Just perfect...

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Lovely sets,spectacular action choreography and costumes

Right this may be the wine talking but this could be the best movie I've seen in a very long time. Granted I spent much of the first half an hour wondering what the hell was going on but once I had accepted that I would never understand everything from the subtitles I was able to enjoy the film.Can you really hate a film where a staff turns into a flock of birds that defecate over the enemy? What does character development matter when faced with a lesbian alien princess whose people built the pyramids? Why does Buddha wear seriously blinging diamond earrings? Does any of this matter when faced with the sheer sumptuousness of the visuals and the sly humour of the characters. Any battle for my heart was won once I saw the main protagonist dressed as spider-man - awesome! Many people will complain about a lack of story cohesion but for a fun movie to laugh about with a bunch of mates you can't do better, especially if you do an alcoholic shot every time someone says "I will love you 10,000 years".

STORY Chinese Tall Story tells the story of righteous monk Tripitaka, who, along with his guardians Monkey, Sandy and Pigsy make their journey west on a quest to recover ancient Sutras, finally, they reach the final leg of their journey in Shache City But all is not as it seems when the city is attacked by evil tree demons. Monkey tries his best to battle them but is overwhelmed, knowing his master is in grave danger, he uses his trusty golden staff to thrust Tripitaka to safety.The monk ends up being knocked out when he land and when he wakes up he finds himself in the presence of a young lizard imp named Maiyan who takes quite a shine to our young hero, after many verbal misunderstandings Maiyan becomes convinced Tripitaka loves her, so when the monk decides he must rescue Monkey and the others, she insists on accompanying him. So the mismatched pair begins their adventure together.REVIEW Okay, so, it's another Journey To The West movie, which isn't a bad thing to me since I love the story and the characters associated with it, so I was a little excited to get my hands on the DVD. So I think I'll start off my review with the story, which is all over the place, at first it was your standard fantasy film, then it became a ridiculous comedy then suddenly became full blown sci-fi, if the director Jeff Lau was experimenting with mixing genres then he did a pretty scatological job with this movie. I think it's a pretty unique approach by having the story centre on a character other then the infamous Monkey King, especially taking a character as pacifistic as Tripitaka and then putting him into what is at it's core a love story. So overall, I liked it.The acting is for the most part solid, with leads Nicholas Tse and Charlene Choi putting in some really good performances, though Ah Char does spend most of her screen time behind some rather ugly make up. The supporting cast is nicely put together, it includes all the usual EEG main stays so Boy'Z and Isabella Leong make appearances, one actor I'd like to mention is Wilson Chen, who plays the Monkey King, he did a good job with the limited material he seemed to have been given, he played a version of the Monkey King who was subdued yet arrogant, I had a feeling he'd be retreading Twins Effect II territory but fortunately that's not the case here. I hope he gets to do a follow up to this with himself in the central role, since the film does leave itself open for a sequel.Okay, so let's get down to the directing, which again is kinda all over the place, Lau gives too much time to the Stephen Chow-esquire nonsense comedy, which includes a scene where Tripitaka in order to toughen himself up, dresses up as Spider-Man, which I assume lead to many a head scratching moment since the film is meant to be set in Ancient China. He does create some really nice and tender moments between the two leads and does delve into sappy territory but this reviewer does enjoy a bit of sap on occasion so it didn't bother me in the slightest.Right, now onto the CGI, which for the most part is quite bearable, there are a lot of moments which probably belong on a PS2 like many other reviews have stated but there are some cool moments particularly the scene in which Monkey battles a flying minion. A lot of the CG gags are provided in the form of the golden staff which turns into a range of different things, ranging from a giant fly swatter to a mech suit straight out of The Matrix Revolutions. So yeah, it sounds crazy but I guess you'd have to see it to believe it.Right, so in closing A Chinese Tall Story isn't a movie without it's flaws but it keeps itself together long enough to be able to entertain and generally be a overall enjoyable movie. If all of the above doesn't swing you to see it how about I put it this way, it's much better then Twins Effect II.

First there was Tsui Hark's Zu Warriors (2001), which is visually ground-breaking, but much lacking in the acting and writing departments, now this movie, which is visually almost as good as Zu (though no longer ground-breaking), but is even worse in the acting and writing departments. It's really sad that there seems to be an almost complete lack of acting and writing talents in the HK movie industry. I guess you need to understand Cantonese to understand how bad and vulgar the dialogs in the movie really are. It's like some delinquent kids talking in the street, it's that bad. To make it worse, the actors and actresses themselves look like delinquent kids, and can't act even if their life depend on it. I understand that this movie is supposed to be a comedy aimed at the younger generation in HK, but has HK youths really become so brain-dead that they can't appreciate anything but such juvenile and vulgar acting/writing? If that's the case, it makes me ashamed to be from HK.I wish HK movie makers will learn some lessons from directors like Zhang Yi-Mou or Ang Lee, and finally make a movie that's both visually stunning as well as competent and mature in the acting and writing departments. And stop using young singers/idols/heartthrobs as actors because they can't act however many fans they may have in HK!