Surprise (2015) 万万没想到 - Part 4 (Movie Recap)

kynkari: We are in the home stretch! The demon has been vanquished by Murong Bai and the village has been saved! If you were here for the pretty, stick around because the pretty shows back up during the credits in some hilarious BTS/outtakes.
SakiVI: Murong Bai is my hero - or would be if he was alive.

For a girl who had a big crush on Murong Bai and then was engaged to him, Xiao Mei doesn’t seem at all put out by his tragic demise. Instead, with Murong Bai’s smouldering ashes still sifting through the air, she and Dachui make heart eyes at each other and he tries to kiss her. Everyone staring makes Dachui  nervous and the mood is killed. Dammit!
I'm annoyed with her lack of grief for my precious sacrificial lamb.


Awkwaaaarrrrd.
This has happened to me in real life.

At just that moment, the chopstick that was keeping the seal from reversing breaks in half, and the seal reverses. This really shouldn’t matter now that the demon is dead though, should it?
It matters.
Pffft.

A gnome-like man appears and grabs the bottle that held the demon’s spirit, drinking it down in one gulp. This character has shown up briefly throughout the movie to offer helpful advice or tell a joke or sing a song. He calls himself an Grandpa Earth and he’s completely forgettable.

Never noticed him. 
It looks like he was forgettable on purpose, because he isn’t Grandpa Earth at all! He the Dark Lord of Fire and he’s the REAL demon!

Here is the best explanation I can cobble out of the ensuing chaos: The Dark Lord, before being sealed beneath Stone Ox Village, planted a “Demon of Heart” in the Murong family. Think of it as a mini-demon, one that tempts Murong descendants to free the Dark Lord. This Demon of Heart is what has been causing all of the trouble up until now, but it has all been orchestrated by the Dark Lord.
He controlled the Demon of Heart, he controlled Tony the Tiger, and he controlled the little old man who kept giving helpful (but actually manipulative) advice.
They wouldn't just let us end it, would they?

Ummmm…. That’s some BS, people. Murong Bai was tortured for days and then died for nothing!
Right now, I really hate Dachui!

Anyhoo, the Dark Lord is one nasty piece of business. He is a giant Fire-Dragon (OOooo!) and he commences to suck the life force out of everyone and destroy the Earth, like you do. He feeds off of the greed and selfishness of mankind.

Chinese Fire-Dragon, for reference
It's kind of cool, sort-of pun intended.

The only one not affected by the energy drain is Dachui, and he realizes what he has to do. There is a Stone Ox statue standing in front of the seal, and he struggles to get to it so that he can activate it. He is a stone spirit, after all. I thought he was a flower spirit? Monkey King tries to help him.
The Dark Lord shatters the Ox before Dachui can reach it. He hears a voice in his head telling him that he *IS* the Stone Ox, so he runs up to the seal and begins to manipulate it.
Again, why all the flowers? He could've moved rocks instead. Also, Dachui being the Stone Ox is kind of random, though random is probably to be expected here.

Okay, this part is sad. Get out the tissues. He looks at Xiao Mei and tells her that he doesn’t want to be a hero anymore. If he could do it again, he would just live with her peacefully. Then he transforms into a Stone Ox, losing his chance to be with Xiao Mei in this lifetime. *sob*
I don't care, I'm still mad Murong Bai died.

Xiao Mei calls upon the people of the village to stop running and to stand up to the demon once and for all. If each of them would share just a little bit of their energy with Dachui, together they can stop
he Dark Lord. They all lend Duchai-Ox their energy and he grows huge, leaping into the sky and
colliding with the Dark Lord to destroy him.
I wonder how she knows that?

He finally is a real hero!
The ox is rather cute. Like a hippo.

The movie ends with the Monk, Monkey, Piggy, and Beard-Man leaving town and discussing how brave Dachui had been in the end. The Monk says he will be reborn again soon because two people who have true love are destined to be together. The scene then shifts to Xiao Mei cuddling a Stone Ox statue in the middle of the village with the gifts she and Dachui had given each other sitting in front of it.


The Stone Ox’s nose then bleeds.




(The End)

Final Comments:

Like Part 3, the ending of this movie was more serious and gave us some morals and life lessons. Humans are not always greedy and self-serving and we can wield great power to fight evil if we work together. Humanity is worth saving. Dachui also learned that being a hero isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Come to think of it, wasn’t that the plot to the Wonder Woman movie?


The ending was bittersweet (typical c-drama). Poor Xiao Mei was left with no Murong Bai, no Dachui, and no father. She did get to keep the adorable Pomeranian dog, though! And, she seemed happy enough cuddling her statue. The Stone Ox’s nose bleeding was super weird, but perhaps it signifies he is coming back to life, and soon Dachui and Xiao Mei can be together again?

Murong Bai got the hose in this movie.
And this is where I'm disappointed. Maybe he will come back to life again somehow?

Behind the Scenes and Outtakes

I won’t share them all, but will just pick a few of the funniest. There are plenty of your typical giggling, forgetting lines, and dropping props outtakes. A few of them are purposely silly.

This one is my favorite (shocker). Ma Tianyu whips his dark, gorgeous wig around in a wind machine, looks sexily at the camera, and starts advertising Murong Bai shampoo. Then he offers it to the director, who is bald.
He had me at the hair toss.

In this one, the director realizes that he forgot the PPL in the movie, which is sponsored by a drink called Wanglaoji, so they show clips where they have worked the drink into the dialogue and action scenes very awkwardly. I love that they are making fun of PPL!
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Murong Bai picks up the scroll with the sketch of Xiao Mei, and it doesn’t quite look the same as it did in the movie. I wonder if the crew did this without Ma Tianyu knowing as a joke, because he looks like he’s about to lose it…
In our final clip, a male actor has snuck into the cheerleading squad and yells that he wants to have Murong Bai’s baby. This once again proves that Murong Bai is transcends all cisnormative Barriers.
Murong Bai appeals to all! And I can't believe no one had his baby.

There are some nice BTS clips at the end that let us see how the movie was filmed. They show what the actors had to go through with painful glue from the wigs, long hours in a makeup chair, and getting hurt during action scenes. I was shocked to see that stunt men were not used for many of the fights.
The actors were on wires and did some pretty complicated choreography, especially Ma Tianyu during his fights with Tony the Tiger. Nicely done, handsome man!
Ma Tian Yu did the same for Ice Fantasy. He's wonderful!