Film Review: Painted Skin (2008)

Starring:

Donnie Yen

Xun Zhou

Wei Zhao

Kun Chen

Betty Sun

Yuwu Qi

The Back cover blurb reads thusly:

"Combining momentous battle scenes with stunning combat choreography and a stirring story of the fight for freedom Painted Skin is a searingly powerful matial arts epic already being hailed as a modern classic.

  In the turbulent days between the Qin and Han dynasties a dark, tyrannical presence rules the land, sea and air of a once beautiful realm. As the evil forces press further into the lives of the people it falls to an ex-general (Donnie Yen) to reclaim the mantle of battle and begin a bloodthirsty war that will decide the fate of the world.  Facing the mightiest foe ever to have walked the earth he must test his strength, courage and honour in one of the greatest battles ever fought by man."

   I am convinced that whoever writes these things never bothers watching the actual movie.  In this case I'd be amazed if they even sat through the trailer. About the only things they got right were 1. Donnie Yen is in it  and 2. he's playing an ex-general. 

  There are a couple of battle scenes (more like skirmishes actually)  and the combat choreography isn't bad but I have seen better. The rest is...

  Well the problem is, the marketing people are trying to sell this as a film about war when it's really about a manipulative woman trying to snare somebody else's husband. Admittedly there is the small detail of her being a fox-demon in disguise who needs to eat human hearts on a regular basis. There's a good reason why this is called "Painted Skin"...

 Luckily I'd already seen the sequel (Painted Skin - The Resurrection. Another film with a marketing  problem.)  So this revelation didn't throw me too much. 

 Here's the original DVD cover. Note how many people are on it.

  Donnie Yen is still front and centre but at least this version acknowledges that there are other people involved as well. It also gives a slightly better sense of the movie's true nature. Less "Red Cliff" and more "Chinese Ghost Story".

 So now we've established that  Painted Skin is a really supernatural/action fantasy and that the DVD design team are taking the piss, is it any good?

 I'm inclined to say "Yes. I quite enjoyed it" 

  There's a nice mix of action and drama, with the odd comic touch and some respectable punchups. Donnie Yen's Pang Yong - more complex than he seems - is naturally the focus but the rest get their respective jobs done well and with a certain depth.

 Painted Skin is not as FX heavy as the sequel  but what there is is deployed to useful effect and one scene in particular had me going "Whoa....!" You'll know it when you see it.

 One particular highlight was a short sequence where a little playing with the colour filter results in Pang Yong, all lit up in shades of gold, hacking through an army of washed-out bad guys.

 My one big gripe is: the last act of the movie hinges on an under-pressure and upset Peirong not only getting the wrong end of the stick but grabbing the wrong stick entirely and poking herself in the eye with it. This leads to her doing something that may have been supposed to be noble but just comes across as incredibly dumb.

  Still, the whole thing is entertaining and like a lot of Chinese films, damn, it looks good on screen.

 How much did I pay for this?  £2

Was it worth it: Oh yes. 

Do I still want to have words with the DVD design team?: Yes

Here's the trailer

 And if you want to see what I thought of the sequel pop round to THIS page