User reviews

Maybe there's a translation issue, but it seemed like i was watching a parody of a vintage 'Monkey Magic' episode filmed at the Atlantis resort in Dubai

Before attending the preview of this Chinese summer action fantasy blockbuster, this writer came across an online article about how the movie is being billed as a "Chinese X Men". Next, he watched the trailer and had a nagging feeling that he will have nothing good to say about this star studded production (if you are not the hugest fan of overdoses of special effects and computer generated creatures, then you are on this reviewer's side).

True enough, the 110 minute movie throws scene after scene of pompous action sequences at its viewers. There is nothing particularly original about this production – it is really a messy mashup of things you have seen elsewhere.

Based on the Ming Dynasty novel Fengshen Yanyi (Investiture of the Gods) by Xu Zhonglin, the story starts of with a tyrannical king (a bored looking Tony Leung, who had seen better days in movies like the recent Cold War 2), who is also bewitched by a beautiful empress (Fan Bingbing, who is the best part about this movie), who is in fact an ancient fox demon (watch out for her giant tentacles!). Just as the evil duo are about to kill off a good guy who is holding the secrets to destroy the ultimate baddie known as the Black Dragon, good guys in the form of a righteous young man (an earnest Jacky Heung who can't save the movie) and a powerful sorcerer (Jet Li, who can definitely do much better than this).

Elsewhere, there is a villainous general who rides on a CG black panther (Louis Koo, who probably is happy from earning some easy bucks), a rebellious warrior who flies around on CG fire wheels (Wen Zhang, who took over the role from Cecilia Chung after she was fired for poor behaviour) and a righteous warrior who yields CG weapons (an underused Huang Xiaoming). Oh, there is also the love interest character (Angelababy, looking as pretty as ever with her big dreamy eyes) who looks really happy when she sees CG blue butterflies. The good guys are supposed to hunt down a mighty sword which is supposed to save the world (but of course).

To be honest, the story does have quite a bit of potential to capitalise the characters' campy abilities and the demons' out of this world powers to produce an entertaining piece of work. Unfortunately, when you have HK$300 million to blow on a movie, budget is spent on trying to impress the masses with CG scenes (this columnist might have been more impressed if there were animatronics on display). Money was probably also spent on "foreign talents" like composer John Debney (The Jungle Book), animation director Randall William Cook (The Lord of the Rings), sound designer Brent Burge (The Hobbit) and editor Wayne Philip Wahrman (I Am Legend).

The result? A mess that can hardly be salvaged. We just need to mention one scene for you to know what to expect – A CG Nezha invades an underwater palace and destroys CG sea monsters with CG fart. Yup, you read it right. We rest our case here - till the sequel comes along (yup, there will probably be one).

I don't normally write reviews but this movie is just God awful. A reviewer said that you shouldn't view the movie with western eyes because it's an Asian film. I'm Chinese and this film is the worst Chinese film I've ever seen. The actors are under utilized; the cgi is over the top, ugly, and unrealistic; the plot is just terrible. I'm so confused on who the main actor is, because there are so many subplots. You can develop characters without the subplots. What is that under the sea scene about? Didn't the evil general perish in the sky? How did he appear on the battlefield? The editing is just terrible. The edit at the beginning of the movie when the king is having a celebration while a jailbreak is going on is just risible. It's just a terrible terrible film. Please, no sequel.

I thought Chinese are getting better at making movies after watching the mermaid,dragon blade and journey to the west. The story is about an evil king with a beautiful empress who is a nine tail fox demon. Our heros must find a legendary sword and together defeat the villains.We have a villain general riding on black panther like he man, a hero who flies on weird rings, another hero with wings and more blah blah.Sooo much potential completely ruined. The movie is filled with cgi and action but no space for story or character development. They put too much in one movie.The scenes jump from one action scene to other without any connection. My head still hurts watching this mess.Even the action and visuals were very confusing and too fast. Just when an action scene ends another one starts without giving any room for the characters to interact.There was no proper introduction to the setting and any details about the life of character's.In the second half a little bit drama made me give this five stars. A disappointment from Jet li who tried to be gandalf in this movie. I couldn't stop laughing when they showed signs of a sequel at the end. Finally a great comment from a youtuber.

"It's all fun and games until a baby goes cgi".

