Assorted Thoughts From An Unsorted Mind: Demon Hunter: The Resurrection (2012)

(AKA: Painted Skin - The Resurrection)

Starring:

Xun Zhou

Kun Chen

Wei Zhao

Min Yang

Shaofeng Feng

After being imprisoned in ice for 500 years fox-demoness Xiaowei is released by friendly bird-demoness Quer.

However, in order to stay free of her frozen tomb Xiaowei needs a human heart and it must be freely given.

When the demon meets the scarred and lovelorn Princess Jing her passionate heart may be exactly what Xiaowei needs. And since Jing is still desperately in love with her old bodyguard General Huo Xin, the fox-demon has a cunning plan...

To begin with,I had fun trying to track down some details for this, mainly because the original title was "Painted Skin - The Resurrection", it being a sequel to the 2008 fantasy "Painted Skin".

To be honest "Demon Hunter" is a fairly misleading title. There's practically no demon-hunting to be seen and although the cast does include a demon-hunter, how important he is can be gauged from his utter absence from the DVD cover. He's mainly there for a comic/romantic subplot, albeit one that does pay off at the end.

I suspect the distributors were hoping people would see the title and the DVD cover and think "Ah! Chinese Swordfighting fantasy. Could be plenty of action " which is both sneaky and does the film no favours.

What you actually get is a love-story with some action and supernatural elements and once you've watched it, you realise why "Painted Skin" is a much more appropriate title.

Having got that out of the way, on to the film itself.

I can see it not being to everybody's taste.The action is stylised and balletic, the story relies on people being dumb in the way you only get in romantic dramas and the main bad guy camps it up good and proper.

I loved it.

Above all - and this seems to be a common thing with Chinese fantasy/swordfighting films - "Demon Hunter" is a very, very pretty movie. Almost every scene is carefully arranged to look glorious and the computer graphics team in particular come up with several moments that are novel and spectacular. Another personal highlight was Wei Zhao's many-faceted Princess Jing: by turns emotionally damaged, regal, desperate and fierce. Kun Chen and Xun Zhou are good but the Girl in the Golden Mask ties the film together.

If your DVD shelf includes "House Of Flying Daggers", "Hero" and "Curse Of The Golden Flower", you might like this.

How much did I pay for it? £6

Was it worth it?:Hell yes.

Time for some screenshots.