Legend of the Demon Cat

Legend of the Demon Cat (妖猫传, 2017) is a Chinese-Japanese fantasy from director Chen Kaige that you can watch online on iFILM. The year is 804, in the Tang Dynasty capital of Chang'an. A young Japanese monk named Kukai arrives at court to lift a strange sickness from the emperor — but he's too late. The ruler dies in front of him, and somewhere in the palace, a black cat is heard speaking.

Kukai teams up with the court poet Bai Juyi, and the two start pulling at a thread that drags them deeper into the past. A run of gruesome deaths, a talking black cat demanding vengeance, and a secret buried beneath the splendor of an imperial banquet. The further the pair untangle the mystery, the clearer it becomes that it all traces back to an old story of love and betrayal tied to the legendary beauty Yang Guifei. Huang Xuan and Shôta Sometani lead the investigation through illusions, sleight of hand and the glow of Chang'an.

Chen Kaige, who made Farewell My Concubine, had a full-scale Tang city built for this film, and it shows in every frame — feasts, lanterns, gold and sorcery drenched in saturated color. A hundred and twenty-nine minutes of visual feast, where the mystery slowly turns into a mournful poem about love, death and revenge. It's for viewers who prize Eastern fantasy for scale and beauty over action. Stream Legend of the Demon Cat (2017) online on iFILM.