It goes from amazing to ridiculous in about 30 minutes. It started with such a promise. Also, the story does not finish and its sequel is never made. At least they could have finished the story.

This is absolutely by far, one of the worst Chinese mythology adaptation I've ever seen in my 28 years as a Chinese. The biggest flaw is how the characters had almost no resemblance to their original selves, they were "westernized" for the sake of appealing to the western audience. The story was all over the place, pointless and the screen play was obviously rushed - where it felt like the director had a checklist of what to do and just went with it. They took the essential core of Chinese mythology and just littered it with as much explosions as possible. I mean, space ships... really?

As for any saving grace, I'd give the movie some props for having a very decent audio mastering prowess. The LFE was taut, it wasn't overbearing and it has a sense of weight whenever the scene asks for it. There's also some good usage of surround effects, voices pan with very nice and wide separation that makes it a little eerie to listen to at times.

China's visual department has definitely came a long way. They're still a few steps behind Hollywood as a whole, but they're definitely closer than ever. Good effort by the VFX team, unfortunately the decision in making the whole movie look like the Avengers was a big turn off.

This is a mediocre movie at best and most of the time, it's just simply bad. It deserves a 3 simply because of its audio presentation and a nod to the VFX team. Other than that, this movie belongs in the litter box of garbage movies.

A 2016 movie with the production values, special effects, script, costumes, backgrounds and dialogue of a 2005 video game.

The effects are beautiful, the costumes are beautiful, the dancing of the fighters is beautiful too, taking flight, stopping in the air, striking nimbly and landing delicately, the script is basic, everything else of the same, when it comes to oriental films of the genre, I'm not a fan , I don't feel like it, but it's beautiful... Visually splendid...

I can't believe the low score for this movie and the bad reviews complaining about the effects. Yes, there's a lot of CGI in this movie but no more than you see in the Avengers or Star Trek. And yes the storyline is a bit weird at times, but it's an Asian fantasy movie based on a centuries old fable so things are gonna be a little different. I thought some of the action scenes were amazing and there was some funny moments and some great acting. Grab some popcorn, turn your brain off for 100 minutes and sit back and enjoy the show without overanalysing things and you'll have a good time. Can't wait for the sequel...

League of Gods is an action/fantasy movie directed by Koan Hui and stars Jet Li, Tony Leung, Fan Bingbing, Louis Koo, Huang Xiaoming, Angelababy, Wen Zhang and Jacky Hueng.

I am always being fan of Chinese and Hong Kong cinema and have seen few very good movies in the past and when I came to know about this star studded fantasy movie I was very excited to watch the movie and soon all my excitement is been killed with this CGI created mess and I am still trying to recover from this disaster and still not been able to understand what was this and why was this made? It's feel like you are playing some sort of video game but the control is not in your hands, with too much use of CGI and uneven screenplay this movie is not less then a torture.

The movie has a huge cast and when it comes to acting none of them has disappointed, all of them had put in their best efforts but still couldn't revive the movie, the problem of the movie is that the characters is not been introduced properly and they just comes from here and there.

Screenplay of the movie is the main cause of this debacle as the screenplay is filled with CGIs and it's keeps on jumping from one scene to another without giving any time to viewers to understand what is going on. The climax of the movie has pointed towards the second part of the movie which in my opinion must be the conclusion of the movie.

I was very lucky that I haven't seen the movie is theatre hence I had the option to pause to bring my mind and my body back in senses but the viewers who had seen the movie in theaters should be given a bravery award for tolerating this disaster. Please avoid this mess and take some decent sleep. This movie actually deserves zero star but I'll give it two just because of the decent acting which is the only saviour.

The Good= Love the Lore and the How Crafted this Fantasy World seems to be. Also Loved the Visual. I just loved how everything just looks From the Use of Magic to the Costumes to even the World of this film itself. And I also Enjoyed the Opening Narration to Introduce us to the word. Which was really cool IN My Own Personal Opionion. And although I'm Not sure if this is considered a Positive but I'm going to anyways, to me I found the First Fight of the Film So Epic it kind of feels like a Climatic Caliber Fight from an Average Fantasy Film. I also just liked how easy it is to know what's going on. At The start of the Film to a certain extent, and hare's what I mean by that although they don't tell you they got to that point but what they do tell you is the Mission of the Band of Heros. And I also Like how clearly they explain Emperor's Backstory, through Flashbacks. And Finally I think that last thing that I Like about this film is that it's pretty much Clean and Cut in terms of what kind of Fantasy Film this is and what they are trying to achieve in the film. And Unless I'm Missing anything else that should do it for the Positives.

