fantasy films, but this film was disappointing. Generally speaking, it really wasn't until the 1980s when Tsui Hark brought western style special effects and film techniques that those types of films really became something special (which interestingly came back to the west in the form of cult favorite "Big Trouble in Little China"). I usually love most all of Cheh Chang's films, but this one was lacking his characteristically tough and brutal fight sequences and instead had fight scenes more resembling dances. The film sets also appeared purposefully stage-like, as did the costumes and make-up, which also made me think this film was intended as something of a film version of a Peking opera performance. I really don't know if this type filmed-Peking-opera-stage-performance is a sub-genre of martial arts films, but if it is, it's one that's not really to my taste, so this is not a film that I would recommend.

I do not pretend to be any kind of Chinese scholar, but I've seen dozens and dozens of Kung Fu movies and this is certainly one of the strangest. Although it was a bit hard for me to follow, it seems the "baby" of the title, Red Boy, (who is more like 12 or 13) is the antagonist here, who kidnaps a ruler. The Monkey King and "Pigsie" (that was actually the name given in the subtitles) a comic relief character with pig's nose and ears, try to get the ruler back.Besides the basic Kung Fu action, this whole affair seems heavily influenced by traditional Chinese opera. Some of the interactions seem overly slow and over-choreographed, and now and again had a kind of Busby Berkeley vibe to them. People kept popping between Heaven and earth to fight, and I never did figure out why.Weapons and people appear and disappear. Trees and statues come to life and then turn into people and fight. There's a Kung Fu centaur and flame-throwing chariots. Throw in some sci-fi theremin mixed with Chinese gongs and you get the idea. I'm not sure how accurate the subtitles were here (I caught this on El Rey), but I found it all pretty hard to follow. This movie was in Mandarin and I can never understand any inflection or tone that helps me understand things in Mandarin or Cantonese like I can in other languages. But it's basically all action, and at just over an hour I certainly can't say it was boring, just a bit confusing.