The Magic School
捉妖学院
China, 2019, colour, 2.35:1, 95 mins.
Director: Tian Zicheng 田梓呈.
Rating: 4/10.
Mini-mash of fantasy tropes, set around a demon-hunting academy, has ambitions beyond its reach.
STORY
Sometime in the recent past. Two tomb raiders, Meng (Wang Zezong) and Qian’er (Ci Wantong), enter a bottomless cave in search of the Dragon Head Lock; but as soon as they find it, Qian’er disappears in a puff of smoke. Since the disappearance of his beloved Qian’er, Meng has been on the bottle and subject to nightmares. He now gets a mysterious message from Qian’er instructing him to go to the tree house of Diya (Zhou Haimei), a sorceress who will help him find her. Diya tells Meng he first has to kill Devil King Flash in his underground lair beneath the Academy for Capturing Demons and take the Shining Bead from Devil King Flash. En route, Meng meets a group on its way to the academy: Read-the-Heart Girl (Qing Wen), Flying-Carpet Spirit (Wen Chao), Royal-Shield Ninja (Zhang Younan) and young Magic Bean (Hu Changlin). Their leader, Zunmei (Ci Wantong), looks very like Qian’er but says she is head of Musical Healing at the academy. Arriving there, they all have an audience with the academy’s dotty head (Zhang Liwei), who says Devil King Flash is already chained up in an underground prison. He adds that all six of them must combine to kill Devil King Flash, as their ancestors had already done battle with him in the past.
REVIEW
A mini-mash of fantasy tropes, from tomb-hunting to a demon-catching academy, The Magic School 捉妖学院 is a modestly budgeted exercise with ambitions beyond its reach. Complete with a set-up for a sequel, it’s kept going by copious visual effects, lots of digressions away from its thin script, and a busy music score that bears witness to the background of first-time director Tian Zicheng 田梓呈 as a music producer (for Hong Kong’s Zhang Xueyou 张学友 [Jacky Cheung] and others). Shot back in 2016, and seemingly aimed at the kiddie market, its microscopic box office on release in spring 2019 has made any franchise look unlikely.
The screenplay – lead credited to Fang Yan 方岩, 35, who’s churned out several thrillers and costume fantasies the past couple of years – is extremely episodic, has a chaotically structured plot that’s papered over with narration and voice-over, and for the first time in memory actually credits a script doctor 剧本医生 as well. The main plot of a young tomb raider searching for his fellow tomb raider-cum-plucky girlfriend is just an excuse for lots of VFX (basic but OK) and references to other movies with demon-hunting academies. It’s not much above the level of, say, a genre-scraper by Hong Kong’s Huang Baiming 黄百鸣 [Raymond Wong], such as Magic to Win 开心魔法 (2011), though technically it always looks decent and the editing never tarries.
Newcomer Wang Zezong 汪泽宗 looks too young and colourless as the main hero but the rest of the cast is peppered with enough lively characters to just about sustain interest, notably Hong Kong veteran Zhou Haimei 周海媚 [Kathy Chow] (who was involved on the producing side) guesting as a grumpy sorceress, and young Mainlanders Ci Wantong 慈婉彤 in the double role of the feisty girlfriend and cute elf-eared teacher (largely the latter) and Qing Wen 卿雯 as a mind-reader who just happens to be dressed like a more demure version of Chun Li.
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing Yuehua Entertainment (CN).
Script: Fang Yan, Tian Zicheng. Script doctoring: Du Luoluo. Photography: Song Honglin. Editing: Tian Zhihui, Gao Song. Music direction: Meng Ke. Art direction: Meng Fei. Styling: Gao Yuan. Concept design: Hua Yuxiang, Duan Hongbo, Zhang Qi. Sound: Yang Zhou. Action: Guo Yasha. Special effects: Huang Lujia. Visual effects: Zhou Yuyi, Yuan Qianxin.
Cast: Wang Zezong (Meng; Shanying/Devil King Flash), Ci Wantong (Qian’er; Zunmei), Hu Changlin (Xiaomodou/Magic Bean), Qing Wen (Read-the-Heart Girl), Wen Chao (Flying-Carpet Spirit), Zhang Younan (Royal-Shield Ninja), Zhou Haimei (Diya), Zhang Liwei (academy head), Bai Yifan (Xuehen/Bloodstain, mysterious teacher), Ding Huiyu (Hu Zimei, epicene teacher), Zhang Hengrui (Hercules demon), Bao Hanyan (Mai Rui, young girl), Zhang Jiayin (Niu Xiaohua, head student).
Release: China, 30 Apr 2019.