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Bookmark this pageMagic to Win (2011)
Director: Wilson Yip
Movie review
From Time Out London
Aiming for ‘Harry Potter’ territory but ending up closer to already-forgotten Nicolas Cage vehicle ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’, this supernatural romp from ‘Ip Man’ director Yip Wai-Shun sees a struggling girls’ volleyball team re-energised when one of their number acquires unexpected magical powers. Which calls for shrieking teens, crude slapstick, plenty of pratfalls and gangs of grim-faced wizard types shouting a lot and firing rippling CG fireballs at each other. There’s a mythology in play here – it’s derived from the popular ‘Happy Ghost’ movie series, and involves some kind of ‘Last Airbender’-style elemental sorcery – but Yip doesn’t bother to furnish newcomers with any detail or depth, either in the narrative or the characters. What remains is intermittently watchable – an unexpectedly affecting time-travel coda works a treat – but mostly this is just aggravating, as the volleyball girls flap and pout, the wizards glower and prance and the film trundles from one half-hearted and predictable action sequence to another.Author: Tom Huddleston
Time Out London Issue 2156: 15 – 21 December, 2011
Cast & crew
Director: Wilson Yip
Cast: Jacky Wu, Louis Koo, Chun Wu full cast
Genre(s): Action/Adventure, Fantasy
Rated: PG
Duration: 100 mins
UK Release: Dec 9 2011
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