https://www.youtube.com/embed/FbhsvxqoCG4
One of the hottest topics in Hollywood today is China. How do we get Chinese audiences interested? Can we film in China? There are so many people in China with money and eyes how do we get them to pay for our movies?! (That last one is just our best guess as to how these backchannel conversations go in a major studios.) But here's something we don't wonder aloud often enough: What about movies from China? Well here’s a hint about what’s going on across the ocean blue. The movie Monster Hunt just became the highest-grossing Chinese film of all time—taking in $211 million in two weeks—and it's a half-animated, half-live-action tale set in a "fantasy world far, far away."
So what, you ask, is the movie about? Well, in this trailer you’ll see a pregnant man give birth to an anthropomorphized white radish, which is totally chill, other than the fact that monsters are forbidden to roam free in this "far, far away place" as a result of a monsters vs. humans war at some point in history that resulted in zero-tolerance monster banishment policy. But what the humans don't know is that a new monster king is destined to rise and reshape the balance of both societies. The pregnant guy is named Tianyin and he ends up in a family way after the pregnant monster queen spills her egg into his mouth in a final act before succumbing to mortal wounds. Tianyin tries to sell the baby creature. Changes his mind. Then realizes the baby has been shipped off to a restaurant known for making "5-star" monster-based delicacies. Finally, he teams up with a rookie monster hunter named Xiaonan after realizing he himself descends from a line of monster hunters also. But this, as the movies description says, is "only the beginning of their epic adventure!"
So, that's what's going on at the movies in China.
Pause at: Anywhere, really. But the nipple-bite at 0:57 is truly something special.
Essential Quote: "Some people are not what you see; some monsters are not what you think."
