Metamorphosis (2022) by Chen Liangyan

Director: Chen Liangyan

Year: 2022

Country: China

Alternate Titles: Yi bian bao long

Genre: Creature Feature

Plot:

After capturing an escaped snake, a tracker heads to the head of the facility looking for answers about how it escaped, only to find that the company’s latest experiment in genetic manipulation has resulted in an escaped Tyrannosaurus wreaking havoc on the staff and must try to get them to safety.

Review:

As an unapologetically cheesy ripoff, there’s a lot to like about it. What works nicely here is the intriguing setup here with a lot going on which makes for some acceptable genre elements. Getting the tracker onto the project by means of investigating the effects of a simple investigation into the escaped snake and its strange properties that soon become a race to escape from the clutches of the released dinosaur when it gets loose is a highly enjoyable setup here. It generates a reasonable explanation for the creation of the creatures and how they’re able to operate like they are with that kind of effectiveness at evading capture for so long. Added together with some scientific tidbits from the doctor about how the creature can survive as it can with all the tampering done to it and the ability to exploit those factors later on in a pretty interesting way, there’s some workable enough setup in place.

When it moves away from the main genre storyline of the research team creating the creatures, the resulting focus on action is quite fun. The ability to accept the goofiness of a dinosaur capable of shifting abilities to blend in with its surroundings will go a long way towards enjoying the action here. With several enjoyable encounters including the confrontation in the showers, a chase through the hallways of the research lab, and a solid chase through an exosystem controlled by several massive genetically engineered snakes, the film maintains a near-breathless pace throughout. It all leads to the final confrontation in the main research facility where it offers up quite an impressive series of encounters trying to battle the creatures on the loose. With both the dinosaur and the snake getting to fight each other and still chase after the remaining characters, this has quite a lot of cheesy action that has quite a lot to enjoy.

There are some issues with the film that hold it down. One of the biggest detriments is the rather unnecessary sidestory involving the evil geneticist who takes over as the threat of the whole operation. There’s little reason to have him suddenly emerge with a swarm of troops and bodyguards to become a threat by holding the group hostage to continue his experiments. It not only comes out of nowhere but is an absolute cliche ripped off from the other film it’s taking influence from which is quite unfortunate. That also highlights the somewhat generic low-budget CGI featured here, with the various creatures being obviously inserted here via lackluster and generally unimpressive CGI that never once looks realistic. The main dinosaur is close enough but it’s mainly the few scenes of it putting the genetic enhancement qualities on display that make these issues more impactful by enhancing the cheesiness of the film more than anything and are what hold this one back the most.

Overview: ***.5/5

An unapologetically cheesy genre ripoff, this one contains quite a lot to like for fans of the style more than anything as the flaws here do stand out even if they’re expected in this kind of film. Fans of this style of cheesy genre output or lovers of creature feature output will easily have the most to appreciate here while those that don’t enjoy either of those approaches should heed caution.

This review was originally published on Asian Movie Pulse and is gratefully reprinted with their cooperation.