Starring Ryan Kuo (Guo Jindong), Shi Zhenlong, Ma Yuan and Liu Yihan. Written by Rocky, Huang Siyuan and Qiu Junyang. Directed by Rocky and Huang Siyuan. Produced by Wu Yu, Kan Lun, Yu Yang and Rocky.
Xiamen Gongli Film & television Co. Ltd/United Production Company
After a teaser opener showing a hunter falling prey to giant wolves in a cave, we cut to a bunch of characters on a passenger plane, which almost immediately crashes into a Siberian wilderness, and – soon after the crash – a big wolf makes an appearance: the filmmakers are not messing around with slow build-ups here!
These canine creatures have long, cat-like tails and lower jaws that can split in two (but this ability to super-widen the wolves’ mouths is soon forgotten and not shown again in the movie). The survivors, including main hero Song Wu, his autistic daughter Jingwen, and Professor Ning, gather together in part of the wrecked plane’s fuselage, making a fire to keep the critters at bay. Professor Ning is working on theories concerning mutant wolves and Song Wu happens to be a wolf expert: well, that’s all quite convenient!
With firewood running out, everyone decides to trek across the snowy landscape (with the ropey, unrealistic CGI wolves sensibly kept mainly in the shadows), and the group reaches an area of trees where they’re able to make new fires to scare away the vicious varmints.
Most scenes in THE WOLVES are shot in virtual environments (with some sets included too) that definitely look artificial, but it does all add to the heightened adventure style of the story, as characters negotiate sheer cliffs and narrow mountain ledges.
After a female character, Nana, cuts the rope attaching herself to the others in order to save them from being dragged to their deaths off the high craggy ledge with her (blimey, mainland Chinese films love a bit of self-sacrifice), the survivors encounter a tribal chief. This Siberian wiseman informs them that another expedition had come here years earlier, after which the giant wolves appeared…
Once the characters reach the tribal village there are some half-decent attempts at creating suspense, though showing a wolf creeping around a building, putting its paw on a person’s shoulder like a sinister stalker, does edge matters closer to becoming silly rather than scary. But at least a modicum of tension is generated in these sequences, especially when Jingwen attempts to retrieve a walkie-talkie that has fallen outside of the hut.
When Jingwen is taken (in an offscreen incident) by the wolves, Song Wu heads over to the cavernous wolf den to save his daughter. Here he stumbles upon an illegal nuclear dumping site, which is, of course, the reason the wolves have mutated, leading to one of the critters becoming super-massive.
Song Wu manages to save a village child, but can’t find Jingwen, so, after an overly-melodramatic crying scene triggered by the death of Song Wu’s mate Bao, Song Wu prepares to go on a second mission back into the cave to retrieve Jingwen. As Song Wu smudges camo paint on his face, he muses that the giant wolves, which have become intelligent, must have decided to take Jingwen as a hostage so that they could draw all the humans to the cave-den to be killed. Song Wu marches stoically towards the cave, with his face no longer covered in camo makeup (?!), following a trail of bracelet beads left by his daughter. He moves deeper into the cavern to extract Jingwen, but knows he has only so much time before explosives are detonated to destroy the den. Father and daughter reunite and they succeed in reaching the cave entrance, but here they must take on the humongous boss wolf. Hey, but don’t worry: Song Wu gets his hands on a batch of dynamite!
Though the filmmakers do attempt to infuse the finale with some heartfelt father-and-daughter bonding, the movie is more likely to be remembered for the poorly-rendered wolf monsters that ultimately sink this project.
Monster Zone 