Welcome back to Movie Recaps.
Today I will show you an action, adventure film from 2015, titled Chronicles of the Ghostly
Tribe.
Spoilers ahead!
Watch out and take care.
Many times through the years, strange things
have been found in China during various excavations,
from bones that don't belong to any known creature, not even dinosaurs, to thousand-year-old
bodies with the skin and flesh still intact.
One of the scientists involved is Professor Yang Cialin, who in 1978 inaugurates Post
749 in the Kunlun Mountains, a special team dedicated to specifically finding out the
secret behind all these mysterious discoveries.
It is now 1979, and Hu Bayi is one of the many soldiers working hard in the excavation.
The job is exhausting and he often falls from sheer fatigue, but the professor's daughter
Yang Ping is always there to support him and help him regain his strength.
When Hu Bayi met her for the first time, he felt like she had known her for a long time.
The two of them have a bond that makes his friend Cang Sun jealous.
After the team retrieves another giant skull from an unknown beast, the cave begins shaking
and suddenly it explodes, destroying their whole camp.
The soldiers, led by officer Han Jiuyang, get their weapons ready to fight back, but
the only ones to come out from the cave are Professor Yang and some workers.
This incident isn't a complete loss however: a path has opened inside the mountain, so
they'll send a special team to go with Professor Yang to investigate.
Yang Pin immediately volunteers to help her dad, and that causes Hu Bayi to volunteer
as well, which in turn makes Cang Sun come along too.
The team enters the cave and follows the discovered
path until they come across a giant chasm,
which they proceed to climb down while noticing a butterfly-like creature flying around them.
They eventually make it to an icy platform with another chasm in the middle, so they
climb down this one as well until they find an unexplored cave filled to the brim with
strange fossils.
After wandering around for a while, they find an exit that comes out at a complete opposite
mountain from the one they entered.
There, Professor Yang tells Hu Bayi that legends say somewhere in this area is the gate of
an ancient kingdom belonging to a pent-secret government.
Their chat is suddenly interrupted when the other soldiers let them know of a very important
find: a humongous pawprint on the snow.
While Han and the rest of the team finish installing a door at the mountain entrance,
Professor Yang and his men begin following the trail of pawprints to find the beast that
left them, which is actually nearby.
The creatures they find first however, are the little flying guys from the cave, but
now they look at them more closely, they notice they aren't butterfly-like: they're weird-looking
bats.
Nothing happens when they land on a sleeve, but one of the soldiers catches one with his
bare hand and that proves to be a mistake: he suddenly starts burning with a blue flame
at an alarming speed until there's nothing left but his bones.
Soon they're surrounded by these bats and the soldiers begin shooting to scare them
away, but they lose a few men to the fire anyway.
All the shots scare the giant beast and make it go away, but its sudden heavy turning causes
an avalanche.
The party starts running down the mountain as the snow swallows many of the soldiers,
but there comes a point where they can't keep going: there's an abyss in front of them.
They have no other choice but to jump, but before doing so, Professor Yang ties Hu Bayi
and his daughter together.
The pair falls and their rope gets stuck on a piece of ice, and after moving from side
to side a couple of times, the friction makes the rope break and the two of them fall.
Even months later while sleeping on a train, Hu Bayi doesn't understand how he survives
that fall, especially after losing even more men that get killed by hitting their heads
or getting stabbed by the ice.
When he awakes at the bottom of the abyss, there are only four party members left: Hu
Bayi, Professor Yang, Yang Ping, and Cang Sun.
After retrieving as many fallen supplies as possible, the now very small team lights up
some torches and continues their exploration.
They come across a huge cave with a tall tower inside surrounded by building ruins that Professor
Yang calls the Sacred Palace of Kunlun.
The tower is said to have nine levels where demon creatures have been sealed, and it's
what Professor Yang has been looking for all this time.
He gets on his knees in a sign of reverence then lights up a candle waiting at some sort
of altar, which creates a freaky, tall flame that causes a bunch of bats to show up and
surround the tower with a red glow.
Professor Yang believes Hu Bayi and his daughter can open the tower door so he sends them,
and when they walk in hand in hand, the professor's
theory shows to be true: the door opens and
starts glowing as a light appears at the top of the tower, summoning a bunch of spirits
that fill the room.
But all of it suddenly goes away when Cang Sun puts out the candle, not liking the idea
of opening the gates of the devil.
The cave is beginning to collapse so the group gets going before they are reached by the
rocks or the bats, who are now chasing after them.
Cang Sun sacrifices himself and stays behind to serve as bait, getting killed by the bats'
blue fire and taking out a bunch of them when his body explodes.
There's still a bunch of bats free though, and they go after the remaining trio, who
at least have put some distance between them.
They find an exit but they can't go much further: it takes them to a high edge behind a waterfall.
The bats catch up and, as Hu Bayi tries to fight them off with a torch, they manage to
bite him and start a fire on his shoulder.
