When I sat down to watch the 2019 Chinese movie "Shui Guai 2: Hei Mulin" (aka "Water Monster 2"), I had never heard about it before. But I stumbled upon it by random chance here in 2023, and opted to watch it as part of a Chinese creature feeature movie marathon.
I had no idea what to expect from writers and directors Hesheng Xiang and Qiuliang Xiang, so they had every oportunity to impress me with this 2019 movie.
The storyline in "Shui Guai 2: Hei Mulin" was sort of adequate. It started out quite alright and definitely was entertaining. Well, up to a certain point that is. I have to say that once it was revealed what the creature in the movie was, then things just broke apart for me and the movie just slowed down and never recovered. The story just went and did a 180 at that point, and the last third part of the movie was hard to sit through, because so many things just started not to make much of any sense.
Needless to say that I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie. But it should be noted that the actors and actresses were nicely cast and put on adequate performances to bring the movie's characters and storyline to life on the screen.
The visual effects in "Shui Guai 2: Hei Mulin" were quite good, and definitely complimented the storyline in a nice way. And the way that directors Hesheng Xiang and Qiuliang Xiang were implementing the special effects in the movie helped to layer up the mystery surrounding the fabled 'Lord Water Monkey' creature.
One of the bad things about "Shui Guai 2: Hei Mulin" was that you don't actually properly see the creature itself before halfway into the movie. That was a shame, I think, because it felt like something you'd expect when sitting down to watch a 1980s horror movie, not something made in 2019. In defense of that, then it should be said that the creature design was actually rather interesting. But once the storyline took a turn and it was revealed what the creature was, I have to say that I fully and wholeheartedly could not understand why it would be able to move the way it did and as agile and quickly as it did. That made no sense.
All in all, then I have to say that I was adequately entertained by this 2019 movie from writers and directors Hesheng Xiang and Qiuliang Xiang, despite of the change to the storyline that fell short of entertaining me.
I haven't seen the first movie, so I don't know how connected this 2021 sequel is to the previous movie.
My rating of "Shui Guai 2: Hei Mulin" lands on a five out of ten stars.
