| Director | Simon West |
| Starring | Wang Xueqi, Hannah Quinlivan, Shawn Dou, Jason Isaacs |
| Alternative Names | 天·火 |
An island with an active volcano.
A rich business man who’s built a resort on the same island.
A fractured father and daughter relationship.
This is Skyfire, a modern Chinese disaster movie – the end of product of what happens when you mix Jurassic World and Dante’s Peak – and oh boy, are you in for a treat...
What's this Movie About?
Ill make this quick, so we can get onto the good stuff.
Island. Active Volcano. Fancy resort. Rich foreign business man. Girl with daddy issues. Father with daughter issues. A reunion before impending crisis. Active Volcano!! Idiotic people stuck in harms way. World’s strongest Jeep. Marriage proposal. Unkillable father. A bloody active Volcano!! Disaster. Happy Ending… not that type. Get your mind out of the gutter.
Is it Worth Watching?
Two ways to look at this.
Are you after a special effects blockbuster disaster movie?
Are you after an accidental comedy?
If that’s two yesses, then watch away.
By the way, if this means anything to you it was directed by the same guy who did Con Air and Expendables 2, and currently has a perfect 100% rating on TMDB. Proving you should never believe opinions on that site.
What are Some of the Memorable Moments?
I’m going to amalgamate Memorable Moments and Not so Hot categories together.
Where should we start?
Firstly, the special effects are quite decent – although The Wandering Earth edges it out for best Chinese movie visual effects.
The English speaking acting is actually… drumroll… really good! As you all know, that quite a surprise for Chinese movies.
Although, I wish I could say the same about the lead actress – she’s terrible. In fact, I’m going to write off all the acting in this movie with the exception of Jason Isaacs.
Now, I don’t know much about volcanos, but I am also going to guess that the filmmakers don’t know too much either. I want to understand how Xiaomeng is able to withstand the “1000 degree” temperatures in her flimsy suit, which was also flexible enough to allow her to reach into her pocket to pull out a small trinket. Which didn’t melt in heat.
The foreshadowing is also brilliant. When the lady says “this is the safest place in the world” you just know that’s going to be a very important part of the movie!
My biggest shout out goes to the Jeep – this vehicle is unstoppable. It flips, it spins, it has volcano debris flying at it, yet still performs its job admirably.
Runner up in the shout out awards goes to Hua Insurance. I’d love to know how much money you invested in this movie and I’d love to know if it was worth it – because their name is everywhere in the last 20 or so minutes, and they get a long stretch of credits devoted to them too. If this is what insurance companies do with our premiums, I think we should cancel all of our insurance policies right now.
What's Not So Hot?
Refer to Memorable Moments!
Overall Impressions
In case you haven’t quite caught on with the tone of this review, I thought this movie was a complete and utter crock of shit.
It was enjoyable as a comedy, but I wasn’t laughing with the movie. I was laughing at it. Non stop.
If you’ve seen it, what did you think?
Author
The Arty Dans