The Bad= What Really Bogs me down about this film is how much the First Two Traveling Companions Really Grinds on my Nerves Especially The Frist One. I wouldn't say they are Annoying but close, and because of them I always stop at the very spot every time that I watch it so Far. And speaking of I found the Animation the Both of them Really Bad, so much so they Feel and Look Obvious Out of Place, maybe that's their intention I don't know? Because Unlike with say Space Jam where The Live Action Actors Both look and feel like they are Actually interacting with the Cartoon Characters be it in the Cartoon World or in our Real World, that doesn't seem to be the case with this film. In This Film the Animation for the Two Traveling Companions just Feels and Looks Really Disjointed to me. As to the Regards of them Interacting with the Live Action Actor, Jet Li, I Think? In this Case? Anyways I think the I think the Reasons Might be is that the First is I just feel Both of the Traveling Companions just Both Looks and Feels way Too Small. Because to me they both Feel and Look about the Size of a Two-Inch Action Figures. And Unless I'm Seeing things, I think their Sizes Changes from Scene to Scene? And finally moving away from the Two Traveling Companions, The Dubbing Just Feels Really Funny and Not in A Good Way to me, as I feel that the Movants of their Mouths just simply don't Match the Dialog.

Final Thoughts= I Really Hope that the Next Time if there is a Next Time that I Decide to give this Film Another Chance I'm able to Ignore the Personalities, along with everything else about the Two Traveling Companions, because I think that is the only thing that is really hold this Film Back for me Personally.

1st.. Some unrelated actions(brawl between two parties which is not needed) 2nd... The protagonist will have to journey to find or gain some ungodly power(he will meet a funny guy, a double agent and a lover) 3rd..some emotional things like death of parent or guardian or girlfriend Voila!!!u got Chinese movie just like this one.

On the good side this movie is so bad it is entertaining...if you spend the evening alone and bored.

The voiceover artists sound so convincing they seem to be random people shanghaied from the street against their will. Though, a good share of them seem to he preschool teachers that get carried away as the movie regress. The plot is paper thin, still filmmakers manage incorporate all the cliches existing within the genre. Everything going on is predictable, and there are no limits to the handy magical powers that appears when needed. The fighting scenes are so over the top in these kind of movies I simply do not understand that anyone find it fascinating. Moreover, the acting is so bad Tom Holland would seem like a Sir Laurence Olivier if he was a member of the cast. There are absolutely NO emotions thus nobody to sympathize with. Not even the small kids from the invincible tribe that are meant to be charming. Neither does the evil queen doing so many terrible things to people stir much emotions. It is simply bad bad bad. So bad it has to be experienced.

No introduction to characters, meaningless action, boosting blood pressure when we see, No story, weird thinking of director, Worst movie ever, blah blah blah... Can't describe more about how bad the movie is.

I'm surprised to read so many low ratings on this movie, this is my favorite movie to date in this genre, I love Martial Arts movies , especially fantasy ones and this has everything you could possibly want. The characters are creative, great costumes/make up, lots of fun CGI, cloud cities, immortal warlord bad guys, evil demons, out of this world kung fu, and action action action. Wuxia movies are a ton of fun, not to be taken too seriously, after all they're literally out of this world stories about demons and heros. If you liked The Serpent & the White Snake, or Monkey King, True Legend, The Four series, or the Tai Chi Hero / Zero, then you'll love this.

Perfect interpretation of the Chinese film in the pursuit of technology flow fallacy. It was a blind krypton dog's eye to make movies full of local royalty in those days when bronze could only be melted. It's not explosions that have good effects, it's glittering eyes that make good pictures, it's not star lineups or good movies.

I'm not sure why a streaming service would only put an english dubbed version of this on their site. Especially a streaming service that has a lot of movies that are being shown in their original audio with subtitles. That aside (which actually makes the movie worse than I rated it), we have an attempt of a lot of show, with a lot of CGI.

Not the worst CGI you have seen, not the best either. And it seems to have been done with American money (which may be one reason why we get the dubbed version, still ...). The story is thin, but with all the effects and fights going on, you can't really expect there to be more.