Yang Ping pushes him off the edge so he falls into the water to put the fire off, and she
and her dad quickly follow.
Hu Bayi and Yang Ping find each other underwater but are quickly pushed apart by another giant
dinosaur-like creature that captures Yang Ping in its mouth and takes her away.
Devastated, Hu Bayi swims out of and makes his way back to base under freezing temperatures.
The burn on his shoulder is taken care of while officer Han tells him they've found
all the party's bodies except Yang Ping's and the professor's - Hu Bayi is the only
survivor.
He decides to quit this life and return home, but on the train ride, he keeps imagining
Cang Sun is there with him and disappointing himself when the illusion goes away.
Hu Bayi gets out at a train station near the countryside and is picked up by his new employer
Mr. Wang, unaware that officer Han and scientist Chen Dong are looking for him.
The year is 1982 now, and Hu Bayi begins working at Mr. Wang's library, which makes for a very
peaceful life.
When they go to have lunch together, Mr. Wang takes him to a local restaurant where Hu Bayi
is shocked to reunite with childhood friend Wang Kaixuan, who works there as an entertainer.
Hu Bayi suspects Mr. Wang has taken him there on purpose.
While working at the library, Hu Bayi finds a book of Professor Yang's research that even
includes an illustration of the demon tower, making realize opening it has always been
the professor's goal, and he also has always known Hu Bayi and Yang Ping could do it, which
is why he tried to keep them together and safe.
Meanwhile, at Post 749, the explorers found a coffin with a living woman inside that looks
just like Yang Ping but calls herself Shirley.
She seems to have some mysterious powers that she can't control but no memory of Yang Ping,
so for now, they'll keep her locked and under constant watch while they offer her treatment.
Back to Hu Bayi, he keeps receiving Professor Yang's books at the library with specific
pages marked for him.
With Wang Kaixuan's support, he becomes obsessed with these legends and spends months studying
them, helping him understand the real story behind them.
There used to be a humanoid race from the demon's world, whose ancestors came from Saturn.
They're the successor of both demon and man, and the tower is their legacy.
There were supposed to be guards protecting the tower, but ten thousand years ago, this
race disappeared from Earth because humans finally broke out from demons' control.
There are some questions he can't still find answers to, however, like why he and Yang
Ping could open the tower, why the professor wanted to open it in the first place, and
who keeps sending him all these books.
Three years later, in 1985, officer Han is shocked to learn his team has found Professor
Yang alive in the mountains, hiding inside a cave.
Meanwhile, in West China, Oil City finds itself under the attack of the mysterious giant beasts.
They destroy everything on their path, leaving nothing behind but ruins.
Professor Yang tells Han that this must be the consequence of having opened the tower,
so he goes to the area to investigate.
This incident seems to have awoken Hu Bayi's shoulder scar, which starts bothering him
often, and his visit to the doctor causes him to appear on the system, which gives away
his location to Han.
One afternoon, the shoulder pain gets so strong that suddenly it lights a fire on Hu Bayi's
back, and he begins to display powers of his own, making every piece of furniture in the
library float.
Mr. Wang shows up, treating this as if it was perfectly natural, and explains that because
of the bat attack, Hu Bayi's blood has been contaminated by a demonic force that now gives
him powers but could drag him to hell.
Hu Bayi doesn't understand how Mr. Wang knows all this, so he uses his own powers to transform
the library into an old tomb and reveal he's the protector of Prince Yi of Sou Lin nation.
There are protector spirits here too like there had been back at the tower, including
Cang Sun's.
Mr. Want explains that Prince Yi was Hu Bayi's predecessor and he had been the one to lead
mankind against the technologically advanced demon race that had taken over Earth.
Prince Yi used his own body to seal the tower, and most demons left the planet, although
a few of them hid and took human form, even going as far as marrying humans themselves.
They want Hu Bayi because as a descendant, he's the only one that can open the tower
and free the demons again.
At Post 749, officer Han is furious to learn that his team has lost Professor Yang, but
some sudden news changes his mood for the better: Shirley has woken up and claims she
has her memories back, so she wants to go looking for her father together with Hu Bayi.
Han travels to the library to recruit him, but Hu Bayi refuses to get back in action
after seeing so much death during the last mission.
He quickly changes his mind however, when he learns about Shirley since he misses Yang
Ping terribly.
Mr. Wang thinks it's a bad idea for him to go when demons want to capture him to reopen
the tower, but Hu Bayi wants to understand how Yang Ping has come back to life, and now
the beast spirits are attacking the prince's tomb too, so something needs to be done about
it at the source.
Hu Bayi leaves the library with Wang Kaixuan, who wishes to help.
They travel to Northern China where they meet the team that will be looking for the professor:
Chen Dong, a woman called Cao Weiwei, a bunch of soldiers, and of course, Shirley.
