San sheng san shi shi li tao hua

Chinese movie "Once Upon A Time" (2017) has blockbuster budget special effects and production values, with epic wide shots, huge armies, acrobatic fight scenes, a gorgeous color palette and exotic costumes, as well as insanely attractive actors (Yang Yang) and actresses. I am not familiar with the copyright scandal or the books "Once Upon A Time" is supposedly based on, but there was even a hint of a good story to draw from: humorous, tragic, heroic, villainous, a broken kind of humanity on which to savor. But with all this surefire appeal, even a comical animal sidekick akin to Disney films, "Once Upon A Time" quite definitely missed its mark.

The vast armies had no clout, the fight scenes held little meaning or surprise, the attractive actors became generic-in many ways, there was more splendor than distinguishment. The story had mystery, but it fell apart. One scene skipped to the next, one location became another giving the audience no sense of context or sequence. The story of so much grandiose complexity (300 year heartbreak, 70,000 year missed connections) revealed itself as flimsy. Everything which seemed meant to be epic had little significance, much like a special effect move in a video game with puny attack damage.

Major potential, but not a major let down because I didn't expect much when after forty minutes I still didn't feel any story progess or emotional investment. At this point I just finished the remaining hour and twenty minutes to be able to write this review. Too long, if you ask me and not really worth it.

For starters, the title actress Yiu Lifei who plays the forgetful immortal Queen is sorely uncharismatic although a few drinking scenes almost held hope. Her romantic interest played by Yang Yang is much more appealing and even might have acting chops, but his character had next to no dimension. The extent of their romance seemed only to be to cry on cue in a single, solitary tear across their porcelain cheeks. Boring, after a while.

Many of the side characters however do have a lot of charisma and some emotional depth. One feels there were some casting mistakes for the leads with favor for beauty instead of ability to emote. Luo Jin plays Yiu Lifei's drunken Phoenix friend and his part is small but his expressions sympathetic. Chun Li has a larger part as Yang Yang's consort and Yiu Lifei's jealous rival and she is appropriately evil and vulnerable. Others also play minor roles but do a well enough job. One feels as though with different casting and leadership this movie could've soared.

I'm giving "Once Upon A Time" a 6/10 because truly, the color palette and costumes are next level. The lighting at times was beautiful, and I liked most of the set designs. But for an almost two hour run time, beautiful colors can't sustain a momentous cliche of a film without even basic storytelling skills to back it up. Whoever this director is, they must have missed a few film classes because too often exposition shots are sorely missing and vital exposition in terms of the rules of the world is forgotten until it is much too late. Some backpedaling helped things but by that point I had given up.

6/10 for this weird mix of utterly remarkable visual effects and utterly amateur storytelling. I mean seriously who hired this director and where did they get the editing team from? Intro to film class?

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!

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.

I watch this movie because my friend who was already read the web story and watched the series. I on the other hand have not heard much of the story except knowing this series or novel is quite popular. I kinda enjoyed the nice cgi and beautiful scenes. As always Chinese fantasy movies usually do produce nice artworks.The costumes were fantastic. Love all the intricacies and beautiful details of each costume. The actor and actress both beautiful and handsome and their on screen chemistry were wonderful. The only thing about this movie is the editing of the story for me is that it's jumping from one scene to another without much explanation. For my friend who already knew the story line , can grasp the whole who, why and what it's happening .But for me it's a bit disjointed, and after she explained to me 'the summary' of the story that i can understand fully what really happened . I would say if the director spend a bit more time of slowly unfolding the story from the beginning i would enjoyed it far more. This movie is like a fan service "summary" of a popular story where the fans already knows the story well to enjoy it more on a big screen with elaborate costumes, stunning cgi and scenery.

Lavish sets and costumes plus eye-popping CGI animation showed so much promise of an A-plus movie, but the script was just awful! Even the heavy star power of the two main leads couldn't save this disastrous attempt at bringing the eternal love story to life, let alone draw in the audience and make us care. The dialogue was stilted, scenes jumped from one to another with flashbacks that didn't seem to connect, the clumsy direction was horrible making romantic scenes seemed cartoonish, lines delivered were either too wooden or too exaggerated...the list goes on. In spite of the gorgeous costumes, the designer couldn't decide whether to showcase the beauty of ancient styles or appeal to the modern mode. The female lead's hair and attire were modernized while everyone else around her was in historical costumes. This caused more confusion to an already chaotic narrative. The ending was the worst part of the movie. I cringed instead of feeling enamored. WTF was that?! Heavy sigh, I was filled with high anticipation and had waited for a very long time to be able to watch it for free...and I'm so glad it was FREE. I would've been more upset if I had to pay. Instead, if you can find episodes free on YouTube, watch the "Eternal Love" TV series starring Mark Chao and Yang Mi.