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L.O.R.D: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties Movie Review

L.O.R.D: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties is a 2016 Chinese animated action fantasy film directed by Guo Jingming. It’s a very confusing, but undeniably appealing fantasy epic.

An orphan becomes the disciple of a powerful sorcerer and is drawn into a larger conflict among the world’s magical elite. This is said to be the first CGI animated movie from China, which in and of itself is a huge deal. Although I prefer the traditional animation in all countries, it was interesting seeing this experiment and it mostly worked.

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Let’s talk first about this animation. It is very strange and definitely unlike anything else out there, certainly the Western countries have never produced something quite like this. The backgrounds are fully CGI and so are the VFX of the magic and fight scenes, but the characters are done via motion capture.

The result is this very video game-like look to the movie, but still a lot of the times I was genuinely impressed, especially by the interiors. This world is a mixture between European architecture of the 19^th century and the clothing of the Dark Ages. The humor and character relationships are reminiscent of Japanese anime while the mythology is wholly inspired by Chinese epics. The motion capture also led to increased emotiveness from the characters, though the mixing with the backgrounds wasn’t the smoothest admittedly.

The main issue with L.O.R.D. is its incoherent nature. As is the case with most Chinese animation, this movie is very difficult to understand for Western viewers due to cultural differences, so it’s not fair to call it a bad movie because of that as some have said. But it is overly convoluted, it has way too many characters and subplots while they also went overboard with the exposition.

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The characters are a mixed bag. Some are rushed, but others are quite interesting. I liked Silver and his apprentice and I found their homoerotic sequences hilarious, especially coming from this country. The women are cool and powerful here while the twist about who really is the villain worked for me. The action is also phenomenal and the mythology is quite cool. I just wish that it was shorter and that it didn’t feel like they crammed two or three movies into one.

L.O.R.D: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties is an incoherent, convoluted movie like most of Chinese animation usually is. It has too much exposition and too many characters. With that being said, the motion capture CGI animation is often quite impressive, the world building and mythology are intriguing and the action is cool. It’s a messy, but fun fantasy epic.

My Rating – 3.5