The movie I’d like to introduce today couldn’t really  impress me, even though I liked the idea behind it: “The male fairy fox of Liaozhai”.

This is what it’s about:
A fox spirit travels to the human world, there he meets the star-crossed lovers Liu Zi Gu and Yao Xiu and naturally sets out to “help” them.

“The male fairy fox of Liaozhai” is an adaption of a story from the “Liao Zhai Zhi Yi”, a relatively famous collection of chinese stories.

The 1 1/2 hour long movie was advertised as bl and yes, somehow the theme is there. I at least had the feeling that the fox spirit seemed to have fallen in love with Liu Zi Gu. Unfortunately, as it’s often the case with chinese bl movies, the indication is everything you’ll get.
That isn’t the worst about this movie, though. My problem was rather understanding what was happening and that even with the English subtitles. Everything seemed kind of random without anything linking the scenes together.
Furthermore, the camera work seemed kind of strange to me and the acting looked strained to me. I really had problems finding into this story, which is a pity since I feel like it could have been really good.

They characters seemed lacking, too: The fact that I couldn’t really follow the story might have had a lot to do with a problem of understanding the characters.
I was able to get that Liu Zi Gu and Yao Xiu had somehow fallen in love but how and why … Who knows? I definitely don’t. And don’t even get me started on the fox spirit because I can’t say anything about him despite the fact that he got a lot of screen time. (He was handsome, though 😜)

In respect to the plot the movie seemed a bit boring at first but got better toward the end. All in all, that didn’t save the movie for me, especially since even the later developments seemed kind of half-baked.

I’d say it’s a film you can watch but from which you shouldn’t expect too much. I liked the idea but it just wasn’t enough or maybe I didn’t really like the movie exactly because I had such high expectations.