MOVIE REVIEW: Legend of the Naga Pearls (2017)

I have a friend named Lydia and she is a very quiet person when it comes to some of the interests I have: science fiction, fantasy, and the like. She surprised me one day in 2014 when she said she wanted to see this fantasy movie called Empires of the Deep. Problem is the movie never came out: the Sino-American production was a money pit with high aspirations but no skill to achieve them. We never saw the movie, but today I saw Legend of the Naga Pearls — mainly because I misidentified it as Empires of the Deep. If there’s one thing the Chinese movie-going public loves it’s spectacle, and Legend of the Naga Pearls does not skimp on it.

The film gives us backstory: humans lived in harmony with the Winged Tribe in their flying city until the king of the Winged Tribe decided to make war. Humanity sent a lone warrior to destroy the city while they fought the Winged Tribe on the ground in open battle. The lone warrior succeeded, many Winged Tribe people died, many of their survivors lost the ability to fly, and their city fell to earth as ruins. Humanity claimed the ruins and created a city from them called Uranopolis. Many years later, a human prince chanced upon an artifact in the ruins and began to show it off. Little did he know the artifact was coveted by the remaining faction of Winged Tribe people that wanted their pride back. And they were willing to commit violence to reach their goals.

Simon Yam as Vlad, as he holds the titular Naga Pearls like the Power Stone from Guardians of the Galaxy.

Led by the winged Vlad (veteran Hong Kong actor Simon Yam, Ip Man [2008]), he sent out agents to secure the artifacts like the warrior called Storm (Liu Junxiao, God of War [2017]). Because Storm was involved in the latest theft, his policewoman sister Raven (actress Zhang Tian’ai) wants to get involved. Her Winged Tribe ancestry puts her under suspicion once a symbol of the Winged Tribe is found scrawled at the scene of the crime in a victim’s blood. Breaking protocol, she chases her brother down and finds him in one of the many artifact-filled caves. There she loses her quarry, is arrested by her fellow policemen, and lumped in with two others during her escape — the “Saint of Thieves” Ni Kongkong (multi-talented Wang Talu, Railroad Tigers [2016]), and Prince Herley (actor Sheng Guansen). Together they work to save Uranopolis from a Winged Tribe plot to destroy humanity and dominate them for eternity, while also uncovering a number of secrets from each of our heroes.

Zhang Tian’ai as Raven of the Winged Tribe. In the concept art, her hair is white or pale blue. That explains why parts of her hair are dyed in bluish tones.

This movie is a wild ride. There’s so much going on and unexplained, and when you figure it out it’s a reward for paying attention. The martial arts is wonderful, and the set pieces are VERY good. The set design and costume design deserves special mention, as it made me think this is what the M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender movie wanted to be in terms of visuals. While some Chinese fantasy movies have issues with visual compositing, Legend of the Naga Pearls has very few — the city of Uranopolis knows it’s not real, but it’s gonna try to make you believe it is and the technicians responsible for it did a very good job.

The dragon shown here is one of three dragons taken from Night Marsh Cavern. They would be great for the defense of Uranopolis.

The comic-relief character Ni Kongkong has his OWN comic-relief pangolin sidekick called Oka (a wholly CG production). There are some dragons and “flying tapirs” (which really don’t look like tapirs), and they’re done well enough…but they don’t get as much screen time as Oka. The CG pangolin gets a lot of screen time and interacts with so many live-action elements, it’s hard not to notice when his model can’t keep up with the movements of the actors. Beyond that, it’s all as serviceable as can be expected. A wild ride, yes, but not a memorable film by any measure.

This character stood out when they first arrived, and I wanted to know more. The movie never delivered a name in the dialogue, so I don’t even have that —sadly, THIS character was a throwaway for the sake of plot.

CHOICE CUTS:

• The agender gangster character draped in gold (shown above) seemed VERY interesting; I wanted to know more about them. Also, I wonder if covering the character in gold was referencing the depiction of Xerxes in the movie adaptation of Frank Miller’s 300.
• No nagas were harmed (or present) in the making of this movie. Some merfolk were killed to make one of the movie’s MacGuffins.
• Towards the end of the movie, I was reminded of how much the characters reminded me of the Breath of Fire JRPG franchise, especially with the winged female character.
• The street scenes were an absolute delight. It made me want to live there.
• And don’t get me started on Night Marsh Cavern, that place is AMAZING and wild — it’s like Las Vegas, but underground and dirtier and better at the same time.
• Can Uranopolis have a standing regiment of dragonriders please?
• One of the MacGuffins — the titular Naga Pearls — were stored in a way that reminded me of the Power Stone from Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy.