Journey to the “Crocodile Island” on DVD from Well Go USA!

The Dragon Triangle is known for being the Bermuda Triangle off the coast of the Asia continent.  Ship and plane mysteriously disappear due to the area’s supposedly distorted navigational and mechanical instruments, wreaking havoc on commercial transportation and the directionless travelers who have wandered into its esoteric province.  When an Australian outbound commercial flight GZ261 is forced to violently crash land due to this very phenomenon, survivors find themselves not in the middle of the sea but on an uncharted island full of man-eating crocodiles, large and ferocious spiders, and a giant, prehistoric crocodile that can swallow a person whole.  With no food or water and danger lurking around every corner, the remaining, uneaten passengers must survive with the tools around them and locate the wreckage of a World War II plane that crashed long ago, salvage it’s radio, and call for rescue but the journey is perilous with a very hungry, colossal crocodile on their tail.

The Dragon Triangle, alternatively known as the Devil’s Sea or the Pacific Bermuda Triangle, is actually a real stretch of urban legend approximately located from the Northern Tokyo to the narrow vertex down below the island of Guam and enveloping most of the Japanese offshore islands.  The suspected berth of paranormal yarn has a long history of marine mysteries and aviation ambiguities and it’s also the basis for the 2020 Xu Shixing and Simon Zhao creature-feature actioner “Crocodile Island.”  Shixing, who went on to helm “Sharktopus” released this year, and Zhao, who oversaw the directorial duties for “The Antarctic Octopus” also released this year, seem to have knack for exaggerated megafauna movies beginning with “Crocodile Island” from a script by Minming Ni of “Exorcist Judge Bao.”  The undivided Chinese production showcases under the banner of Perfect World Pictures, an entertainment content company that often co-finances films with American studios, such as with “Jurassic Park Dominion, and New Studios Media, the company behind Ni’s “Exorcist Judge Bao.” 

At the very core of “Crocodile Island’s” larger-than-life CGI creature extravaganza is a life ordeal larger than any crocodile could ever be with a strained father-daughter relationship that takes surviving a plane crash, man-eating reptilians, and supersized spiders to resolve.  In steps Gallen Lo as rigid father Lin Hao to agitated and rebellious daughter Lin Yi, or as called continuously in the film as Yiyi, played by Liao Yinyu.  The “Vampire Controller” Lo takes parental responsibilities like a high-end security guard at an exclusive night club exhibiting almost zero emotion toward an equally stoic daughter who just lost their mother, the reason for the plane ride from Australia where Yiyi’s mother, Lin Hao’s ex-wife and Yiyi resided after a suspected divorce. I say suspected because Lin Hao hasn’t seen his daughter in years, solidifying his estrangement to the extreme, but deep down he reticent care for her despite the lack of expressive emotions and awkward alienation.  He shows this be becoming a gatekeeper against Yiyi’s romantic interest Cheng Jie (Wang Bingxiang) who boards the same flight but keeps his distance by concealing his presence from what would ultimately be a father’s sundering wrath in effort to protect and reconnect with her having been absent during her adolescence and still thinking she’s a child.  That becomes the underlining theme to “Crocodile Island,” to fight to protect what’s most dear to you, as Lin Hao fights against man and beast to protect his child and going through the learning curve of her growing up.  One significant flaw in Lin Hao’s development is his background is never divulged.  We’re hinted by other survivors that he might be former military, but nothing is clear except that he’s had some survivalist and leadership training, two apex personality attributes that collide in reconnecting with his daughter as well as sewing a connection with her boyfriend who’s eager to protect Yiyi too.  Out of all the survivors, this triad dynamic is harder pressed than the others – a first child expecting couple, a social media junkie and her creep of a friend with a bad heart, a pair of single men – who seem like they’re just a long for the ride, to be crocodile chow, or to give the principals more time to work out their internal issues.  Wei Dang, Xue’er Hu, Qiwei He, Zhao Zuo, Zhiyan Zhao, Jack Wayne, Bruce Alleyn, Patrick Alleyn, and Jinyi Zhao costar.

