Ci sha xiao shuo jia

What a suprise this film was, decent story, however this film is a visual feast, so many cool visuals that gave me vibes from other films and games, goemon, dark souls, onimusha, assassins creed and sucker punch

loved it.

I managed to grab a viewing of this as the storyline seemed interesting that a writer could be able to influence the real world and potentially have links to the story world that was created.

There is much that can be commended, which is mostly the creativity and work that had gone into set design and costumes in the story world along with the soundtrack by Jed Kurzel, with clearly significant work done to make each area stand out. There are clear highlights of creativity that definitely show that what China is capable of producing is on par with USA.

Unfortunately, the entire movie is let down with its storyline, which apparently had 4 screenwriters. Interesting elements are brought up and then dropped or never adequately explained, characters seem fairly bland and one dimensional with occasional hints of depth that is not able to be fully explored. I would say this is from trying to fit two linked stories into one movie, which naturally limits screen time for both.

The inevitable final boss fight is the prevalent over-the-top CGI that Chinese movies appear to be going for nowadays; ultimately good looking but the over reliance of CGI and length means as an audience you become disconnected from what's going on in the real world.

Some attempts are made to link things through in the denouement of the film however at this point with so many open ended plot elements it is difficult to know where to go from there.

I think perhaps if more time was spent world building and exploring the writer's abilities and expanding on this in a second movie or a trilogy by reducing the scale of the plot for this initial instalment it would have worked better overall.

Engaging story. You start following in simple "kidnapping" story, usual: father daughter baddies. But then... no, no spoilers:)

sound perfect.10/10 music perfect placing.10/10 vfx perfect. 10/10 story have "flow" problem, but it gives you feeling as it should, like storyteller makes story on the go, so it have disconnection sometime, so what? Good 9/10

it should take place in iconic movies like "neverending story"

I like the overall setting of the story very much, which mixes the imaginary world of the book and the real world of the writer pretty well. In several flashes of moments, the scene switches between these two worlds, and I could not even tell which one is real, which one is imaginary. The cinematography of the city of Chongqing also helped a lot on developing this blurriness of the two worlds.

What I felt a bit unsatisfied is the lack of surprises in the development of the plot and the characters: the only twist occurs on the heroin, a non-essential character of the film. The two heros are just consistent and flat from the beginning to the end. In this regard, it has wasted the good setting of the story.

Overall, it is an easy-to-watch movie with plenty of astonishing visual effects.

It was a lot of fun, watching this movie!

I can recommand it!

Visuals are crazy! Liked it very much, also the music, the acting and the general story.

What was not so good?

A little bit illogical and seemed a bit flat in the end, but that's okay!

General recommandation!