Cineasia DVD Synopsis: A peaceful town turns into a living hell when friction on the plate of the Indian Ocean triggers a devastating earthquake! A retired railway soldier and his son, an explosive demolition engineer, go deep into a solution cave to rescue trapped survivors. But a second quake is due to follow in a few hours… Will they manage to save themselves and the whole town from being buried by a landslide? (114 Mins)

 

Views: As a small town in China celebrates its decade long success of creating a new vehicle-access tunnel through the mountains, they quickly realise that Mother Nature has taken a disliking to their work. When a shift of tectonic plates trigger an earthquake in the town, a loving couple – one of which is Hong Yi Zhou, an explosives expert – must join forces to help save their friends and family as mud slides, floods, and rockfalls devastate their home. At the same time, Yi Zhou's father is en route to see him until he gets caught up in the quake and immediately jumps into action to help rescue the victims. A retired railroad worker, the old man and those he rescued soon find themselves forced underground and trapped in an undiscovered cave system that runs under the mountain. Now, in learning of his father's predicament, Yi Zhou sets out on a rescue mission to find him with the pair eventually joining forces to create a roadblock for Mother Nature and help save their town from total annihilation – even if it means bringing down a mountain!

 

Directed by Li Jun, who made his debut with the fun action-thriller Tik Tok starring Wallace Chung, this epic mainland movie is pretty impressive for the fairly new director. It's definitely a different kind of disaster movie, offering up a lot more heart than the typical Hollywood outing of the same genre. This wasn't about humanity versus the end of the world, but more about a collection of regular townsfolk coming together to save their home – standing up to the mighty force that is Mother Nature! Renamed Shattered Earth for it's UK release by Cineasia (which is a little more apt for the kind of film it is), Cloudy Mountain kicks-off with an action-packed and thrilling opening that sets the tone of what to expect, with a cocktail of natural disasters that quickly force you to the edge of your seat and keep you there for the most part. From there it's fast pace takes you on nail-biting and sometimes emotional ride, as families are torn apart, sacrifices are made, and we are shown the goodness in humanity with unlikely heroes and what they will do for love. It's a visually impressive ride for the most part and offers decent performances from everyone involved.

 

The handsome Zhu Yi Long, a popular Chinese television star from shows such as Treasure Raiders, Border Town Prodigal, All Flowers Fade Across The Sky, and The Rebel, stars as explosive expert Hong Yi Zhou and does a pretty damn good job in the role. Fellow television and film star Huang Zhi Zhong stars as his judgemental father, Hong Yun Bing, and works well alongside the young star. Having only started his acting career at the turn-of-the-century, Huang made his major film feature debut in Andrew Lau's Infernal Affairs 3 alongside Hong Kong superstars Andy Lau, Tong Leung Chiu Wai, Leon Lai, Anthony Wong, and Eric Tsang. Since then, he has went on to star in films such as Jackie Chan's 1911, The Founding Of An Army, Line Walker 2, The Captain, and the incredible war epic The Eight Hundred. For the film, both of the stars went through some intensive training with rock climbing professionals, spending many hours a day into the production that helped make their performances even more authentic; and it shows. The lovely Jiao Jun Yan stars as the girlfriend of Hong Yi Zhou and actress Chen Shu appears as the project leader who eventually understands the need to destroy her decade-long project. Having started acting in the early 2000's, Chen went on to star in The Founding Of A Republic, The Martian with Matt Damon, and alongside Huang Zhi Zhong in Andrew Lau's aviation-drama, The Captain. And while there are many other bit-players who make quite the impression throughout the whole film, the majority of the story focuses on these four mostly – with the relationship of Hong and his father proving to be the more emotional piece of the drama.

 

Much of the action, mixing car stunts with physical work and CGI of course, is handled by Hong Kong action legend Bruce Law and his son, Norman Law. With many decades and movies behind him, including titles such as Full Throttle, Mr. Six, First Option, Hard Boiled, My Father Is A Hero, and The Battle At Lake Changjin – as well as helming the fun Extreme Crisis – the Law's deliver plenty of exciting moments that will keep action fans happy. As with Simon West's entertaining Skyfire from 2019, which was another Chinese produced disaster film, Cloudy Mountain offers up some hugely impressive CGI that works a treat mixing the large scale natural disasters of the aforementioned film along with that of Feng Xiao Gang's emotional epic, Aftershock. And while I must advise everyone to avoid the dreadful English dub by all means, I can't deny that Shattered Earth: Cloudy Mountain is a very entertaining piece of cinema. Holding back from the usual overload of 'propaganda' often seen in Chinese epics over the last decade or two, Shattered Earth: Cloudy Mountain gets a double-thumbs up from me and is definitely worth the watch (although I still think that compilation of train footage and railroad history at the end was a bit silly)!

 

Overall: Big on disaster, big on action, and big on emotion, Shattered Earth: Cloudy Mountain is quite epic on many levels and well worth checking out!

 

DVD Extras: Trailer