The Thousand Faces of Dunjia movie review (2017)

Let's start from the top. There are two yin/yang type elements that everybody in this film is at least superficially concerned with:"Qimen" and "Dunjia." While "Qimen" has something to do with the passage of time, "Dunjia" is a style of astrological divination. Askimpy voiceover introductionattempts to distinguishthese two concepts, but this preface doesn'tsensiblyinform the characters'

Let's start from the top. There are two yin/yang type elements that everybody in this film is at least superficially concerned with: "Qimen" and "Dunjia." While "Qimen" has something to do with the passage of time, "Dunjia" is a style of astrological divination. A skimpy voiceover introduction attempts to distinguish these two concepts, but this preface doesn't sensibly inform the characters' actions in a way that somebody who's only using the events of "The Thousand Faces of Dunjia" as their primary source of information can understand. It's like watching an Avengers movie, except all the callbacks, and character motives are only comprehensible if you're familiar with the comic books. 

Things only get more convoluted, and confusing from here. The Wuyin clan are racing against time—and logic—to stop a creepy red tentacle plant-alien from manipulating the Dunjia device (There's only one?), and five sage warriors (Where'd they come from?) from using a weapon called The Destroyer of Worlds (Who made this?) to ... uh ... presumably take over the planet for themselves? The Wuyins are guardians of the Dunjia thingy, but they can't stop the ... alien guy (or girl) ... from rampaging across multiple disparate locations that may or may not be geographically far apart. It's hard to tell since time passes episodically in "The Thousand Faces of Dunjia," and there's no great urgency to the film's plot. 

There are some minor personal connections that provide a skimpy emotional tether for the Wuyin clan's quest to stop that one completely non-threatening-looking monster from wreaking more plot-related mischief. Headstrong fighter Dragonfly (Ni Ni) has a chaste romance with bookish doctor Qingyun Zhuge (Peng Da), but shy shape-shifting monster-lady Circle (Yan Liu) has a thing for Zhuge too. Also, Dragonfly's stalwart leader (Bai Wu) is there too, but he doesn't do much. Wait, what was I saying, oh, right, the characters. 

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