KILLER SHARK (2021)

KILLER SHARK (2021)

Tagline: Nope.

(Adventure, Horror, Sharks Will Eat Your Face Off) [R]

Note: This movie did not get an MPAA rating, but is overall pretty tame. I think if it came out in theaters it would get a [R] rating mainly because the opening song playing when the characters are introduced is “Bad Mother F’er” by Machine Gun Kelly. It seems wildly out of place, but there it is. This review is for the subtitled version. 

If you kill it, I will marry you right away.

In this one Angel, her ex-boyfriend Liu Wei, Anjie (Angel’s brother), and his girlfriend Ouyang Xiaomin, Sophie, and Li Zhihui all take a private yacht out called Xiang Bin Jun Hao. The yacht gets lost at sea and they end up getting attacked by an enormous shark. They now must fight for their lives and test themselves to find out who has character and who doesn’t.  

In the storyline, Sophie is kind of a superficial type just there to hit on Li Zhihui or Angel’s ex-boyfriend or whoever will pay attention to her. Angel is also really money focused which is pretty much why --------. Anjie is really into his girlfriend, which is awesome, but he is also pretty much the reason we even have a movie. It’s his messing around with Xiaomin while she is captaining the yacht that causes it to capsize. Sophie ends up with a bloody leg and that is what attracts the giant shark. When I say giant, we are not talking about THE MEG here, but it’s pretty huge for a shark. 

One pretty funny thing about this movie is that there is a scene where Sophie is going nuts because her leg is cut and she feels like no one will want her because of that? I hope this isn’t really a thing in China where dudes won’t date chicks that have scars on their legs. That seems really ridiculous. It’s also pretty funny that in the English translation, Sophie tells Li Zhihui that she likes him for his “meat” meaning “his fat”. They all literally refer to him as “Fat Man” or “Huige”. I am guessing that whoever wrote this just can’t stand big dudes, because of what goes on in this thing, but who really knows. 

We do get some scenes where the CGI is pretty good, but every time this shark comes out of the water, there is a significant reduction in how good it looks. So the range is “pretty good” to “when did THE ASYLUM” start doing CGI for foreign films? I will say the shark in this is stronger looking that the one we got in RED WATER. It is a bit weird that it’s kind of flapping its fins? Not really sure what’s going on there. I do wish that the explosion in this movie would not have been CGI. I mean, I probably know a bunch of dudes that you can fly to China for a slice of pizza that will blow something up for real if you need it for your movie? I cannot stand CGI explosions if they look just really terrible in a movie where it seems like it would have been easy to do without the CGI.  

The acting overall is pretty outstanding with Qiu Pin Cheng who plays Liu Wei as the best of the bunch. He is also the best character in this so that definitely helped. 

As far as the pacing, we do get a decent-sized lull after the group splits up, but this is a relatively short movie at 79 minutes long, so it’s not the end of the world. The ending is worth the wait at least on an emotional level which brings up the score here for me. 

I liked this one quite a bit better on the second watch. This one gets a 4 out of 7. It’s a pretty solid shark flick that does fine on its own but definitely sets up for a part II. It should be noted that this is a low-budget film for the most part. There are no scenes in this movie that even come close to looking as awesome as the movie's poster.

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF ZOHAR FILM AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.