Starring Ken Chang, Zhou Xiaochuan, Hu Xueer, He Qiwei and Li Junyao. Written by Lin Jianfeng. Directed by Luo Le. Produced by Michelle Mou.
Sunrise Entertainment/Tencent Video

Aka CANDLE IN THE TOMB: XIANGXI SECRET, this tomb-raiding fantasy adventure, based on Zhang Muye’s novels, has hero Hu Bayi embark upon a search for what lies beyond Mount Pingshan.

What Hu Bayi uncovers includes loads of palace-tombs, toxic centipedes that crawl from funeral jars, booby traps, riddles, and a humungous, six-winged centipede monster. 

This production uses the formula that a lot of these Chinese-made adventure films follow: it starts with a full-on action-adventure-fantasy sequence, replete with danger, exotic locales and a monster, then it cuts back in time to a character telling a tale regarding these events.

MOJIN: MYSTERIOUS TREASURE is a by the numbers Chinese fantastical adventure that’s merely adequate most of the time. It’s not as consistently entertaining as others of its ilk, but it DOES showcase a massive, flying, multi-winged centipede with a tooth-filled face… so how could I not give this film a go?! Plus, the film includes a rather nicely-done fight scene at the beginning, where the adventurers battle an almost unstoppable mummified warrior that emerges from a stone coffin.

The CGI is passable (most of the time), we get the usual digitally-created environments of dark, ancient tomb locales, and the story includes a secondary character who, as is always the way, turns out to be a selfish bad guy willing to murder Hu and his mates so that he can keep what is discovered all to himself. The villain this time is Joe, played well by Zhou Xiaochuan, who finds a legendary sword, which somehow infects him, mutating him into a lumpy-fleshed monster-man who kills the centipede-critter. The mutated/infected Joe then meets his own end when he is impaled on a stone throne. Hey, I admit that this film does have its interesting moments!

Other cinematic romps focusing on the heroic Hu Bayi character include CHRONICLES OF THE GHOSTLY TRIBE (2015), MOJIN: THE WORM VALLEY (2018), THE LEGEND HUNTERS (2021), and MOJIN: THE LOST LEGEND (2015). 

This is the Monster Zone blog, so let’s finish with a few more shots of the massive centipede critter…