Double World (2020) Review

“Double World” Theatrical Poster

Director: Teddy Chen
Cast: Henry Lau, Mark Cheng, Peter Ho, Bobo Hu Ming, Jiang Luxia, Him Law, Lin Chen-Han, Xiuyu Lin, Minghu Xu, Ningjiang Zhang, Li Xi-Yu, Wang Yan-Long, Du Xiao-Fan
Running Time: 110 min.

By Paul Bramhall

In the mid-2010’s it felt like you couldn’t get away from the big budget fantasy blockbuster in China, with a constant stream of CGI spectacle filled extravaganzas dominating the screens. Zhong Kui: Snow Girl and the Dark Crystal, Legend of the Naga Pearls, and League of Gods all being prime examples, if not necessarily good movies. Then, in 2018, one of the stars of League of Gods, Fan Bingbing, became embroiled in a tax scandal regarding some dodgy practices that were going on in the film industry. Suddenly studios went quiet, as accounting departments were sent into a frenzy to ensure their books would pass any government sanctioned audit, and the seemingly endless supply of money that was clearly being funnelled into these fantasy epics abruptly seemed to dry up.

Now a couple of years on, and while it’s safe to say most production companies have got their finances in order, there’s a new issue at the fore thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Distributors have had to play a high-risk waiting game, with the options being to delay planned releases until cinemas re-open, or cut their losses and strike a deal with a streaming platform. Lower returns, but better than the uncertainty for some. Shockwave 2 is one such movie which is playing the waiting game, while Donnie Yen’s Enter the Fat Dragon opted for a streaming release. In the case of Teddy Chen’s latest, Double World, a return to the big CGI filled fantasy blockbuster of yesteryear, they’ve also gone for the latter, securing a global distribution deal with Netflix, and skipping a theatrical release.

Teddy Chen is a solid commercial director, more consistent than Benny Chan and safer than Herman Yau, I’ve always looked at him as a kind of Hong Kong version of Steven Soderbergh. His movies may not blow you away, but they don’t leave you with much to complain about. From his late 90’s work on Downtown Torpedoes and The Purple Storm, to his 00’s big budget actioners The Accidental Spy and Bodyguards and Assassins, through to his more recent kung fu genre homage with Kung Fu Jungle. The decision to helm a CGI filled slice of fantasy isn’t one which was expected, but somehow knowing Chen is at the reins, it offers a feeling of assurance that it’s at least going to be an entertaining popcorn flick.

An adaption of a popular MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, for those wondering), it’s perhaps less surprising than you think that such a game would be the source material when you consider the popularity of 2016’s Warcraft in China. A box office flop on its home soil in the US, thanks to China’s avid online gaming community, the Chinese box office alone was enough to make it a success on paper. So naturally, it made sense to adapt one of its own. For full disclosure, having not played the game myself, this review won’t be offering up any comparisons related to how faithful it portrays the gaming world.

The plot for Double World is fairly straightforward stuff. A fictional nation is divided into various states, and in one of the more influential ones, there’s concerns of a power struggle emerging with their similarly powerful neighbouring state. So a warlord (Bobo Hu Ming, Kung Fu Yoga) arranges a martial contest for each of the respective states to send 3 of its best fighters, with the promise of honour and riches for the winner, however secretly the warlord himself is vying for power, with the martial contest really being a front for his devious plans.

As the audience we follow the fighters from the neighbouring state, played by Henry Lau and Peter Ho. If you’re wondering why you’ve never heard of Lau, it may be because the only other notable movie he’s had a sizable role in is A Dog’s Journey (that movie with Dennis Quaid and a dog). Lau’s biggest claim to fame was being a member of K-pop boyband Super Junior’s Chinese spin-off, Super Junior-M (the ‘M’ stands for Mandarin), which he left to pursue a solo career in 2018. Although Canadian, he’s also fluent in Mandarin (thankfully, considering his former vocation) and Korean, and lucky for us can also act. Ho on the other hand is exactly the kind of screen presence a movie like this needs. After stealing the show whenever he was onscreen in the likes of The Game Changer and Sword Master, here he clocks in another charismatic performance as a disgraced soldier with a hidden past that ties into the contest.

Let’s get it out of the way upfront, Double World looks impressive. Yes the movie is 80% CGI, and obviously so, but it’s good CGI, the type that can emerge you into the world its created if you’re willing to go along with it. Like its peer League of Gods, proceedings kick off by bolting straight out of the gates, and then maintaining the momentum across its 110 minute runtime. Indeed at times it almost feels a little too similar to League of Gods, not least the fact that both productions feature a trio of heroes that are required to make a perilous journey. We also get a desert attack, just swap out a giant centipede for a giant scorpion. Thankfully though Double World uses the scene to state its intentions, immediately killing off one of the trio and leaving Lau and Ho alone, in a nice subversion of the expectations that usually come attached to this particular genre.

In the action department Chen has expectedly stuck with long-time collaborator Stephen Tung Wai. While I’m sure Tung Wai would have been his action director of choice regardless of whether he’d had experience orchestrating these types of CGI heavy spectacles, luckily Double World is far from being his first foray. Tung Wai choreographed the action on the likes of Painted Skin: The Resurrection and The White-Haired Witch of Lunar Kingdom, a pair of CGI infused supernatural wuxia’s from the mid-10’s boom period, and most recently choreographed Invincible Dragon, which may as well have been a fantasy. The scope of the world he’s playing in allows for plenty of imagination, with the challenges in the martial contest itself often feeling like a throwback to the elaborate Shaw Brothers wuxia’s of old.

In one challenge the trio of fighters from each state are chained together, and have to navigate a Ninja Warrior style obstacle course which sees them balancing on chains and dodging boulder sized steel ball bearings, all in a race to get to the other side of the arena first. It’s competently crafted and fun to watch. Less so is a challenge which sees them needing to retrieve an egg from a series of caves in which reside The Beast King, basically a big CGI dragon. There’s only so long that watching characters run away from a large piece of CGI can maintain interest, and even with the inclusion of some Evil Dead style killer fauna, the scene stretches out a little longer than it needs to.

Lau and Ho are ably backed up by Lin Chen-Han, an orphan girl who ends up becoming the 3rd member of the trio once the initial one if offed. Bringing a welcome female presence to proceedings in a mostly male dominated movie, Chen-Han comes armed with a huge sword (and is the character you can most easily imagine appearing in the game), and the fact that she gets a few opportunities to use it are a welcome bonus. Jiang Luxia (Operation Red Sea) is also onboard, here marking the first time I’ve seen her with long hair (but she soon does a Man from Nowhere and chops it all off). Those expecting to see her in action will be let down, as apart from a brief (literal) cage match and a throwdown against a gigantic CGI dog, she’s mostly on dramatic duty. To her credit though, her performance is a convincing one, showing that she’s clearly developed some acting chops (I know, it feels ironic to say in a movie which is 80% CGI).

For those that can’t stand CGI spectacles, Double World isn’t going to be the movie to change your mind, however for everyone else, as expected from Teddy Chen, it’s an entertaining slice of popcorn cinema. More than the abundance of CGI, Peter Ho’s vengeance seeking former soldier acts as a solid anchor for the audience to relate to, and I wish we’d see him in more. Whether those that play the game will be satisfied with the big screen adaption of what they hold dear is another question, and whether this will be the first in a renewed bombardment of big budget fantasy blockbusters from China is an even bigger one. But for what it is, like so much of Teddy Chen’s output, Double World delivers exactly what you expect it to, nothing more, nothing less.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 7/10