The phrase: “My girlfriend is a fox!” was more common to the 1970s … and wasn’t literal. Ask me how much I love living in a century where there is no line between metaphor and reality. It wouldn’t be half as unnerving were there not forces deliberately out to blur any line that appears. While the 20th Century was much better at distinguishing fact from fiction, I realize now that was only because it didn’t have the proper tools to work with.
Yuan Shuai, aka “Hanson,” (Shaofeng Feng) is just your average guy. And like any average guy, Yuan works incognito at the zoo shoveling elephant dung while hiding from mobsters who want repayment from financing his failed movie meanwhile combing dating sites in order to attract a sugar mama to pay down his debt all this time being stalked by a giant werefox demon who wants some Yuan lovin’ of her own.
The Chinese seem to throw around the word “demon” awfully quick, huh? I mean, geez folks, every other Chinese film I see has dozens of man-beasts runnin’ around; they can’t all be demons, can they? Somebody throw out that Inigo Montoya quote before I do.
Foxes to me are lithe small-ish things – perhaps breadbox size. In fact, I think they’re ideally sized to stump that twenty questions standard: “Is it bigger than a breadbox?” “No!” “Is it smaller than a breadbox?” “No!” Bai Xianchu (Yifei Liu) becomes a beautiful snow white refrigerator-sized fox. Unlike her kin, it takes her a bit to get there, like an entire fifth of vodka. That made for an odd scene:
“I’m a fox”
“You’re insane”
“Here, let me show you (GLUG GLUG GLUG)”
“AAAAHHHH! What the Hell?!”
Note to self: When being tracked by a humungous drunken werefox, try not to ascend anything.
Oh, there are always obstacles to true love, huh? First, Bai’s little cat people need to get involved, repairing damage and saying Bai-Bai to memories, not unlike MiB. And yet, Bai cannot be torn away from this man she’s never met, so Big Bird, Yun Zhonghe (Guangjie Li) has to get involved and send Bai to demon jail – which is surprisingly easy to penetrate.
The Chinese demon film genre is often difficult to follow – people are changing form constantly and, between reading subtitles and facial cues, I often get lost. This one was not so difficult. Fox loves man. Love forbidden. Fox taken. Has man fallen enough for Fox to come to the rescue? One of the things I enjoyed about this film was the demon-picture-within-a-demon-picture when our heroes and villains all
stumble upon a working movie set where the costumed actors are about to get a war. So there’s a real battle within a fake war that can’t take place until the director says, “ACTION!” because the real demons don’t wish to reveal themselves to the fake demons … meanwhile, the only actor with lines is in on the joke so-to-speak and deliberately flubs them to delay the real demon from attacking the heroes. Now you can imagine how difficult this scene would be to follow if the movie were unclear on plot – and that’s where I am with most of this genre.
Hanson and the Beast owes a fair amount to Men in Black, Beauty and the Beast, Twilight, and, perhaps, the band Hanson. It’s relatively mindless fun. The romance is overshadowed significantly by the fact that the female partner has litters instead of babies, but as Asian CGI indulgences go, this beats the hack out of the last one.
♪Tale old as Twilight
True as CGI
Barely on the set
Then what do you get?
Some lycanthropy
Just a “little” change
Subtlety deceased
Making that guy scared
He’s “so glad” you shared
Hanson and the Beast♫
Not Rated, 110 Minutes
Director: Yang Xiao
Writer: Yiwen Guo, Yang Xiao
Genre: Lycanthrope workshop
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Furries
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Misunderstood birdmen
♪ Parody Inspired by “Beauty and the Beast”
