Well, let's start from the beginning. I want to say that opening surprised me, it looked very fresh and cosy. Talking about plot, it was really good, I've enjoyed it, except, I'm not fan of ending. Another aspect was CGI, it looked very poor and visuals didn't surprise me at all,it brought me back to 2000s'. I loved colors tho. I can say that they had perfect movie and if there would be better ending with great CGI, I could give it 8/10 easily. Now we have what we have. So far it's in my top10 movies of this year. I would recommend to watch this film because it's one of the best action movie that's been released this year.
6.4Keywords: based on game
Plot summary
Captain of the City Guard Yuan Boya is stripped of rank after the imperial tribute he was guarding is stolen. Unwilling to let things lie, he searches for the thieves, only to end up entering a mystical world of demons. Along the way, he becomes mixed up in a feud between Yinyang Master Qing Ming and the human and demon worlds. Yuan Boya and Qing Ming go from mutual distaste to grudging respect, eventually establishing an unbreakable bond between master and "familiar." The two work together to solve an old mystery and prove Qing Ming's innocence, while also unraveling a conspiracy to bring the Demon King back from the dead and destroy the human world. In the end, Yuan Boya become a respected hero, while Qing Ming makes a great sacrifice. Adapting the phenomenal mobile game Onmyoji (Master of Yin and Yang) into a movie and series of the same name, CKF Pictures is bringing this magnificent Eastern fantasy world to the big screen.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Top cast
Victoria Grace as Shenle
Movie Reviews
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Almost a Chinese Marvel film
A historical fantasy from the Chinese mainland, apparently based on a mobile phone game that's highly popular in that country. This feels much of a muchness with many other recent Chinese fantasy films, i.e. Focusing almost exclusively on visuals at the detriment of story, character and viewer involvement. One thing I did notice here was the influence of Marvel on the whole look and feel of the production, particularly with the comedy animals which feel like something out of GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY. The CGI is extensive and not too bad, especially if you're a kid watching.
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Chinese productions getting better all the time
If you think about it, Chinese folklore has millennia of content, refined for centuries, to inspire movie makers. All they need is some computer graphics, decent acting and some experience and they are set to build fantastical worlds that the Western World hasn't even dreamed of. This film is part of a sort of thematic series, with another Yinyang Master movie from 2020 having absolutely no connection to this one, but set in the same world of Chinese mythology. And it was good!
Now, the scenes were not really polished, the actors and their dialogues not to the standards that we've come to expect from Hollywood productions, but that's as much a good thing as a bad thing. The CGI was a bit clumsy only with the "Red Devil" character and maybe the final fight, the rest being pretty spot on. But what I liked more was the story, which had complex characters, hero journeys, a big baddie and tons of fun fights that kind of made sense.
Bottom line: this is one of the most entertaining and accessible Chinese films I've seen in a long time and, what's best, it felt natural, not an attempt to clone a particular Western genre. It felt authentic as well as interesting. Keep up the good work, guys!