User reviews

Chinese movies can have really good special effects. This is not one of them. There seems to be a pattern to many of these movies. The father of one of the women has disappeared years earlier, and she is out to find out what happened to him. In the opening scene when the father is on the island, there will be an obese man who has zero courage. This characterization seems to be a staple of movies like this. There will often be a lot of screaming, and one will soon not care what happens. In the opening scenes, there is an aborigine who tells them not to harm any snakes. Of course, most of them are scared of snakes, so one can guess what will happen. When the later group goes, at least some of them know the snakes they initially see are harmless. So they do leave them alone. Towards the end of the movie, we get a better picture of a man in rags that only appears in the background, so the question I have is where did he get such new shoes? They look like they were just bought.

After arriving on a mysterious island, a team of explorers looking to recover information on a missing father after his military team disappeared in the area years ago, and when they find the island natives living in peace with the snakes including the massive creature responsible must get off the island alive.

This was a massively entertaining effort with a lot to like about it. One of the main elements to like here is the rather strong setup that provides a way to introduce the kind of action featured throughout here. After the initial military team's encounter with the snakes where they get wiped out by the creatures leaving only the one survivor to tell them about the island years later, the team's arrival on the island and witnessing the community that lives there who are in peace with the creatures but clearly living in a devious society against the outsiders as the control and terror used to keep the secrets of the area with them comes across quite nicely. There's some great build-up throughout here involving how the devious nature of their behavior and hospitality towards the group the longer they're there which adds a chilling atmosphere to this without the snakes being let loose and keeps this section moving along nicely. On top of that, the film scores incredibly well with its cheesy attitude regarding the creature action. The enormous scale of the main snake is utilized to great effect in this regard, offering up a series of swarming scenes that showcase how out of their element the team is against the ravenous creature as the incredible opening with the snake attacking the military convoy on the river before chasing them through the jungle to eat them whole in one on one encounters has a fantastic starting point to be had. Other fine scenes including when the creature stalks the group through the jungle or a big scene involving the the creature chasing the group out of a cave system work incredibly well giving this some fun encounters before the big finale. With a stellar mix of hard-hitting martial arts action, kaiju-style snake battles as they fight each other, and some far different antics than expected to leave everything with quite a lot to like. There aren't too many issues holding this one down. The main problem with the film is the rather convoluted means this one tries to present the tribe leader as the main villain but does so in quite convoluted manners. While the initial motivation for the whole thing is done out of spite for what happened to her father years ago and blaming the group of outsiders in a sweeping generalization is fine enough to be doing this, the way they keep shifting everything to show her being helpful in their quest and being hospitable towards them even with her devious behavior trying to kill them indirectly leaving this part of the film to meander along rather aimlessly without much in the way of killer snake action. It seems far more fruitful to consider a more straightforward story about her behavior trying to just take them out with the stakes for everything coming off rather backward. Combined with the typically cheesy CGI of the piece, these are what bring this one down overall.

Rated Unrated/R: Violence and Language.