Hu Bayi can't stop crying when he sees her again, but while she remembers his name, she
acts rather coldly towards him and insists to be called Shirley instead of Yang Ping.
The team travels through the desert by using camels.
After a few days of peace, they suddenly find themselves in a sandstorm, so they ride away
as fast as they can to leave it behind.
There's a little detail they don't notice though: the only reason why the sandstorm
doesn't follow them anymore is that they cross an invincible force shield that keeps the
storm away as they enter the ruins of Oil City.
Once they dismount in a safe area, they realize they actually lost a few men during their
escape, including Wang Kaixuan.
This second group is still in the middle of the desert without their camels, so they're
trying to reach the wellsite they've seen in the distance when suddenly, they're attacked
by one of these demon creatures.
They split as they run away, and the demon kills one of the soldiers as the rest of the
group reaches the wellsite, only to find a second demon there.
This demon kills all the men except for Wang Kaixuan and a friend, who find a bicycle and
make their way into Oil City to reunite with the rest of the team, who has been exploring
around and finding nothing but ruins and bodies.
Hearing about the demons, Hu Bayi wants to leave to avoid another massacre like it happened
last time in the mountains, but Chen Dong and Shirley want to stay and finish their
mission.
There isn't much time to discuss this though, because the demons find them and the team
must get ready to fight.
They arm themselves and shoot the first beast, thinking they've managed to kill it, then
they chase after the second one.
When they turn around however, the first one is gone.
While the team fights the beasts, Shirley runs away to enter an abandoned school, and
Hu Bayi follows her there.
He finds a bunch of bodies hanging from the ceiling and a hole in the ground which he
enters to discover an underground tunnel that takes him to the prince's tomb.
There's a demon there too, which pushes Hu Bayi and hurts him, but before it can go any
farther, Shirley shows up and tames it, making it go away.
Then she uses her powers to make Hu Bayi's unconscious body levitate into the coffin,
which she closes before leaving.
Back in town, more demons have arrived, so the team hides in the highest floors of buildings
to shoot silver bullets and rocket launchers from afar.
They manage to hit a few, but most demons dodge them and climb the buildings to go after
them.
Weiwei manages to avoid being found by pretending to be a mannequin, then she runs to hide inside
a bus with Wang Kaixuan while they try their best to survive the constant hits the demon
that has been chasing her keeps throwing at the vehicle.
Hu Bayi wakes up inside the coffin and is desperate to get out, but he notices something
magical is happening: his wounds are closing and healing at an incredible speed.
Mr. Wang's spirit appears before him, telling him the coffin will help the prince live again,
then Hu Bayi finds himself falling through darkness and showing up in front of the tower.
There, he can finally learn what has happened to Yang Ping: the beast that captured her
brought her to the cave and drop her on the flame, which burned her body and made it apt
for the demon queen to take over.
Now Shirley is in control of the demons and is unleashing them in town.
After the beast is gone, Hu Bayi approaches the tower to talk to the queen's spirit, learning
that Yang Ping was the other person that could open the door because she's her descendant.
She refuses to give up her body, and points out that killing her would kill Yang Ping
as well.
Hu Bayi swears he'll find a way, and finding this amusing, the queen sends him back to
town.
Finding the demon attacking the bus, Hu Bayi quickly shoots it to free his friends, but
he can't do anything about Chen Dong, who is hanging on the edge of a roof.
The demons keep coming after him, but Shirley needs him to open the tower door so she jumps
in his defense, throwing a car at the beasts to make them go away.
The ones attacking their friends are still around and ready to strike, Chen Dong is even
putting his gun against his temple to choose his own death instead of giving his life to
a demon.
But at the moment, Hu Bayi looks into Shirley's eyes and realizes he'll never get Yang Ping
back, so he shoots her three times, causing all the demons to disintegrate and the tower
to crumble.
Admitting Hu Bayi is the only one with the power to kill her, Shirley kisses him before
falling unconscious and transforming back into Yang Ping.
Hu Bayi cries over her death, but Yang Ping suddenly speaks and expresses how glad she's
to see him one more time, so Hu Bayi picks up her body and takes it to the prince's coffin,
hoping to heal her.
He lays down with her inside, and as he touches her forehead with his, he gets a vision of
her memories.
Yang Ping had powers since she was a little kid, including the ability to bring beings
back to life, but her mother forbid them to use them.
It wasn't until she saw her burn in blue fire that she understood her mother was a descendant
from the demons that took a human form and married normal people.
This is why Professor Yang had been researching the tower his whole life: he hoped one day
he could save his daughter from the destiny that awaited her.
Back in the cave, the only reason why they survived the fall was that Yang Ping had used
her powers to revive them all.
Before the connection ends, Yang Ping tells Hu Bayi that she loves him and requests not
to give up on trying to find her father.
Hu Bayi respects this wish and leaves the desert with his team on the camels, ready
to keep on searching while a giant beast watches them from afar.