Croczilla

Wang Jeiji: "How could a little lamb break through that rope?"
Wen Yan: "I'll tell you how...because it was in the mouth of a great big crocodile!"

release year: 2012
genre: giant monster drama
viewing setting: home streaming 3/9/24

synopsis: A giant crocodile escapes and is alternately disbelieved and hunted by various parties.

impressions: Technically, it was made with competence (acting, CGI/special effects, etc.) But at the end, my co-viewers (those who were left, anyway, since some left or went to sleep) all shared the same basic opinion as me: "what was the point?" This movie was about a normal (while rather large) crocodile that ran around a lot but only had two confirmed kills (a sleazy bad guy who deserved it, and a lamb.) It also seemed to know the young boy (who, I have decided, was in fact a Barry) and wouldn't attack him, and at some point you had to sympathize with the crocodile more than most of the humans. And yet, in the end, it was killed. This was a weird dynamic, with the monster not really being that monstrous.

acting: Barbie Shu is the woman who's lost a large sum of cash to the crocodile and will stop at nothing to get it back. Guo Tao is a second-tier policeman who gets involved and tries to keep order. Lam Suet is the scummy and shady dude who runs some sort of farm where they kill crocodiles for their meat. Jiali Ding is the Barry, who in the real world would have perished at the 3-minute mark as he wandered into the crocodile pen.

final word: Watchable, but you might end up wondering why you sat through it.

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