Movie Review: Mr. Go

 Mr. Go is an action drama comedy that delivers more than you had ever expected it would. It's such a high concept premise that most likely will assume that it follows a certain formula done before by Hollywood. Fortunately, it's not. There are some unexpected yet interesting surprises throughout the film. Remember the kid in Stephen Chow's CJ7? She's the circus ringmaster Wei Wei in this film.

Some of the plot elements presented in the film are questionable: Why would a parent dares to let his own baby go near a 300kg gorilla? Why would the Korean professional baseball league allows a gorilla to join in any team to compete? If the circus is in the middle of a desert, why would anyone willing to go watch the show?


The CGI rendering of the gorillas Ling Ling and Lei Ting seems almost believable but feels uncanny at some scenes.There are plenty of amusing emotional bonding moments between Ling Ling and the Korean baseball agent, Sung or Wei Wei. The scene where Ling Ling desperately trying to rescue Wei Wei during the Sichuan earthquake is particularly heartwarming. The baseball matches shown in the film are well choreographed.

Unfortunately, the film suffers from too many deliberate expositions about the character background and doesn't flow nicely as the story progresses. The helicopter chasing scene in the stadium seems a bit too much and unnecessary. There's no sense of team camaraderie shown in all the baseball matches and no player reactions to the new recruits in the team. The film might lose some of its appeal to certain audiences due to its choice of sport.

Overall, it's still a decent major collaboration between China and South Korea to make such a high budget film. A decent, watchable family film suitable for audience of all ages.

Rating: 7/10