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Reviews3
macready85's rating
Some caveats for this review - I don't speak Mandarin, and a lot of the spiritual folklore in Asian cinema is lost on me. I feel it's probably easier to understand if you have some Asian cultural heritage.
I knew I was in trouble seconds after the movie started. The opening scene (not a spoiler really) begins with an obviously CGI fox. It's a caricature almost, cartoonish and unconvincing, as are most of the other CGI animals and creatures which follow. I guess they're meant to be whimsical perhaps, complementing the film's campy and shallow characters, who are also unconvincing and impossible to engage with.
The scenes are long and meant to be humorous - they're not. They're dull, unfunny, and painful to watch. There is zero connection with any of the main characters throughout these drawn out encounters.
And the subtitles. I used to enjoy the dodgy English subtitles of 80s and 90s Hong Kong cinema, but it's 2020 now. Maybe the few bucks saved by using Google Translate will dawn a new era of sub-par subtitles in Chinese films. There were at least two words which appear constantly throughout the film, "childe" and "claman" - wish I knew what they meant. But the dialogue in general doesn't make sense. Sure a sentence might sound right, but in a conversation, there was often no context with the dialogue spoken either side of it.
The combination of all these elements makes for a very unpleasant movie experience.
I did actually like the ending, however, I had zoned out so much and nodded off frequently in the last 45 minutes that I only caught glimpses of it.
Masochism viewing level = 11
I knew I was in trouble seconds after the movie started. The opening scene (not a spoiler really) begins with an obviously CGI fox. It's a caricature almost, cartoonish and unconvincing, as are most of the other CGI animals and creatures which follow. I guess they're meant to be whimsical perhaps, complementing the film's campy and shallow characters, who are also unconvincing and impossible to engage with.
The scenes are long and meant to be humorous - they're not. They're dull, unfunny, and painful to watch. There is zero connection with any of the main characters throughout these drawn out encounters.
And the subtitles. I used to enjoy the dodgy English subtitles of 80s and 90s Hong Kong cinema, but it's 2020 now. Maybe the few bucks saved by using Google Translate will dawn a new era of sub-par subtitles in Chinese films. There were at least two words which appear constantly throughout the film, "childe" and "claman" - wish I knew what they meant. But the dialogue in general doesn't make sense. Sure a sentence might sound right, but in a conversation, there was often no context with the dialogue spoken either side of it.
The combination of all these elements makes for a very unpleasant movie experience.
I did actually like the ending, however, I had zoned out so much and nodded off frequently in the last 45 minutes that I only caught glimpses of it.
Masochism viewing level = 11
This movie feels like it's been edited to the bone - there are a bunch of unrelated story elements which pop up throughout, yet go nowhere, and instead of complementing the plot, they just muddy the waters and make the story confusing. Some characters are introduced with apparently important information to reveal, but with absolutely no context as to how they know what they do, or why other characters should even listen to them. Characters affected by the mimic can experience various physical responses, one of which seems quite dire, but the experience just ends as if incomplete and leaves you wondering what happened to the character afterwards.
The most definitive element of the film is the acting of the young girl playing the mimic. She's hard not to like, making the viewer's response conflicting with the scenes that follow, and engaging you to wonder what she will do next. Unfortunately though, the constant plot holes and character actions which simply don't make sense detract from this being anything other than a forgettable horror flick.
The most definitive element of the film is the acting of the young girl playing the mimic. She's hard not to like, making the viewer's response conflicting with the scenes that follow, and engaging you to wonder what she will do next. Unfortunately though, the constant plot holes and character actions which simply don't make sense detract from this being anything other than a forgettable horror flick.
This documentary had an average rating of 4.6 at the time of writing. I can only surmise this low score is attributable to individuals with the same narrow-minded calibre of the cancer organisations exposed.
Cancer is a multi-billion dollar industry. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy rarely work, and if they do, quality of living thereafter is dubious. With so many cancer-related organisations and pharmaceutical companies riding the financial wave of ineffective and costly cancer treatment, there's no incentive to find a cure. So when one doctor makes a significant breakthrough in cancer treatment, he is harassed and lampooned by the conspiratorial forces of the cancer cash cow.
This documentary examines three scenarios: the evolution of the cancer industry through ineffective and toxic chemotherapy and radiation treatments, and the corruption this spawned; the successful therapy developed by Dr Burzynski and the various attempts to discredit him; and the plight of the Navarro family, whose four-year-old son is diagnosed with a brain cancer and is forced to undertake treatment benefiting the cancer organisations only.
Cancer is likely to affect us all, directly or indirectly. This documentary sheds light on the way we've been conditioned to accept the traditional flawed methods of cancer treatment as necessary, and a system that is financially motivated to perpetuate this myth. It is compelling viewing and will change your view towards a ubiquitous disease we usually don't think about until it affects us.
Cancer is a multi-billion dollar industry. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy rarely work, and if they do, quality of living thereafter is dubious. With so many cancer-related organisations and pharmaceutical companies riding the financial wave of ineffective and costly cancer treatment, there's no incentive to find a cure. So when one doctor makes a significant breakthrough in cancer treatment, he is harassed and lampooned by the conspiratorial forces of the cancer cash cow.
This documentary examines three scenarios: the evolution of the cancer industry through ineffective and toxic chemotherapy and radiation treatments, and the corruption this spawned; the successful therapy developed by Dr Burzynski and the various attempts to discredit him; and the plight of the Navarro family, whose four-year-old son is diagnosed with a brain cancer and is forced to undertake treatment benefiting the cancer organisations only.
Cancer is likely to affect us all, directly or indirectly. This documentary sheds light on the way we've been conditioned to accept the traditional flawed methods of cancer treatment as necessary, and a system that is financially motivated to perpetuate this myth. It is compelling viewing and will change your view towards a ubiquitous disease we usually don't think about until it affects us.