Snake 3: Dinosaur vs. Python (2022) Review

Lin Zhen-Zhao may well be China’s answer to Roger Corman or maybe Fred Olen Ray. His current film Snake 3: Dinosaur vs. Python (Orochi 3 Dragon and Snake Battle, 大蛇3龙蛇之战) is the followup to Snakes and Snake 2. And he’s also given us Junkrat Train, Reset the Earth and The Enchanting Phantom among others, just since 2018.

Workers doing excavations for what is to be a new theme park manage to not only uncover but reanimate a giant snake. As if that wasn’t bad enough luck for them, its presence somehow attracts an Indominus Rex all the way from Jurassic Park. Between the two of them, they make short work of the workers as they prepare to fight.

Elsewhere on the island, a tour bus driven by Zhang Yang (Luo Li-Qun, Chinese Wrestling Legend of the Hundred Fist, Land Shark) is taking the usual strange assortment of tourists on a sightseeing expedition. Those passengers include Xiao Nan (Chen Zi-Han, The Legendary Amazons, Death Zone) and her young son Kai whom she has reluctantly, due to an injury to his leg, agreed to bring along. It’s already shaping up to be an interesting trip as a flock of giant birds has flown into the bus and the young lad has seen a giant snake in the distance. And that’s all before the giant boulders cause the bus to crash.

Snake 3: Dinosaur vs. Python gets off to an impressive, if extremely unbelievable even for this genre, start. The effects are especially good and both creatures as well as the destruction they cause, look impressive. Predictably though once we join the tour group, the film takes an excursion into comic relief. If you find someone getting eaten by a giant frog, whose scientific name is Beelzebufo no less, while he’s taking a leak on a small frog funny you might not mind this segment as much as I did.

Eventually Snake 3: Dinosaur vs. Python gets back on track leaving Kai separated from the rest of the group and being chased by one of the Beelzebufo while the snake, a Pangu Python if you were wondering, attacks the bus, hoisting it up over the trees before dropping it. Eventually Snake 3: Dinosaur vs. Python gets back on track leaving Kai separated from the rest of the group and being chased by one of the Beelzebufo while the snake, a Pangu Python if you were wondering, attacks the bus, hoisting it up over the trees before dropping it.

Eventually, we have our focus split three ways between Kai’s mother and a couple of others looking for the boy, the rest of the survivors from the bus looking for a transmitter to call for help and Kai himself. He’s probably the safest of them all because in a move that channels the Gammera films he’s made friends with the snake.

There’s a lot to like in Snake 3: Dinosaur vs. Python, not the least of which is the variety of creatures on display here. There are even carnivorous plants that spit huge thorns at their prey. There’s also plenty of And the effects for them, while not as good as the opening scene, are mostly well done. There are some notably bad moments, however, such as the scenes of them fleeing in the 4×4. We also get, unlike in some of these films such as Varanus Priscus, plenty of monster versus monster action. The snake not only fights a pack of Indominus Rex, but it also gets to have a final showdown with a huge T Rex-type creature.

It’s not all good news though, while well enough animated, the giant frogs are more comical looking than scary. Snake 3: Dinosaur vs. Python also suffers from having too many of the same cliched characters we see in most of these films. And that goes for the many bad attempts at humour including someone in hiding having a dinosaur take a dump on them. I’d love to see more of these without the same tired “funny” characters and lame jokes. But they seem to be a requirement in most of these films.

Snake 3: Dinosaur vs. Python is still a better than average example of Chinese kaiju films. It’s certainly better than the likes of Jurassic Island for that matter. And as an added bonus it’s currently free to watch on Youku’s YouTube channel. And if you want to make it a double feature, FilmTagger may have a few ideas for you.