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Early 40s scriptwriter Lin Lisheng-who wrote the TV dramas THE GREAT TIME(2011) and BORROW GUN (2011) but is best known among film buffs for directing the gem-like, rural black comedy A DISAPPEARING VILLAGE(2011)-makes a considerable career swerve with China\'s first creature movie, MILLION DOLLAR CROCODILE. A comedy-drama about a massive croc on the loose with the equivalent of RMB1 million in its belly, the film was the brainchild of Lin and producer Zhao Shunliang, and doesn\'t pretend to be anything else than what it is-a modest, fun genre item. Strongly cast with a pan-Chinese lineup that includes Hsu, Guo Tao and Lam Suet, it\'s wisely spent a good chunk of its reported RMB30 million budget (US$4.7 million) on first-rate visual effects.
The film plays it for laughs and thrills rather than gory horror, with Guo in his trademark blank-faced mode as a useless country cop, Hsu trashing it up as a money-obsessed local whose foreign life savings have been swallowed by the croc, and Lam hamming it up as a corrupt wild-game restaurateur. Some of the comedy is too local for international audiences, especially cameos by Fang Qingzhuo as a teapicker and Wang Jinsong as an insurance salesman, and Hsu\'s hysteria in the first half ("My Euros! My Euros!") is over-done. But even though the dialogue is strictly utilitarian, the script nicely spends time letting the audience become familiar with its large cast of characters-one of whom, a croc expert taciturnly played by veteran hard guy Shi Zhaoqi, has a whole Beijing backstory that seems to have ben edited out at some stage.
Croc action is explosive and fairly brief when it comes, and the reptile is thankfully not given any Hollywood-style "human" emotions to work the audience\'s tear-ducts: retrieving the money inside its belly is the important thing here, not "saving" the creature. Widescreen photography of the Zhejiang locations by Li Xi (THE FRIGHTENING NIGHT) does the job without being over-pretty, though the score by Dong Dongdong is weak. The main titles, sketching the creature\'s origins in Thailand, feature some interesting, sketch-like animation.