Once Upon a Time: In einer fantastischen Welt

It makes me angry to think of every injustice that this movie has suffered since its release in China. I don't know why Chinese audience always screams about how rubbish the Chinese cinematic works are becoming, yet they can treat such a hard-work dedicated piece of art like rubbish??? Well, I guess "you get what you give", Chinese people, if you treat such a good movie like rubbish, then how can you deserve anything better than rubbish?

Now let me express some sincere thoughts about this movie:

1.Plot: The plot is awesome! Not only it is clear, logical, precise and sharp enough to execute an attractive love story, but the ending is also amazing! So creative, so unpredictable, shocking and meaningful at the same time! Sincerely, I have expected a more traditional happy ending or sad ending like Romeo and Juliet, because any average love movie will have an ending like that! But the plot of OUAT has surprised me and won my applause! True artists should be daring and creative like that! Movies are not just to watch, they should also help us to feel, to join in and to think along with the characters!

2.Editing: Well, I think editing is the biggest flaw of the movie. The transition between scenes is so "sudden" and interrupts the emotional flow of the audience.

3.Acting: The cast are beautiful, dedicated to their roles, very good chemistry between all the characters. Although their acting skills are a bit more suitable for dramas and still "weak" in terms of movie acting, but their emotional facial expression are naturally convincing, their voice acting is very good, the action scenes are amazing too.

4.Music: It is a bit disappointing because the BGM is "ok" but does not help to nurture the emotion of the scene. I mean the music is there, but it does not support well the acting efforts of the cast. Meanwhile, the BGM in the trailers and the three theme songs (especially the song by Na Ying) are extremely beautiful and emotional-lifting, but pitifully they are not used in the movie!

5.Special effects: It a 9 out of 10! Perfect! The art concept, the 3D effect, the special effects of wind, water, fur/feather and light.... I really appreciate the great efforts of the Effect crews to complete all of the fancy fairy world scene. Especially, all the special effects are used wisely and appropriately to support the story and bring better emotion for the audience. Meanwhile with other Chinese movies, special effects are mostly "emotionless" and appear just to "show off" the skills of the crews.

Once Upon A Time is definitely like no other Chinese ancient movie before. From the costumes, to the voice line of the characters, to the plot, to the depiction of the fairy world is so different from the popular perception of Chinese audience. But is is beautifully different. You may like or don't like the movie, but it is definitely a piece of art that should be treated with respect and appreciation. It may not be a perfect movie, but it is a movie worth 109 minutes to watch! Actually I'm gonna watch it again several times to capture all of the beauty and ideas hidden in every scene, every line, every details of the plot.

Zhao Xiao Ding, keep on going! Yang Yang, Liu Yifei, keep on going! As long as you give out your whole heart, there will be people who can see it!

Aug 12: Saw the movie with my mom and uncle today. Had no problem following the story line, even my 80 year-old uncle could easily tell which parts were flashbacks. It's a well made film and we thoroughly enjoyed it, though adding a few scenes to tell of the love between Mo Yuan and Si Yin will make the story more complete. Very touched towards the end and have to admit I teared up. Will definitely go see it again!!

Aug 20: Watched it 3 times already, today with my husband who doesn't speak Chinese. Although it's not his type, he thought it's pretty good as it fulfilled it's purpose as a movie...well made and good entertainment. Couldn't understand all those extremely negative reviews, seemed to have an agenda to prevent this movie from attaining greater success.

Sep 2: My 4th view today. Saw the standard version with several friends. Without the "visual busyness" of 3D, my focus was fully on the story and characters, and the richness of both are amazing. I like this movie more and more.

Finally I got to watch this movie yesterday. I like how Director Xiaoding Zhao and Anthony LaMolinara built a very unique virtual world of ancient Chinese land for this movie. Qingqiu country, where the leading actress lives, is so lively and beautiful. And the war scene towards the end is breathtaking. It's very interesting to understand the two main roles' relationship all through the story, more complicated than I expected. I could always feel Ye Hua's pain and I cried when the mystery got unfolded. Beautiful 3D scenes and beautiful music. Highly recommended.

Terrible ending!!!

I had a high exception earlier because of the unbelievable superior image quality in the beginning of the movie.

Yet storyline is terribly incomplete. The storytelling rhythm is crazy fast, plot driven in a hurry, like a millions dogs chased behind. Too much montage screen switch, and confusing characters recall methods. People who never read the original novel would never figured out the story, or either feel tire to a cheesy romantic story.

Storytelling is the basic foundation, amazing CGI can't save a bad storyline! It is call quality awful movie. The incomplete ending is the worst, totally bum me out. Beside, this movie is edit based on a copycat's novel. The movie failed is predictable because of the plagiarized work, it is empty and bombastic from the copycat because her character and setting were built on the others base. Then how can the director recreated a better piece from an empty work?

Updated: Chinese paid internet army please leave me review along, we all knew those rave reviews from this movie were artificial. Who else will interested to read the alibaba company copyrights news, and rated it high. Maybe idols fans will commend their idols acting, I don't have so much words on that. As long as they keep claim and be logic, it is welcome to describe movie and actor in IMDb. But just behave, stop ShuaFen. I thought I was very gentle to rate 6/10 base on the CGI already.

The movie is like taking the best scenes of the TV shows having the same name. The TV show is much better. This one is so broken. It doesn't have the important parts which it really needs to have, such as why Bai Qian ended on the place where she met Ye Hua? It's like if you haven't watched the TV series version, you wouldn't even get the whole story. The four stars I gave is for video effects, not for story. Finally, I would highly recommend to watch the TV series version first before watching this one. If you watch this one without watching TV series version, you wouldn't understand the whole movie completely.