Shen you qing ren (Tripping) (2006)

Featured Audience Ratings

• Justin Y

  
  <i>Tripping</i>, which seems like a typical martial arts wuxia film at first glance, actually turns out to be a pretty good sci-fi/fantasy wuxia film instead.<p>The very beginning of this film is sort of deceiving. The first 10 minutes or so play out like a modern… More
  <i>Tripping</i>, which seems like a typical martial arts wuxia film at first glance, actually turns out to be a pretty good sci-fi/fantasy wuxia film instead.<p>The very beginning of this film is sort of deceiving. The first 10 minutes or so play out like a modern day teenage motion picture. Then Rena Tanaka gets knocked on her head and the movie begins to transform right before your eyes. The next thing you know Xiaodei (Rena Tanaka) is walking through ancient Taiwan in modern day clothes. A half an hour later, she loses those clothes and is wearing the typical robes. At this point you pretty much have a full on wuxia style movie. A subtle yet good transformation of the story. Another interesting aspect of the movie is that it uses the concept of "corpse driving" to push the movie along. It sounds cheesy, but it is quite entertaining.</p><p>As I mentioned earlier, this is more of a sci-fi/fantasy film rather than a martial arts one. There is martial arts in this film though, but not that much. At least the few sequences they do have are choreographed quite nicely. There is also some good, but minimal CG. There is definitely room for more sci-fi elements as well as martial arts sequences in the story. That is one of my few gripes.</p><p>The acting isn't too bad. The star of the show is the lead, Rena Tanaka. She plays two characters, but one of them, Qingtizi, suffers extremely from too little airtime. This character is also a martial arts specialist, which ties into the reason why there isn't that much martial arts. I have to give props to the 2 guys that played the 2 zombie corpses. Their roles are so amusing.</p><p>In the end, this film lacks a few things like action and sci-fi elements, but the story isn't all that bad. Give it a watch if you're in the mood for a little sci-fi/fantasy action adventure.