Goodbye Monster - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Goodbye Monster



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:



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Movie
As a life long fan of Chinese and Korean cinema, I’m well aware of the pop culture and mythological gap that is going to happen with Western fans and these films. Those of us who are old enough grew up with period piece Hong Kong Wuxia films that dabbled heavily in Chinese mythology and lore, so it’s second nature to sort of “read between the lines” and absorb some of the cultural mythos along the way. Sometimes it takes some online forum work or some Wikipedia “research” to fill in a few gaps, but if a film is well told, it gives you those clues and breadcrumbs along the way to fill in the blanks that those “not in the know” have to to do in order to garner enjoyment out of a foreign production like this. HOWEVER, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that MOST of the western audience members who watch Goodbye Monster are going to be left scratching their heads, or even worse, completely throwing in the towel on China’s towering cinematic animated epic film.

The film follows a mythical Chinese beast known as Bai Ze who happens to be one of the most powerful healers in the land (which seems more centered around Taoist magic rather than what we would consider medical treatment). While the rest of the medical staff in this ancient hospital want to center on curing diseases of all types, Bai Ze is focuses exclusively (some might say obsessively) on a disease known as the “the dark spirit”. A malady that comes from within and overwhelms the patient before eventually killing it. The hospital has come up with a remedy where they extract the dark spirit (leaving the patient gray and devoid of any real life in them) and then trap the extracted spirit under the sea around them, which is covered by a heavy spell meant to keep whatever is below the surface BELOW The surface.

After failing miserably at an attempt to cure the dark spirit malady once and for all, Bai Ze is kicked out of the hospital/temple by his own master, banned from ever practicing medicine again. However, Bai Ze continues to work on a taoist spell behind the 4 elders backs, garnering him the disgust of the populace around him, as well as garnering him the name of “failure” by all who see him.

If my synopsis seems a bit disjointed and confusing, it’s because that’s exactly what the script is. I’m a life long fan of Hong Kong and Chinese cinema, and even I had trouble getting the jist of the plot, as well as the countless mythology nuances that were popping up left and right. Flipping from the Mandarin language track to the English track really didn’t net much more information either. In fact, the dialog for the English track is a spot on translation of the Mandarin track, complete with all of the inconsistencies and confusion that I had from listening to the original language mix. Meaning that this isn’t a simple issue of mis translated subtitles, but that the original script and direction is the problem for the confusion here.




Rating:

Rated PG for thematic elements, action/violence, scary images and rude material.




Video:

Goodbye Monster is presented on Blu-ray with a 2.39:1 AVC transfer that looks simply magnificent most of the time. The animation style is very high quality, with tons of appreciable detail to be seen. Colors burst from every corner of the screen, ranging from the bright reds and blues of the characters, to the deep blacks and purples from the dark spirits. This isn’t going to be full on Pixar quality of animation, but for a Chinese production, this is way higher quality CGI animation than I was expecting. I did notice some banding here and there (typical of Well Go USA releases sadly) but overall it’s more than captivating to the eyes.









Audio:

As is the case with pretty much every Well Go USA foreign release, we get an English dub as well as a Mandarin original language track in both 5.1 DTS-HD MA lossless and a 2 channel downmix for night listening. Both the English and the Mandarin mixes sound pretty much identical, except for the obvious dialog languages. Both are punchy and strong, with amazing bass when things kick off, as well as a highly active surround sound stage as the magical items whirl around the listening position. Dialog is strong and clean in the center of the room, and I never once felt that the track was out of balance with the dialog, even though it has an absolutely enormous dynamic range. Simply put, great mix.












Extras:

• Theatrical Trailer
• Well Go USA Previews

Final Score: ​

Goodbye Monster tells a simple tale of love, acceptance and dealing with the inward signs of pain and suffering in a VERY convoluted way. It has some fun parts to it, and the animation is simply amazing. It looks almost as good as some of the modern day Dreamworks or 20th Century Fox productions, with incredible amounts of detail and bright shiny colors. Sadly, we can’t get past the very “meh” script that struggles to really connect with western audiences and gets mired down in too much mythology without enough explanation. The Blu-ray looks and sounds great though, so definitely worth a rental if you’re a fan of Chinese animated films.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Cong Liu, Yi-ai Ai, Kai Wang, Zhe Zhang, Lei Zhang
Directed by: Jianming Huang
Written by: Jianming Huang, Liang Li, Xiaoyu Wu
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, Mandarin DTS-HD MA 5.1, English, Mandarin DD 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH, Mandarin (Simplified), Mandarin (Traditional)
Studio: Well Go USA
Rated: PG
Runtime: 100 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: September 5th, 2023

Recommendation: Rental