Legend of the Demon Cat - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Legend of the Demon Cat



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
I love being surprised by a film in a positive way. When I saw the trailer for Legend of the Demon Cat I was intrigued, but also suspicious that that was going to be another typical Chinese fantasy, complete with monsters, demons, and battles. Little did I know that this was going to be completely subverted in the first 15 minutes, leaving us with a strange hybrid film that blends elements of an X-Files esque mystery, and a Chinese historical tragedy. Needless to say this is one of the more unique Chinese films that I’ve seen recently, as it breaks the typical mold and blends the to strange bedfellows together into one lovely film with a few flaws.

The film opens up with a mysterious “demon” cat providing wealth to a local Chinese guard in the Tang Dynasty, only to rip everything away from him in a fit of brutal rage. Not only that, the Emperor dies of mysterious causes (chalked up to the flu), leaving the Japanese monk Kukai (Shota Somentani) more than a little curious. Teaming up with the ex emperor’s scribe turned poet Bai Letian (Huang Xuang) the two try to figure out WHY this demonic cat is wreaking destruction on people. The clues lead them both back to a poem from 30 years ago called “Song of Everlasting Sorrow”, which chronicles the life and death of one of the 4 beauties of ancient china, the queen Yang Guifei (Sandrine Pinna) who was killed in order to protect the emperor Xuanzhong from death by a rebellion (Zhang Luyi). As the two sleuth’s dig into the story more they realize that the “Song of Everlasting Sorrow” may have had the entire situation wrong, and there is a much more sinister story underneath that has prompted this demon cat to come back from hell and seek his vengeance.

I won’t tell you WHAT happens about the hour point, but needless to say director Chen Kaige throws the entire movie on it’s ear and shifts gear into a secondary story. The first 50-55 minutes of the movie is pure X-Files style supernatural sleuthing, with Kukai and Bai Letian trying to figure out WHAT the cat is, and what his motivations are. But once the film gets to the halfway point Kaige utilizes the “story within a story” technique to take us back to Yang’s death and visually see just what went on there. The tale takes a drastic tonal shift, with the mystery and sleuthing going by the wayside, pushing forward a more traditional Greek tragedy told in Chinese form.

Kaige is a master storyteller over his lifespan, having given us films like Farewell my Concubine, Temptress Moon among others, but his career hit a peak in the late 1990s and he’s not been having much luck the last 20 years. Luckily Legend of the Demon Cat is a near return to form, as he crafts one of the most visually sumptuous experiences that I’ve ever seen (that’s what one can do with a $170 million budget), and he deftly weaves the two different stories together with the help of some incredible visuals. Kaige has always been a visual storyteller, but up until now the technology had not been keeping pace with the ideas that he would throw out, and in this outing he is able to finally show what he wants on screen without feeling cheesy and overly CGI’d (in mid 90s fashion….*shudder).

One of the most crucial aspects of the first half is making sure that the cat is actually a threat visually. I mean, how do you make a black pussycat a scary thing without eliciting laughter? Kage makes liberal uses of shadows and and outlines of the cat to create some tension, but he sadly overly CGI’d the cat itself, which almost ruined his plans of not eliciting a chuckle from the audience. I really really liked what he did with Legend of the Demon Cat, and it was much deeper and more intriguing than I ever imagined. I would love to have given this a higher score for it’s creativity and visual awe, but Kaige has a problem with the “story within a story” technique, giving a bit too much time in the past, instead of working with the dual sleuths a bit more, as the big “surprise” came a little too early for my liking. Don’t get me wrong, this is a fascinating film that is so much different than your usual Chinese period pieces, and I really did enjoy myself a great deal. It’s just that there are some obvious issues that keep it from true greatness.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

Framed in 2.39:1 and shot using Arri Alexa cameras (supposedly finished at a 2K resolution master, which is understandable considering the effects laden aspect of the film), Legend of the Demon Cat looks ravishing on Blu-ray. There’s some funky issues with blown out contrast in a few scenes (which seems intentional), but otherwise Kaige outdoes himself with all of the lavishly colored visuals and CGI. Asians really pride themselves on making sumptuous set pieces and costuming and the famous director really outdid himself. The bright reds and golds, and blues of costumes are stunning, while the earthen and gray stones of palace steps counterbalance the gaudy costuming. The grading leans more towards a neutral tone most of the time, but there are flashbacks that hold a golden hue, and others with a gray and desaturated look to them. This SHOULD have been a 4.5/5 rated video encode, but there is a problem that plagues the movie intermittently. Banding. This issue seems to crop up in low light sequences, such as night skies, underwater, and the most egregious one. The cat’s fur. These instances are not non-stop, nor do they show up so heavily that it ruins the scene. Rather the banding is just annoying enough to come up more than a few times, and when it does come up it’s VERY noticeable. Still, it’s only enough to drop the rating from a 4.5/5 to a 4/5 score due to how incredible the rest of the film looks.






Audio:

]Well Go USA has put both Mandarin and English DTS-HD MA 5.1 tracks on here for us to enjoy (as well as Dolby Digital 2.0 tracks in both languages too), and while both tracks sound sonically the same, I tend to lean towards the Mandarin track due to the dubbing sounding more authentic. The track is active and vibrant, filled with a TON of bass as the demon cat wreaks havoc around the ancient city. There’s some really inventive sounds with the demon coming and going, as well as heavy surround usage when the flashbacks start and we get to see the giant festival of happiness going on. The track was cooked a bit on the warm side, and I noticed turning it down about 2 DB’s helped a lot, but overall this is an amazing sound mix that creates a good balance between intense effects and clean dialog.








Extras:

• Theatrical Trailers
• Well Go USA Previews

Final Score: ​

Legend of the Demon Cat can be lightly called a drama, fantasy, murder mystery, period piece horror, tragedy, and action movie all in one, while being none of them at the same time. This Chinese/Japanese co-production is a fascinating change of pace from the typical period piece movies I usually see from Well Go USA, and I actually really enjoyed myself with it. The film is sadly going to get lost midst the shuffle of the holiday films in Asia, but director Chen Kaige pulls out an extremely unique and satisfying mystery with his latest venture. The Blu-ray from Well Go USA is more than capable of delivering with good video and great audio, but sadly a veritable lack of extras. But don’t let that keep you from it, as the film is very entertaining and the technical specs for audio and video will not disappoint.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Xuan Huang, Shota Sometani, Yuqi Zhang, Hao Qin, Hiroshi Abe, Libby Brien, Taishen Cheng, Brittany Falardeau
Directed by: Kaige Chen
Written by: Kaige Chen, Hui-Ling Want
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, Mandarin DTS-HD MA 5.1, English, Mandarin DD 2.0
Subtitles: English
Studio: Well Go USA
Rated: NR
Runtime: 120 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: October 29th, 2019

Recommendation: Good Watch

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. This looks very interesting.. Will check it out.