Yi chu haoxi / The Island (2018) - A Barbie Doll in a cabinet of horrors - 8/10 (22/08/18)

The Island is a mostly entertaining mixture of a survival drama with some social criticism, slapstick comedy and romantic elements. It tells the story of about thirty work colleagues who get into a heavy storm and strand on an isolated island. When nobody comes to their rescue, the group elects a military veteran as their leader who soon starts to abuse his power. The group splits into two camps when a clever businessman discovers a shipwreck with useful tools and convinces some of his colleagues to join his group. The story follows two unlucky brothers who soon realize that the military veteran is a sadist while the clever businessman is a liar and decide to live on their own. In order to feel superior just once in their lives, they successfully plan to play the two groups off against each other in order to become the new leaders. As time goes by, the two brothers need to decide whether they want to be leaders on an isolated island or ordinary people in a civilized world.

The movie starts very well with stunning special effects in a dramatic storm. The different characters are nicely developed and very distinctive. Every character has obvious strengths and weaknesses but living in the savage nature shows who the characters really are. The story is less interesting than the gripping character developments that have major impacts on the plot. The film finds the right balance between serious survival adventure with some social criticism related to the selfishness of mankind and some more light-hearted elements such as situation and slapstick comedy but also a romance between the older brother and one of the female co-workers.

The Island also has a few minor flaws. The movie is at least twenty minutes too long and the middle section is both repetitive and drifts at times off into the realm of fantasy instead of keeping the realistic survival story mode. The ending of the movie also feels stretched as there are additional scenes during and even after the credits. A more concise film would have been much more intense for the viewers. Personally, I didn't like Qi Shu's performance very much and don't understand why she is featured in so many movies these days. She is neither a particularly good actress nor a particularly beautiful woman that she often has to incarnate in my book. While other characters evolve mentally but especially physically on the island as they grow beards, long hair or get dirty and rough skin, Qi Shu's character always looks as if she came out of a beauty studio with perfect teeth, clean skin and smooth hair, even after having spent far over one hundred days on an isolated island. Her character simply feels misplaced and looks like a Barbie Doll in a cabinet of horrors.

In the end, I would still recommend The Island if you are looking for a quirky survival drama with intriguing characters. The story is somewhat shallow and the movie has its lengths but it's overall still very good thanks to outstanding acting performances, great camera work, exotic locations, poignant sound effects and impressive special effects as well as an interesting and mostly balanced mixture of different genres.