Not be confused with “King Of Snakes”, an old Taiwanese kaiju film mostly known for being edited into one of many’s Godfrey Ho cut-n-paste jobs, Thunder Of The Gigantic Serpent, which opted to insert new actionxploitation footage with western actors into that 1984’s monster film, instead of having them doing the usual “colored pijamas ninjas” shit.
We’re gonna cover that one later this month for #snakesofjunetoo, fear not, i’m always up for reviewing some IFD Films joints, but today we’re looking at something far more recent, a 2020 chinese disaster-monster movie set during the Republic Of China period, when railways were being costructed and the following ecological destruction caused by it (especially deforestation) being the reason for lots of poisonous snakes to assault a train, killing and injuring many.
To cure the survivors of the snake venom and the many that also were attacked in his own home village of Yong’an, the local snake catcher Mu Sheng has to form a small party to venture in search of the “snake flower” cure…
It’s definitely something for a chinese movie set in historical early 20th centhury China to start off like Snakes On A Train, that i did not see coming, but then it becomes more of an adventure movie, with them having to search for a rare flower (it’s always a flower of some kind, innit?) to make the antidote though the rivers, woods and mountain in a place named after snakes, because otherwise it would be too easy of a task.
It’s a fun killer snake disaster flick, with a very ouvert pro-enviromental message (it straight up tells you the snakes are attacking because their enviroment were stripped away or destroyed by man), decent characters (despite still being slightly generic “fodder”, like the man who’s constantly holding onto a briefcase), and there’s also killer swarms of spiders and bats, alongside snakes that range from normal looking to straight up mythological beasts like a giant two headed one,
there’s a bit of humour as one of the general is bitten by a snake in the ass and has to have someone suck out the poison, he’s the whiny comic relief and he’s ok at that, balances out the typical romance subplots that are there for some easy drama, as usual, but again, it’s not bad drama, and i have seen far hackneyed group of characters with token motivations be strung along in this kind of film.
Still, some do ARE just there so they can be later disposed of by the killer animals, or make you wonder how the snakes haven’t killed them yet.
Overall, King Of Snake it’s not great, but it’s good, with some flaws but definitely above being just decent, sporting a “B-” level of quality, very entertaining, well paced, the setting it’s quite nice and a good compromise of sorts, the characters likeable and the effects are what you’d usually get for a Chinese monster flick, nothing amazing but not bad either, fairly par for the course for what i believe was a theatherical release in mainland China, it looks definitely better than some of the direct-to-video/web monster flicks i’ve seen and reviewed here, no mistake about that.
It’s another one easily available for free, with hardcoded english subs on Youtube’s YOUKU movie channel, so if you’re up for some historical chinese killer animal action with adventure thrown in, it’s a no brainer to recommend seeking out.
Wise Cafe (International) 