“Crocodile Island” stands alone as a 100% Chinese backed product for the often American partnered Perfect World Pictures as the carnivores look nothing remote similar to the likes of “Jurassic Park” and, instead, has all the hallmarks of a midnight feature on the Syfy Channel but even through the shoddy computer imagery, the feature remains one-up from those made-for-television premiers by turning on and building up some tense atmospherics, a fog-laden forecast with Kaiju-lite spiders dangling-dormant overhead the survivors or the close-quarters cave battle against the giant crocodile, that does keep concentration from veering off into a ditch of mundane dullness.  Still, every creature, every aircraft, and every explosion from the muzzle fire of the U.S. military issued Thompson submachine gun to the fragmentation detonation of the MK II grenades are CGI rendered and poorly at that.  The laws of physics do not apply to “Crocodile Island” as the regular sized reptilians can leap forward, airborne, for feet on end and the action is almost a near, undefinable blur on screen of the pallid, fringing translucency composite mockup.  While visual effects can be 90’s intro-level rubbish (what year are we in?), I found the story to be palpable enough and to a point of plane crash survivors find themselves basically on a heavily reduced variation of “Land of the Lost” or “Journey to the Center of the Earth” where instead of a T-Rexes and other giant, prehistoric creatures nipping at their heels, massive ocean crocodiles and arachnids lay claim to their flesh and bones but that part of the story wavers on wishy-washy rationalization.  The World War II plane that crashes, because of a flock of pterodactyls nonetheless, was carrying radioactive material which is alluded to being the cause of the giant spiders and crocodile, yet the crocodile was present at the WW II plane crash when snatching one of the pilots right out of the sky with a vertical leap, so the mysterious Dragon Triangle Isle remains still a mystery.

If I had to choose between the Bermuda Triangle and the Dragon Triangle, my chances of survival definitely reside better west side of the prime meridian and now you can make that determination yourself with a DVD copy of “Crocodile Island” courtesy of Well Go USA Entertainment.  As part of their Hi-Yah! collection, despite depicting no martial arts, “Crocodile Island” is presented in a widescreen 16×9 aspect ratio and stored on a MPEG2 encoded DVD9 with a average bitrate between 7 to 8 Mbps.  Aside from the absurd VFX, “Crocodile Island” looks pretty good compression-wise and detail-wise with a blight free digital image that pops with lush greenery and stark contrast, the brilliant sandy beach and bright blue water comes to mind as examples, with a grading range that runs the natural color spectrum.  The Mandarin language audio comes with two options:  a Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and a Stereo 2.0.  Both render a clean, damage free mix with prominent dialogue and a pinpoint ambient sound design only to be besmirched by the laughable CGI and creature noises.  While the track is listed as strictly Mandarin, an English dub on the same track combs over the natural voices of the English-speaking actors, the pilots in the movie who are obviously speaking English when reading their lips, but the English dub sounds like Asian actors attempting English vocal impersonations that synch up egregiously.  Subtitles include English, traditional Chinese, and a simplified Chinese, which I’m not entirely sure if that means for a child’s benefit or another reason.  The English synch appears to be oversimplified as well with a slew of straight forward statements and exclamations, adding little depth to what the meaning characters attempt to convey in more significant conversion.  There’s not much in the way of special features in the rainy motion DVD menu aside from the film’s trailer and other Well Go USA Entertainment preview trailers for “A Creature Was Stirring,” “Creepy Crawly,” and “Gangnam Zombie.” The Amaray front cover has run-of-the-mill, campy Giant crocodile pomposity of a cover art with the doubled-sided, one-sheet inside insert of other Hi-Yah! Well Go USA Entertainment titles. What I found aesthetic is the simple designed, yet eye-catching disc pressed with a shimmering glint. Not rated and locked on a region one playback, the release has a runtime of 87 minutes. While this crocodile’s skin remains without a tangible leathery hide in the semi-aquatic beast’s digital creation, “Crocodile Island” has sporadic action and atmospheric value vastly needed to combat the cringeworthy croc.

Journey to the “Crocodile Island” on DVD from Well Go USA!