A Writer’s Odyssey is a Chinese action fantasy film that follows Guan Ning (Lei Jiayin), a desperate man who is in search of his young daughter, who also happens to have a near super ability to aim and throw objects with precision and power. His daughter has been missing for six years, and one day he finds the person who has allegedly kidnapped her, but it goes nowhere, and it results in him being arrested. He escapes custody, and finds help in the form of Tu Ling (Yang Mi), who works for the massive tech giant, Li Mu (Yu Hewei).
Of course, him bumping into Tu Ling was not some kind of coincidence. She has a proposal for him, one that could potentially lead him to his daughter after so many years. All he has to do is find and kill Lu Kongwen (Dong Zijian), a dorky fantasy writer who is in the middle of working on his latest internet novel, Godslayer. Mu believes that Kongwen’s writing is somehow affecting the real world, in that any actions taken against the novel’s big bad, Lord Redmane, seems to affect Mu’s health. So, Ning is tasked to kill Kongwen before he is able to write the final chapter, in which Lord Redmane is supposed to be defeated.
This comes courtesy of filmmaker, Lu Yang, who is best known for the two Brotherhood Of Blades film. What’s fascinating about this film is the way it plays with fiction and reality, often switching between the real world and the world of the novel and the characters within, which is presented in full frame before transitioning to the 2.35 : 1 aspect ratio when it goes to the real world. It would probably look great in IMAX, which would seem like a no-brainer move if it weren’t for the pandemic.
The film throws you in the middle of everything real quick, with little context to go off of. We don’t get any scenes of Ning with his daughter or his life while she was around, and the fantasy world introduces a lot of wild and weird concepts and mythologies that takes a bit of time to fully grasp, and if I’m being honest, I don’t think I ever did get a full grasp of every little detail and plot point. It does make for a slightly disorienting experience at first, but it does eventually find a groove. So, even when you don’t fully understand what’s happening, the emotional logic holds you through.
It also helps that the film looks incredible, especially in the fantasy world. There seems to be a mix of different techniques, including green screen, massive sets, extensive compositing, and elaborate costumes. It’s a world that I had a really good time exploring, but it doesn’t necessarily overshadow the stuff happening in the real world, which is just as engaging. After all, not only is the real world where most of the stakes are at play, it also features some strong and very well staged action sequences that make great use of Ning’s throwing skills.
Whenever the plot has to come forward and keep the story moving along, that’s usually when things tend to lose focus. Ling’s dynamic with Ning is more complicated than one would initially expect, and she goes through a pretty significant arc, but one whose motivation is not immediately clear. The film does stuff a lot of different elements here, and not all of them totally come through feeling fully explored and fleshed out. I also found Kongwen to be lacking in personality, which was strange considering his counterpart in the fantasy world isn’t. This is just one of the many parallels between the real world and the fantasy world that don’t seem to click.
However, overall, I really enjoyed A Writer’s Odyssey. Sometimes, a strong sense of imagination can carry even the most flimsy of plots, and this is a case of just that. There are things that could be picked apart, but Lei Jiayin is a terrific lead, and even when I struggled to catch up on all the details, I could easily latch on to his performance, and know that it will carry me through. He brings a lot of soul to the film, and gives it that personal angle to give significance to all the spectacle that is going on around him. There are a couple missed opportunities, but the general notion about how storytelling can be used as catharsis and an opportunity to move forward is one that I found moving. There’s a lot to like about this film, and it further shows how far China is now when it comes to pulling off these kinds of big blockbusters that can rival Hollywood. It’s no The Wandering Earth, but it’s good stuff.
A Writer’s Odyssey is now playing in select theaters.